Candidate Comparison: The Death Penalty

This is the sixth in a series of posts about where the six front running presidential candidates stand on the issues. The information is from the Pew Forum. Previous posts were on Abortion, the Iraq War, Gay Marriage, Poverty and Education.

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Hillary Clinton
Clinton has been a longtime advocate of the death penalty. Clinton cosponsored the Innocence Protection Act of 2003 which became law in 2004 as part of the Justice for All Act. The bill provides funding for post-conviction DNA testing and establishes a DNA testing process for individuals sentenced to the death penalty under federal law. As First Lady, she lobbied for President Clinton's crime bill, which expanded the list of crimes subject to the federal death penalty.

John Edwards
Edwards supports the death penalty, saying some crimes "deserve the ultimate penalty." He was a supporter of capital punishment reform while in the Senate and told the Associated Press in 2004 he believes that "we need reforms in the death penalty to ensure that defendants receive fair trials, with zealous and competent lawyers, and with full access to DNA testing."

Rudolph Giuliani
Giuliani favors the death penalty and has advocated for capital punishment for those who commit treason against the United States. He testified in convicted terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui's death penalty trial and urged prosecutors to pursue the death penalty against American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh. Giuliani has said the death penalty is "justified and [an] effective deterrent for other people doing the same thing."

John McCain
McCain supports the death penalty for federal crimes. As senator from Arizona, he voted to prohibit the use of racial statistics in death penalty appeals and ban the death penalty for minors. He also supported legislation to allow the death penalty for acts of terrorism and has said he would consider further expansion of capital punishment laws for other crimes.

Barack Obama
Obama says the death penalty "does little to deter crime" but he supports it for cases in which "the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage." While a state senator, Obama pushed for reform of the Illinois capital punishment system and authored a bill to mandate the videotaping of interrogations and confessions.

W. Mitt Romney
Romney supports the death penalty for deadly acts of terrorism, killing sprees, murders involving torture and the killing of law enforcement authorities. As governor, he filed a bill to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts that required verifiable scientific evidence, such as DNA, in order to impose the death penalty. The bill also proposed measures to ensure proper representation for the indigent and allowed jurors who oppose the death penalty to participate in the guilt phase of a trial.

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I see little difference in positions on this issue. All candidates support some form of the death penalty. Obama seems to oppose it on some level but ultimately supports using it.