Maryland Death Penalty: Responding to calls by prosecutors and GOP legislators, Governor Martin O'Malley has reluctantly ordered the Maryland Department of Public Safety to review the state's lethal injection protocol and submit the recommended procedure to a legislative panel for approval. Critics claim that O'Malley, a death penalty opponent, has been dragging his feet on resuming executions since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's protocol, which is identical to Maryland's. A story by Baltimore Sun writers Jennifer McMenamin and Laura Smitherman reports House Minority Leader Anthony O'Donnell's estimate that the process would take nearly a year when, in fact, the state "could come up with protocols by the end of the week."

DNA Hit in Cold Case: Pennsylvania Prosecutors will seek the Death Penalty for a habitual sex offender who raped and murdered a young woman 30 years ago. A story by Joe McDonald in today's Morning Call reports that Robert While Jr. was linked to the murder by a cold case DNA hit that matched his DNA with samples from the victim's nightgown. Virginia Morrell was 21, on Halloween night in 1978, when she was raped and suffocated. She was found face down in her apartment the next day, nude with her hands tied behind her back and masking tape over her mouth and nose. White tried to rape a cocktail waitress two weeks after Morrell's murder and also served time in prison for kidnap and rape in 1982 and a separate assault on another woman.