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ANNAPOLIS — After a tortuous week in the Senate, the death penalty debate now shifts to the House of Delegates, where members are more likely to support repeal.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. has offered a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to the lower chamber: Pass the Senate bill, or get nothing.

Some delegates may not be quite so conciliatory. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. said his panel would take up the Senate bill, but offered no guarantees that the measure wouldn't be amended.

"We're an independent body. We'll take the bill up, and we'll pass what we like," said Vallario (D-Dist. 27) of Upper Marlboro.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, who has staked so much on a death penalty repeal this year, said he believed the House ultimately would accept the Senate bill.

"Even those who are very much opposed to the death penalty and wish that we were able to repeal it this year, I believe those members of the House can hold their heads high and know that they are bending that arc of history toward justice, even though we're not all the way there yet," O'Malley (D) said Thursday.

Vallario's committee is scheduled to hold its hearing on a full repeal March 17.

House Speaker Michael E. Busch said Wednesday that a full repeal of capital punishment could pass the House, but the question is what would happen when the legislation went back to the Senate.

"You have to make an educated decision whether this is the best status of the bill that you're going to have as you go forward, and take a small victory for trying to do away with the death penalty in Maryland," said Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis.

Economic Matters Committee Chairman Dereck E. Davis said he had "no interest" in debating the Senate bill and would prefer that the House get a clean repeal bill to vote up or down.

"We need to have debate," said Davis (D-Dist. 25) of Upper Marlboro. "We need to define or redefine what the state's position is on it. That's a debate my constituents want us to have."

Although senators started the week anticipating a vote on repeal, amendments stripped repeal from the legislation and added provisions before judges could impose a death sentence.

Prosecutors would need DNA or biological evidence, or a videotaped confession or videotape linking a defendant to the crime.

"There can be so many pieces of evidence that can convict, said Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger. "Now if we don't have one of these three, you're out of the box. I think that's too restrictive."

Shellenberger, a death penalty supporter, was part of a 23-member commission headed by former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti to study capital punishment in Maryland.

"I think there could be a way to create an extra level of protection to make sure an innocent person is not executed without presenting a laundry list," Shellenberger (D) said.

The Senate's action followed weeks of intense lobbying. O'Malley launched an e-mail blitz that drew criticism from Miller.

"It should not be about who's got the best lobbyist, or who can send the most e-mail, or who can twist the most arms. This should really be about family, it should be about justice, and it should be about what this nation stands for," said Miller (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach.

O'Malley, at a press conference Tuesday night, defended his efforts to persuade lawmakers.

"I don't think that any senator that has met with me would tell you that I was twisting arms or breaking legs," he said. "The best and most persuasive tool I have is the merits of our argument, the arc of history and the truth as I see it."

A series of unusual procedural moves got the bill to the floor Tuesday morning. The Senate employed a little-used parliamentary move that tossed out the Judicial Proceedings Committee's rejection of the bill. That sparked a lengthy debate on whether the Senate was breaking its own rules.

Sen. David R. Brinkley compared the maneuver to changing the rules in baseball.

"We don't like the score at the bottom of the ninth inning, so let's play a 10th. We don't like it, let's play the 11th," said Brinkley (R-Dist. 4) of New Market. "That's what this body is doing. It's wrong."

Then, some legislative legerdemain Tuesday afternoon converted the bill from a repeal measure to one that made the death penalty harder to impose.

First, Sen. James A. Brochin (D-Dist. 42) of Towson offered an amendment stripping the repeal and requiring more than eyewitness testimony before a defendant could receive capital punishment. He said he based the amendment on the case of Kirk Bloodsworth, a Maryland man who spent two years on death row in a case that hinged on eyewitness testimony. Bloodsworth later was exonerated with DNA evidence.

Brochin's amendment would prohibit the death penalty in cases that relied on eyewitnesses.

"This will help us ensure we don't make a mistake," Brochin said.

Senators who favored a repeal offered a tepid objection, and the amendment passed, 25-21.

Then, Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Dist. 11) of Owings Mills offered a follow-up that would require prosecutors to have biological or DNA evidence, a videotaped confession or videotaped evidence in death penalty cases. That amendment passed 35-10.

On Thursday, the Senate gave its final vote, 34-13.

Sen. Lisa A. Gladden, the chief sponsor of the repeal, offered what the governor's office told her: "[They] told me, ‘Lisa, you came in looking for a horse, and you got a goat,'" she said.

"I'm going to take this goat and put a saddle on it and ride it best I can," she said.

Earlier in the week, though, Gladden had misgivings over the amended Senate bill.

"If we pass this with the amendment, we get a kinder, gentler death penalty, and then we may never get rid of the death penalty," she said.

But Judicial Proceedings Committee Chairman Brian E. Frosh said the change was a positive development.

"It's a barbaric argument. We should put innocent people at greater risk because we want to highlight the problems of the death penalty?" he said. It reminded him of people who said they voted for Richard Nixon because the revolution would come sooner.

"They're still waiting," he said.