House passes bill decriminalizing attempted suicide

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ANNAPOLIS – The House of Delegates on Friday passed legislation to decriminalize attempted suicide.

With the House’s 103-38 vote, attention now shifts to the Senate, where the Judicial Proceedings Committee is considering similar legislation.

Del. David Moon and Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher, Montgomery County Democrats and chief sponsors of the decriminalization legislation, have said a suicide attempt is evidence of a mental health problem that needs treatment, not a common-law crime that merits punishment.

“It’s really unclear to me what the prosecutors are getting out of the charge that they couldn’t get under public health service options,” Moon said after the House vote.

Criminalizing assisted suicide is “an antiquated practice,” he added.

But Del. Susan K. McComas, who voted against the bill, said decriminalization would remove much of the societal taboo against suicide and discourage police from rescuing people who are trying to kill themselves, lest the officers interfere with what would be a lawful activity.

“Police are not going to appear on the doorstep,” said McComas, R-Harford.

“They are not a social service agency,” she said of the police, adding that she saw no “pressing need” to take the law off the books.

The legislation was prompted by the plea-bargained conviction in district court last year of a Caroline County man who tried to kill himself. The man was also charged with reckless endangerment and endangering his safety and that of his brother.

The man was sentenced to a suspended prison term of three years and two years of probation for attempting suicide, a crime under English common law that has persisted since colonial times in Maryland. Then-interim Caroline County State’s Attorney Joe Riley told The Baltimore Sun in 2018 that his goal was not to punish the man but to get him into mental health treatment.

In the past five years, 10 people have been charged with attempted suicide statewide, including the Caroline County man, the Maryland Department of Legislative Services said in explanatory papers accompanying House Bill 77 and Senate Bill 395.

Under English common law, attempted suicide is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and imprisonment, according to the department. Suicide was once punishable by a dishonorable burial without religious ceremony and forfeiture of the decedent’s property to the crown, the department stated.