Obama to ask AG Holder to investigate death penalty issues (yet still supports DP)
US President Barack Obama stated at a news conference on Friday that he will ask Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate problems with the application of the death penalty. The statement comes after the recent botched execution of Oklahoma inmate Clayton Lockett, which President Obama called "deeply troubling." Although he stated that there are circumstances in which he believes the death penalty is warranted, such as mass murder and the murder of children, President Obama expressed concern over racial bias and uneven application of the death penalty. "I think we do have to, as a society, ask ourselves some difficult and profound questions around these issues," the president said. The United States has one of the highest execution rates in the world, having executed 39 people in 2013.
http://jurist.org/paperchase/2014/05/obama-to-ask-ag-holder-to-investigate-death-penalty-issues.php
Obama's statement:
What happened in Oklahoma is deeply troubling.
The individual who was subject to the death penalty had committed heinous crimes, terrible crimes. And I’ve said in the past that there are certain circumstances in which a crime is — is so terrible that the application of the death penalty may be appropriate — mass killings, the — the killings of children.
But I’ve also said that in the application of the death penalty in this country, we have seen significant problems — racial bias, uneven application of the death penalty, you know, situations in which there were individuals on death row who later on were discovered to have been innocent because of exculpatory evidence. And all these, I think, do raise significant questions about how the death penalty is being applied. And this situation in Oklahoma I think just highlights some of the significant problems there.
So I’ll be discussing with Eric Holder and others, you know — you know, to get me an analysis of what steps have been taken, not just in this particular instance, but more broadly in this area. I think we do have to, as a society, ask ourselves some difficult and profound questions around these issues.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/05/02/full-transcript-obama-merkel-press-conference/
