On Monday's “CNN Newsnight,” CNN legal analyst Elliott Williams, who served as an assistant attorney general in the Obama administration, said he believes the death penalty should be abolished, but President Joe Biden believes the death penalty should be used. He said the sentence would be reduced only if the defendant did not. known.
Mr Williams said: [relevant remarks begin around 29:15] “I think it took a long time to make this decision. I think if we're going to abolish the federal death penalty, we should also abolish the federal death penalty and not come up with these kind of wild explanations as to why we're taking these three cases. I am sensitive to this argument.”
He later became National Review's senior political correspondent and washington post Contributing columnist Jim Geraghty said the criteria for commutations was that people no one had ever heard of were getting them, adding: “If it was a politically sensitive case, I would be even more cynical. “Like the Tree of Life issue and the Tsarnaev bombing…and that's not to minimize the suffering or the gravity of the crime. The simple fact is that they stir up a lot of public, people know about them, and that's why they were dug up. Now, the simple fact is that we should have abolished the federal death penalty a long time ago. And I say this as someone who has worked hard to have people executed, but it's a horribly inconsistent, horribly flawed process, and simply how important justice is to the families of the victims. Or perhaps I realize I could even use the word revenge. I understand this and am sensitive to it because I have worked with victims. But the simple fact is that there is another solution to moving forward with federal executions. ”
Later in the segment, Williams said there should be no death penalty in the United States unless it can be said with certainty that no innocent person has been given the death penalty.
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