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Showing Original Post only (View all)Hillary Clinton Comes Out Against Abolishing The Death Penalty [View all]
Source: Huffington Post
This is the Democratic front-runner's first mention of the contentious issue on the 2016 campaign trail.
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton came out against abolishing the death penalty -- the first time she has addressed the issue during the current presidential campaign.
"I do not favor abolishing" the death penalty, she said, qualifying her position by adding that its use should be "very limited and rare," according to press reports.
Clinton has previously acknowledged how the plight of mass incarceration and police brutality affect communities of color disproportionately, and on Wednesday she conceded the death penalty is often administered in a discriminatory way, according to a reporter who attended.
Her view on state-sanctioned executions has remained consistent over the years. During her Senate campaign in 2000, she offered support for the death penalty -- in a seeming attempt to appear moderate on some social issues.
But her position is a marked break from her Democratic primary opponents Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley, both of whom oppose capital punishment. O'Malley, for his part, signed a bill in 2013 abolishing the death penalty in Maryland and commuted the death sentences of four death-row inmates as he stepped down from the governorship.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-death-penalty_56310eb4e4b00aa54a4c48c9