Maryland legislators may have the opportunity to vote on repealing the state’s death penalty this year, writes WTOP.

Senate President Mike Miller—who supports the death penalty in cases of mass murder—has told Gov. Martin O’Malley that if he can convince enough senators to support a repeal, he’ll make sure it gets a vote. The president of the NAACP met with O’Malley late last year to make the case that he should move on repealing the death penalty, which is already restricted to cases where DNA evidence or a videotaped confession is present.

In related news, the Baltimore Sun reports that lawyers challenging a death sentence for a man accused of a 1997 killing are using a novel approach: citing an 18th century book by an Italian nobleman who claimed that the state’s use of the death penalty was to be limited to cases of treason:

Public defender Brian Saccenti and a team of lawyers rested their argument in part on a once-famous 18th century book by a young Italian nobleman named Cesare Beccaria, who suggested that capital punishment should be reserved for treasonous criminals.

John Carroll of Carrollton, who helped draft the Maryland constitution, wrote to a friend that he approved of Beccaria’s “Just & Judicious observations”, Saccenti’s team wrote in a brief. Carroll was also a signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

And a version of Beccaria’s argument appears in the state’s Declaration of Rights in an often-overlooked clause which reads, “sanguinary Laws ought to be avoided as far as it is consistent with the safety of the State.”

No death row inmates in Maryland were executed in 2012, mostly due to pending appeals.