WASHINGTON - Maryland's lethal injection of Steven Oken was one of 59 executions carried out in 2004 by just 12 of the 38 states with a death penalty on the books, according to a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report released today.

Last year saw six fewer executions overall than 2003, the lowest number since 1996 when 45 prisoners were put to death.

The spectrum of state executions ranged from one each in Maryland and Arkansas to 23 in Texas.

Ohio followed Texas, but not closely, putting seven inmates to death. It was followed by Oklahoma, with six; Virginia, with five; North Carolina and South Carolina, with four each; and Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Nevada, with two each.

The report comes as the state is poised to execute the second inmate under Gov. Robert Ehrlich's administration.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, but the practice was reinstated in 1976 after revisions. Since 1977, 944 inmates have been executed by 32 states, and the death penalty has been a source of passionate controversy throughout the country, the report said.

Maryland reinstated capital punishment in 1978, but in 2002 Gov. Parris Glendening put a moratorium on the death penalty.

One of Ehrlich's first moves after taking office in 2003 was to lift the moratorium, despite a University of Maryland study, released just weeks before, which demonstrated Maryland's death penalty was biased racially and geographically.

That paved the way for Oken's execution for the 1987 rape and murder of 20-year-old newlywed Dawn Marie Garvin of White Marsh, Md. He was also convicted of killing another Maryland woman and a Maine woman during the same spree.

Oken was the fourth inmate to be executed in Maryland since 1978.

The study, commissioned by Glendening during the moratorium, showed that Baltimore County courts, where Oken, who is white, was tried, were turning out death sentences at a much higher rate than other jurisdictions and were far more likely to ensure that those sentences were not later withdrawn.

The study also found that black killers with white victims are more likely to receive the death penalty than others who commit similar murders, and their sentences are more likely to stick.

At the end of 2004, Maryland's death row was home to nine prisoners awaiting execution -- three white and six black.

The study fueled controversy, with many opponents arguing that executions should be suspended until it could be ensured that the state's death penalty is unbiased.

Others said calls for continuing the moratorium were just early steps toward abolishing capital punishment in Maryland.

Ehrlich's response was to continue with executions. However, he assigned Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a Catholic and an acknowledged opponent of the death penalty, to follow up on the report's findings.

"This report demonstrates the necessity for a closer look at how we handle these cases," Steele told The Washington Post in January 2003.

Steele continues to tell reporters that he is examining the issue, but otherwise has refused to comment.

His silence has left many wondering what is actually being done and riled those who hoped Steele would work as an opponent to Ehrlich's pro-death penalty stance.

That stance may be a determining factor in how many death row inmates are executed during Ehrlich's tenure as governor.

Capital News Service in 2002 reviewed all of the executions carried out in the almost 80-year history of Maryland's death penalty and found that the personal beliefs of the governor play a major role in how many prisoners are put to death.

The state has officially executed 84 people, but some governors have been sparing in their use of capital punishment, while others have put numerous inmates to death.

With the controversy over capital punishment in Maryland still unresolved, Ehrlich signed a death warrant Nov. 3 making way for the lethal injection of Wesley Eugene Baker, a black man convicted of the 1991 murder of Jane Tyson, a white grandmother.

Baker shot Tyson in front of her two young grandchildren as he robbed her in the parking lot of a Baltimore County shopping mall.

Lawyers for Baker tried to appeal his conviction based on the University of Maryland study, but in October the state's highest court rejected the claim that his sentence was based on any racial or geographic bias.

The state scheduled Baker's execution for sometime during the week of Dec. 5. State law does not allow officials to release the specific date and time of an execution in advance.

Copyright © 2005 University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism