Yesterday, the Maryland Court of Appeals (the state high court) issued yet another decision in the case of hired killer Vernon Evans. It was 24 years ago that Evans contracted to kill David and Cheryl Piechowicz to prevent them from testifying against the jailed Anthony Grandison. He actually killed David Piechowicz and Susan Kennedy, Cheryl's sister. The headline story was that the court held that the state corrections authorities were required to follow the state's Administrative Procedures Act and make their injection protocol a regulation, which can take several months. Eric Rich and John Wagner of the Washington Post have this article.

Other aspects of the decision are also interesting. In its overall tone, the court seems very tired of the endless litigation in capital cases. Appended to the very long opinion, beginning on page 104 of the PDF file, is a 25-page procedural history of the case. Perhaps we will see some tightening of Maryland's notoriously loose standards for renewed attacks on capital sentences.

On pages 32-73 of the opinion, the court takes apart Evans's claim that the Paternoster study on "disparities" requires setting aside his sentence. This sentence is particularly good in an ironic sort of way:

A case more on point, and more pointedly dooming Evans’s claim, is Belmontes v. Brown, 414 F.3d 1094 (9th Cir. 2005), rev’d on other grounds sub nom. Ayers v. Belmontes, ____ U.S. ___, 127 S. Ct. 469, ___ L. Ed.2d ___ (2006), which Evans has failed even to mention, much less attempt to distinguish.

Translation: Even Judge Reinhardt didn't buy that one.