Where Do NC Candidates Stand on the Death Penalty?

(This post is an expanded and modified version of last week’s post. Thanks to everyone at BlueNC for their help. Further additions are welcome.)

With an important primary just a week away, here’s a look at how the contenders feel about capital punishment.

In the Democratic NC gubernatorial debate, both candidates said that they support the death penalty if it is applied fairly. Beverly Perdue, unlike Richard Moore, supports a moratorium and further study of the issue. Moore has stated that he “believe[s] that there is Biblical evil that lives among us, and for some crimes you give up the right to be here on Earth with the rest of us.” (source) Perdue has said that she “support[s] capital punishment as an option, but…also favor[s] the current moratorium [then] in place while constitutional issues are being studied.” (source)

According to a questionnaire by the Progressive Democrats, all three Democratic candidates for Lieutenant Governor support a moratorium. Dan Besse advocates a moratorium due to concerns about racial bias and the risk of executing an innocent person. He supports a study into how to make sure that the death penalty is applied fairly and consistently. Hampton Dellinger is concerned that there are effectively two death rows in North Carolina – one containing inmates sentenced before reforms, and one containing those sentenced after. (These reforms include the guarantee of qualified counsel and the assistance of experts in capital cases.) Dellinger believes that no one from the ‘old’ death row should be executed until it has been determined that they would have received the same sentence under the ‘new’ rules. Pat Smathers supports a moratorium due to concern about inmates who were represented by unqualified counsel and affected by racial bias. He believes that the question of abolition should be decided by referendum.

In the Iredell and Alexander County district attorney race, all three candidates have made clear that they plan to aggressively seek the death penalty.

Meanwhile, Durham County district attorney candidate Mitch Garrell has declared his opposition to capital punishment.

Marshall Adame, running for Congress in N.C. District 3, opposes the death penalty in all cases. Over at BlueNC, he posted:

1. Keeping a human being caged until natural death is far greater punishment than killing that person.

2. It cannot be undone in the event of a prosecutional mistake, or misdeed (HAS HAPPENED).

3. The death penalty, as it has been applied in the United States, has been open to far too many mistakes, unequally executed, cruel and unusual, and has almost no sense of Justice to it.

If, in our deepest conscience, we believed, as a country, that the Death penalty was Good and Just, we would not carry it out in such discreet privacy. We would be executing people in public forums.

Killing another human being is a dark deed, even when sacntioned by the State.

I would like to think we had grown beyond our darkest instincts. Collective, or institutional revenge is still revenge….and that has nothering to do with justice.

Robin Anderson, who is running for Commissioner of Labor and would serve on the Council of State (which is charged with approving any death penalty protocol), supports abolishing the death penalty, but believes it is the job of the legislature to do so. She previously represented a death row inmate on appeal. (her website)

Finally, Presidential candidate Barack Obama supports the death penalty only in cases “so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment.” He was also instrumental in pushing for criminal justice reforms in Illinois, including the mandatory taping of interrogations and confessions (which just became law in North Carolina this year).