Sarah Pillisz, a junior at Mount St. Mary's University, after a protest in front of the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center. (Newsline photo by Desair Brown)

By Desair Brown
Maryland Newsline
Thursday, May 12, 2005

BALTIMORE - Sedira Banan plans to spend some time this summer visiting, writing and rallying for Vernon Evans, a longtime Maryland death row inmate.

The American University junior has been writing Evans since her freshman year, when she also co-founded a student group against the death penalty on campus. It now boasts 25 to 30 active members.  

While other members are on summer break, she said she will stay involved with Evans’ case. “I seize every opportunity possible to demonstrate my opposition to the death penalty,” she said.

Hers is one of several student groups around the region - many with 20 or more active members - that have participated in rallies and call-in forums for Evans.

The students say capital punishment should be abolished. They argue that the state's death penalty is racially biased and targets black offenders, like Evans, whom, they say, should be sentenced to life in prison, rather than death by lethal injection.

Evans was scheduled to be executed in April, but the Maryland Court of Appeals granted him a stay on his execution until June, while the court reviews a university study on disparities in death sentencing in the state.

While student efforts on local campuses are bound to slow as the spring semester ends, student leaders say they plan to either keep in touch with Evans, or band with local organizations against the death penalty, in preparation for an appeals court hearing June 7.

Michael Stark, the Baltimore/Washington coordinator for the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, said he expects students from chapters on campuses like Mount St. Mary’s University to help organize press conferences, fundraising concerts and other events in support of Evans.

Sarah Pillisz, a junior at Mount St. Mary’s, said she will continue to write Evans this summer. She said they have developed a friendship since she started writing him in November. Last month, in Evans’ Web log, “Meet Vernon,” he attributed his endurance on death row to his faith and friendship with students.

Evans, 55, was sentenced to death 22 years ago for the 1983 contract murder of David Scott Piechowicz, a witness in a federal narcotics case against Anthony Grandison. Evans was also sentenced for the murder of Susan Kennedy, a bystander. Grandison was convicted of hiring Evans and is also on death row. Evans has maintained his innocence.

Evans asked the court to stay his execution while it reviews a 2003 University of Maryland study, which shows black defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death in Baltimore County than in any other county in the state.

Evans, who is from Baltimore County, is one of five black inmates out of seven total on Maryland’s death row. Between 1978 and 1999, the study shows death sentencing was 26 times more likely to occur in Baltimore County than in Baltimore City, where more homicides took place.

The Maryland study also showed that black defendants whose victims were white were twice as likely to get the death penalty than any other defendants convicted of killing whites.

Jay Nickerson, a Baltimore defense attorney, said he’s seen inequities first hand. “[Maryland’s] death penalty is reserved for people of color with no economic means,” he said.

John Cox, the Baltimore County assistant state's attorney who sought the death warrant in Evans’ case, said that race has never been a factor in the county’s death sentencing in the 19 years he’s been in office. In Evans’ case, Cox said, there is more than enough evidence to prove he should be executed.

He said sentencing in a case shouldn’t be based on statistical studies.

“To have someone say if he was a different race he wouldn’t have gotten the death penalty is ridiculous,” Cox said.

However, statistics in the study do motivate student groups to protest capital punishment.

Students post and distribute fliers and attend events like last month’s demonstration at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center in Baltimore, where Evans is imprisoned. Most of the 70 or so protesters were students from American University, the University of Maryland and Mount St. Mary’s University.

Kevin James, a member of the University of Maryland chapter of the International Socialist Organization, said the study proves that the death penalty is “racist, classist and cruel.” Since he joined the Socialist group in 2001, he said he’s helped plan and participate in 24-hour fasts, vigils and call-in forums for Evans.

David May, a project manager in academic affairs at the University System of Maryland, said college students know injustice when they see it and want to do something about it.

“College students know the system is broken, and want to fix it,” said May, who advises the ISO chapter at Maryland and will also work actively with the city branch this summer.

Banan said she and other students against the death penalty at American University are in the middle of revamping their organization to address prison reform as well as the abolition of the death penalty. In the meantime, she and other members plan to initiate correspondence with other inmates on death row.