It's a reasonable, cautionary vote. It doesn't necessarily indicate leanings toward death penalty defendants. But at least he's going to be his own person. |
It's just an unsolvable kind of problem. We're never going to have a carefree system of painless executions. |
Lethal injection is the only method being used now, for all practical purposes. The chemicals are almost the same in all the states, and they're being challenged in all the states. |
Mental health will increasingly be reviewed. I think governors sense it's permissible to make these kinds of decisions. The death penalty is being debated everywhere. |
New Jersey has stopped all executions. Four stays of execution have been granted on this issue in various states. The US supreme court has taken a case related to this issue. |
No one wants to see an innocent person executed, whichever side of the political aisle you're on. |
Someone, either a judge or a jury, must determine beyond a reasonable doubt that government has proven an aggravating factor beyond guilt. |
Sometimes you get the wrong person. Sometimes you are driven by prejudices. |
The assumption was that if an attorney could represent any criminal case, then they could do a death penalty case. |
The Constitution doesn't demand perfection. I think the court's going to accept something less than 100 percent perfection because they're not going to be willing to say we can't have a death penalty. |
The court may be willing to broaden what can be considered as a civil rights claim. |
The final argument (of death penalty advocates) is that no innocent person has been executed. |
The issue has multiple sides to it, so it's not so easy to pummel your opponent with it. (Politicians) don't want to be seen abolishing the death penalty permanently but don't want to be seen as cavalier about it, either. |
The states are cutting back on their use of the death penalty, while the federal government is expanding. |
The thing that stands out to me is the breadth of the decline, ... I think if it were just one year or one of those numbers, it would be less consequential. What we're witnessing is a pullback from the death penalty across the country. |