AP Photo Clinton backs review, not abolishment, of death penalty

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Hillary Clinton does not favor abolishing the death penalty, she said on Wednesday morning, but she does back a review of the policy as it once again becomes a topic of national conversation.

“We have a lot of evidence now that the death penalty has been too frequently applied, and too often in a discriminatory way, so I think we have to take a hard look at it,” Clinton said in response to an audience question here at Saint Anselm College, some of her most extensive comments on the topic in years.


“I do not favor abolishing it, however, because I do 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, as opposed to what we’ve seen in most states,” she added.

Clinton has not weighed in extensively on the issue during the 2016 election cycle, though her main primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, has long stood against capital punishment. Clinton said while running for the Senate in 2000 that capital punishment policies had her “unenthusiastic support."

Democratic rival Martin O'Malley seized on Clinton's comments to note that he abolished the death penalty in Maryland when he was governor. "The death penalty is racially biased, ineffective deterrent to crime, and we must abolish it," O'Malley said in a statement. "Our nation should not be in the company of Iran, Iraq, China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Yemen in carrying out the majority of public executions."

The policy is not necessarily a front-and-center issue in the 2016 election, but candidates increasingly have been asked to respond to recent controversies about the drugs being used in some states, and the issue has been included in some national discussions about criminal justice reform, a hot-button topic.

And with Nebraska — a Super Tuesday state — voting in November 2016 on the issue, the topic could continue resurfacing.