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Court upholds constitutionality of death penalty

Monday - 11/25/2013, 10:20pm  ET

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- Maryland's highest court has rejected a claim by a man on death row that his sentence is unconstitutional.

The Court of Appeals ruled on Monday against Jody Lee Miles' claim that the Maryland Constitution limits capital punishment to treason against the state government. The Daily Record reports ( that the court ruled 6-1.

Miles was sentenced to death for the 1997 robbery and murder of theater manager Edward Atkinson of Salisbury. He is one of five men on death row in Maryland.

Maryland lawmakers abolished the death penalty this year, but the five men had been sentenced before the law was abolished.

Monday's ruling only affects the five condemned men.


Information from: The Daily Record of Baltimore,
