Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

2 days ago

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

2 days ago

In Win for Trump, US Supreme Court Limits Judges’ Power to Block Birthright Citizenship Order

2 days ago

California’s Newsom Sues Fox News for $787 Million for Defamation Over Trump Call

2 days ago

Motorcycle Collides With Tractor in Fatal Fresno County Collision

2 days ago

Fourth of July Celebrations Begin Saturday. Here’s Your Fresno Area Guide

2 days ago

Bill Moyers, Broadcaster and LBJ’s White House Press Secretary, Dies at 91

3 days ago

State Department Approves $30 Million for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

3 days ago

Cargo Ship That Caught Fire Carrying Electric Vehicles Sinks in the Pacific

3 days ago

4 Million Acres of California Forests Could Lose Protection. What Trump’s ‘Roadless Rule’ Repeal Could Do

4 days ago
Resumed Federal Executions Raise Death Penalty's 2020 Stakes
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 6 years ago on
July 26, 2019

Share

WASHINGTON — The question to Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, was brutally personal.
“If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” Bernard Shaw, a CNN anchor, asked, referring to the Massachusetts governor’s wife. Dukakis said he wouldn’t favor it because “I don’t see any evidence that it is a deterrent.”
The technocratic, largely emotionless response in a debate mere weeks before the election marked the nadir of Democrats’ politically agonized relationship to the death penalty — reinforcing in some voters’ minds that the party was soft on crime. President George H.W. Bush went on to crush Dukakis, winning the Electoral College vote, 426-111.
Four years later, then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton projected the opposite message, defending the death penalty on a New Hampshire debate stage, then leaving the campaign trail to return to his home state and preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black inmate who killed a police officer and another man.
In the decade that followed, though, many Democrats began to rethink their positions on capital punishment, moved by startling revelations of innocent people being sentenced to death row only to be eventually exonerated and even worries about wrongful executions.

Several Democratic Candidates Criticized the Move

In 2014, an Oklahoma execution was problematic enough that President Barack Obama mulled a moratorium on the federal death penalty. Though that never materialized, his party’s national platform endorsed one two years later, and only one of the 24 Democrats seeking the White House in 2020, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, has publicly supported preserving capital punishment in some form.

“Capital punishment is immoral and deeply flawed. Too many innocent people have been put to death.” Sen. Kamala Harris
The issue took on unexpected urgency on Thursday when the Justice Department announced that it will begin executing federal death row inmates for the first time since 2003, again raising the political stakes on a topic that’s rarely been a Democratic strength. And while the party is now much more unified in opposing it than a generation ago, the public is not, potentially casting a long policy shadow over the upcoming primary.
Democratic strategist Mike Lavigne said that, despite the planned federal executions, he doesn’t see the issue as a winner for Democrats because “there’s not a lot of single-issue voters on the death penalty.”
Still, several Democratic presidential candidates strongly criticized the move, setting up a stark contrast with President Donald Trump.
“Capital punishment is immoral and deeply flawed,” Sen. Kamala Harris of California said on Twitter. “Too many innocent people have been put to death.”
About 6 in 10 Americans favor the death penalty, according to the General Social Survey, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. That’s declined steadily since the 1990s, when nearly three-quarters were in favor.
 

Trump Endorses Capital Punishment for Serious Crimes

Even California, the nation’s largest blue state, rejected a capital punishment ban in 2016. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, used an executive order to declare a moratorium, but prosecutors in the state still sometimes seek the death penalty.
The first federal inmate is scheduled to be executed Dec. 9, less than two months before the Democratic primary begins with the Iowa caucus, and four other prisoners are set to be put to death over the next six weeks.
Trump has repeatedly endorsed capital punishment for serious crimes, and that’s likely to play well with his conservative base heading into 2020. Republican support for capital punishment has held steady at about 8 in 10 over the past two decades, while about half of Democrats now say they favor it compared to nearly two-thirds in the 1990s.
Pope Francis has declared the death penalty “inadmissible,” but some Christians support it. Since 2015, the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 45,000-plus churches, has acknowledged that Christians differ in their capital punishment beliefs and affirming “the conscientious commitment of both streams of Christian ethical thought.”
“Our weighing in on the topic is not for the purpose of helping or hurting any politician, but it’s to provide a moral context for our leaders in both parties,” Galen Carey, the association’s vice president of government relations, said by phone.

A Steady Decline in Executions

When Dukakis and Clinton were running for president, there were roughly 300 new death sentences annually nationwide, as opposed to around 40 today. Yearly executions peaked at nearly 100 in 1999 and have declined steadily ever since.

