Ferrer Fumbles on the Death Penalty
New York City Mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer came under fire Friday from death penalty opponents for saying that the death penalty is justified in some cases.
"After 10 years of experience with the death penalty, New Yorkers have rethought their position on the issue, and Mr. Ferrer should, too," said David Kaczynski, executive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty, which was influential in virtually scuttling the state's death penalty law this year. "We would welcome the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Ferrer to help him sort through the various issues."
Ferrer has flip-flopped before on capital punishment. He has said he's opposed to the death penalty. He's also said he supports it in some cases. At other times he has said he supports a moratorium until flaws can be removed.
[He] opposed the death penalty until 1997 when he came out in favor of it for cop killers. When he ran again in 2001, he supported a moratorium on the death penalty, a position that many have embraced in the wake of DNA evidence exonerating scores of death row inmates.
Mayor Bloomberg has consistently opposed the death penalty. In the 2001 Democratic primary, former Governor Mario Cuomo backed Ferrar's opponent Mark Green because of Ferrer's one-time support for the death penalty.
State-wide, by 53 to 38%, New Yorkers prefer life without parole to the death penalty. Earlier this year, the New York Assembly killed a bill that would have reinstated the death penalty.
New York does not currently have a death penalty. Ferrar's use of Osama as an example of someone for whom he would support restoration of the death penalty in New York is silly. Osama, and any high-level terrorist, is never going to be charged in the state courts of New York, and the death penalty is available in the federal system - even in New York. I hope Ferrer takes Kaczynski up on his offer to explain why the death penalty should not be restored for anyone, so he can recover from this mis-step.
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