Hillary Clinton: Don’t abolish the death penalty

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that while there’s evidence the death penalty has been applied too frequently — at times in a “discriminatory” way — she doesn’t favor completely abolishing the practice.

“I think that we have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently applied, and very unfortunately oftentimes in a discriminatory way, so I think we have to take a hard look at it, and a lot of states are doing that,” Mrs. Clinton said in response to a question at an event in New Hampshire.

“States are beginning to pull back from either applying the death penalty or narrowing the scope of the cases where it can be applied,” she said. “I personally think that’s all to the good.

“I do not favor abolishing it, however, because I think there are certain egregious cases that still deserve the consideration of the death penalty, but I’d like to see those be very limited and rare,” she continued, saying that “we have to be smarter and more careful about how we do it.”

Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, Mrs. Clinton’s chief rival in the 2016 Democratic presidential race, has long opposed the death penalty. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, another rival in the 2016 race, is also opposed, and he signed legislation abolishing the death penalty in Maryland.