Hillary Calls for Review of Death Penalty; O’Malley Denounces It as ‘Racially-Biased’

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton told supporters Wednesday that while she supports a review of the death penalty, she is not in favor of abolishing the controversial punishment.

“We have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently applied, and too often in a discriminatory way,” Clinton said, according to The Hill. “I think we have to take a hard look at it.”

Clinton said she does not favor abolishing capital punishment because there are “certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty.” The presidential hopeful added that she’d like to see those cases “be very limited and rare, as opposed to what we’ve seen in most states.”

Rival Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley responded to Clinton’s remarks in a statement saying “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, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen in carrying out the majority of public executions,” O’Malley said, adding that the death penalty is “fundamentally at odds with our values.”

“As president, I would work to build consensus to end it nationally,” O’Malley said.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/hillary-calls-for-review-of-death-penalty-omalley-denounces-it-as-racially-biased/