With the same legislators who defeated the bill to repeal the death penalty by a single vote last year still on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, however, the bill's chances seem dim.

Baltimore Democrat Lisa A. Gladden, the lead sponsor of the Senate bill, acknowledged that at the outset of the hearing.

"I almost feel like this is Groundhog Day because we've been here before," she told her colleagues. "We understand the issues. And while I can say to you that perhaps things have changed in 12 months, perhaps they have not."

Committee members heard testimony on both the repeal bill and a proposal from Sen. Jamie Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat, to create a commission to study the death penalty.

Modeled after a group that studied capital punishment in New Jersey before that state's legislature abolished the death penalty last year, the commission would include legislators and state officials as well as a prosecutor, public defender, police chief, correctional guard, religious leaders, a family member of a murder victim and a former prisoner who was later exonerated of the crime for which he served time.

"I understand that a lot of our colleagues experience commission fatigue and tire of studying things," Raskin said. "But if we can't bring ourselves to summon up the will to repeal the death penalty, at the very least we must study the problem as carefully as we can."

Yesterday's hearing lacked some of the fervor of last year's sessions, when O'Malley appeared before two General Assembly committees to make a forceful case for a repeal.

His spokesman, Rick Abbruzzese, said the governor decided to sit out this round.

"Members of the General Assembly certainly know he's opposed to it and in favor of the repeal," he said. "But he's continued to have private conversations with many of the lawmakers during the session."

Opponents focused yesterday on the suffering that families of murder victims often endure during the drawn-out court hearings and appeals in capital cases that sometimes stretch several decades.

"If you support capital punishment, I ask you to give it another look," said Kathy Garcia, a victims rights advocate whose nephew was killed 20 years ago in New Jersey.

She served on the commission that unanimously recommended that New Jersey abolish its capital punishment law.

"I certainly never imagined I would be speaking out in favor of ending the death penalty," she added. "But my real-life experience has taught me that as long as the death penalty is on the books in any form, it will continue to harm survivors. For that reason alone, it must be ended."

Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, one of few to testify against the repeal and the creation of a commission, told senators that getting rid of the death penalty will eliminate neither the drawn-out legal process nor the millions of dollars now spent on capital cases.

As proof, he mentioned the former UMBC student who was spared the death penalty and sentenced to life without parole last year for the murder and rape of a woman he met online.

Twenty-eight days after a jury spared John C. Gaumer's life, his attorneys filed the first of what Shellenberger said would be many appeals.

"Because as long as he stays in jail," the prosecutor said, "he's going to want out."