Vernon Lee Evans

Vernon Lee Evans is a former Maryland death row inmate. In 1984, he was convicted and sentenced to death together with drug kingpin Anthony Grandison for the 1983 murders of Susan Kennedy and David Scott Piechowicz. David Piechowicz and his wife Cheryl (Susan Kennedy's sister) had been scheduled to testify against Grandison at trial on federal drug charges.

Evans' death sentence was overturned on appeal in 1991; however, the following year, a new jury again sentenced him to die. That sentence was upheld on direct appeal to the Maryland Court of Appeals in 1994, and a petition for post-conviction relief was denied in 1997. The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland denied Evans' federal habeas corpus petition in 1999, and in 2000 that decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Since then, Evans has also filed motions for a new trial and to correct an illegal sentence; however, those have all been denied as well. He was scheduled for execution in February 2006, but his execution was suspended. All executions in Maryland are currently on hold until the state drafts and approves new execution procedures.

On December 31, 2014, Evans' death sentence was one of four commuted to life without parole by outgoing governor Martin O'Malley