“It’s shocking that, at this point, the federal government would be taking what feels like a giant step backward. It is in the mold of a bunch of other policies that are devoid of the concept of mercy.” — Bee Moorhead, executive director, Texas Impact
“It’s shocking that, at this point, the federal government would be taking what feels like a giant step backward,” said Bee Moorhead, executive director of Texas Impact, a theological civil group that has organized interfaith religious calls to abolish the death penalty in the state that executes more inmates than any other. “It is in the mold of a bunch of other policies that are devoid of the concept of mercy in a way that this country is just not used to.”
Bullock, the lone Democratic White House hopeful who supports it, says he backs the death penalty in some cases such as terrorism. But former Vice President Joe Biden only this week shifted to calling for eliminating the federal death penalty after years of supporting it.
Many of the other Democratic White House hopefuls have opposed the death penalty as part of larger calls for reforming a criminal justice system they see as unfairly targeting minorities and the poor. People of color have accounted for 43% of total executions since 1976 and 55% of those currently on death row, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
In a statement, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker noted the death penalty is “fraught with biases against people of color, low-income individuals, and those with mental illness.” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said, “A life sentence compared to a death penalty sentence depends on where you live, who your lawyer is and the color of your skin,” and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg tweeted, “Justice is not equally distributed in our country.”

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

DON'T MISS

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

DON'T MISS

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

DON'T MISS

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

DON'T MISS

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

DON'T MISS

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

DON'T MISS

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

DON'T MISS

Despite $49M Deficit, Fresno Unified Gives Top Brass 5% Raise, 3% One-Time Bonus

DON'T MISS

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

DON'T MISS

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

UP NEXT

Bill Moyers, Broadcaster and LBJ’s White House Press Secretary, Dies at 91

UP NEXT

Tesla Executive, Elon Musk Confidant Leaves EV Maker, Bloomberg News Reports

UP NEXT

How a Birthday Boat Ride on Lake Tahoe Turned Tragic

UP NEXT

Cuomo Concedes to Mamdani in New York City Democratic Mayoral Contest

UP NEXT

Mamdani Holds Lead Over Cuomo in Democratic Primary for NYC Mayor

UP NEXT

Clovis Man Sentenced to 8 Years in Federal Prison in Deadly Fentanyl Case

UP NEXT

Victims Identified as Death Toll Climbs to 8 in Lake Tahoe Boating Tragedy

UP NEXT

Florida to Build ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Detention Center for Migrants in Everglades

UP NEXT

Americans Worry Conflict With Iran Could Escalate, Reuters/Ipsos Poll Finds

UP NEXT

Advisory Warns of ‘Heightened Threat Environment’ in US After Iran Strikes

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

23 hours ago

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

2 days ago

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

2 days ago

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

2 days ago

Despite $49M Deficit, Fresno Unified Gives Top Brass 5% Raise, 3% One-Time Bonus

2 days ago

US Consumer Spending Falls as Trump Tariff’s Muddle Economy

2 days ago

US Supreme Court Preserves Key Element of Obamacare

2 days ago

US Supreme Court Lets Parents Take Kids Out of Classes With LGBT Storybooks

2 days ago

Fresno Unified Trustees Will Get Automatic Raises on Tuesday

2 days ago

Alleged ‘Fake’ ICE Agents Charged. Fresno Court Date Set

2 days ago

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

Like a lot of people of center-right/center-left political leanings, I’ve spent the past few decades detesting Prime Minister Benjamin Netan...

21 hours ago

2022 Election Rally for Netanyahu
21 hours ago

I Detest Netanyahu, but on Some Things He’s Actually Right

University of Virginia President James Ryan Resigns
21 hours ago

University of Virginia President Resigns Under Pressure From Trump Administration

22 hours ago

How Did the Supreme Court Rule? Here’s a Look at the Big Cases

Zohran Mamdani Speaks to Supporters
23 hours ago

Mamdani’s NYC Primary Win Sparks Surge in Anti-Muslim Posts, Advocates Say

American Flag Revolver
2 days ago

Trump Sends in DOGE to Slash Federal Gun Regulations by July 4

Rob_Bonta_Speaking_At_Press_Conference_1280x720
2 days ago

Tensions Flare at Announcement of Major Fresno County Gang Takedown

Garry_Bredefeld_Sandra_Celedon_Mesure_C_1280x720
2 days ago

Measure C ‘Blackmailed’ As Fresno Enviro Coalition Gets Huge Say on Transportation Tax

Fresno_Unified_Raises_1280x720
2 days ago

Despite $49M Deficit, Fresno Unified Gives Top Brass 5% Raise, 3% One-Time Bonus

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend