Clinton: Death penalty should be ‘limited and rare’

Hillary Clinton affirmed her support for the death penalty in limited circumstances during an appearance Wednesday, in which she criticized the heavy-handed use of the punishment in some states.

{mosads}“I do not favor abolishing it, however, because I think there are certain, egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty,” she said at the Politics & Eggs event at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.

“But I’d like to see those be very limited and rare, as opposed to what we’ve seen in some states where there are a hundred people on death row who wouldn’t be there in a comparable state.” 

Clinton added that new evidence suggests that the penalty has been “too frequently applied and, very unfortunately, oftentimes in a discriminatory way.” She said she’s in favor of states taking a harder look at how to use the death penalty. 

Both of Clinton’s rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Gov. Martin O’Malley (Md.) disagree. 

O’Malley’s campaign put out a statement shortly after Clinton’s comment that highlighted his opposition to the death penalty. 

“The death penalty is racially-biased, ineffective deterrent to crime, and we must abolish it. Our nation should not be in the company of Iran, Iraq, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen in carrying out the majority of public executions,” he said. 

“That’s why I abolished it in Maryland, because it is fundamentally at odds with our values. As President, I would work to build consensus to end it nationally.”

Sanders has regularly voted against the death penalty while in office, according to analysis by PolitiFact.