As a senator in the 1990s, Mr. Biden supported many get-tough-on-crime policies that liberals now disavow, including limits on appeals for death row inmates. “Biden was one of the major proponents of the 1994 amendments that severely limited the ability of death row prisoners to obtain meaningful judicial review,” said Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that provides analysis and information on capital punishment. But she defended California’s death penalty as the state’s attorney general, and twice, in 2012 and 2016, she refused to take a stand on ballot initiatives that proposed to abolish it. Aside from Mr. Biden, most of the other candidates have opposed the death penalty. In addition to Ms. Harris and Mr. O’Rourke, who have said they would support a federal moratorium, Senators Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand all said they support Mr. Newsom’s moratorium.

Source: New York Times April 07, 2019 14:26 UTC