Rooting for crime and punishment questions at tonight’s town-hall Prez debate

October 16, 2012

In this post before the first debate in Denver between the Prez candidates, I correctly predicted that there would not be a single question dealing with criminal justice issues (despite the reality that a significant portion of federal government spending and a massive portion of state government spending is devoted to these big government programs). Tonight’s scheduled town-hall tussle on Long Island is probably going to follow the same script. But I think there is at least a slim chance that one of the real people being allowed to ask real questions might be allowed to really press the candidates on the really interesting issues for sentencing fans like federal pot prohibition or mass incarceration or even the administration of the federal death penalty or perhaps state felon disenfranchisement.

For old-times sake, I tracked down the last memorable discussion of crime and punishment in a town-hall debate. Specifically, almost exactly 12 years ago, on October 17, 2000 to be precise, the death penalty came up during the town-hall debate between then-Governor George W. Bush and then-Vice President Al Gore. Here are excerpts from this capital Q&A from a dozen years ago via this debate transcript:

Mr. ANDERSON: In one of the last debates held, the subject of capital punishment came up, and in your response to the question, you seemed to overly enjoy, as a matter of fact, proud that Texas leads the the nation in execution of prisoners. Sir, did I misread your response, and are you really, really proud of the fact that Texas is number one in executions?

Gov. BUSH: No, I’m not proud of that. The death penalty is very serious business, Leo. It’s an issue that good people obviously disagree on. I take my job seriously, and if you think I was proud of it, I think you misread me, I do. I was sworn to uphold the laws of my state. During the course of the campaign in 1994 I was asked, `Do you support the death penalty?’ I said I did if administered fairly and justly, because I believe it saves lives, Leo. I do. I think if it’s administered swiftly, justly and fairly, it saves lives….

There have been some tough cases come across my desk. Some of the hardest moments since I’ve been the governor of the state of Texas is to deal with those cases. But my job is to ask two questions, sir: Is the person guilty of the crime, and did the person have full access to the courts of law? And I can tell you, looking at you right now, in all cases those answers were affirmative. I’m not proud of any record. I’m proud of the fact that violent crime is down in the state of Texas. I’m proud of the fact that we hold people accountable, but I’m not proud of any record, sir. I’m not….

Vice Pres. GORE: I support the death penalty. I think that it has to be administered not only fairly, with attention to things like DNA evidence, which I think should be used in all capital cases, but also with very careful attention if, for example, somebody confesses to the crime and somebody’s waiting on death row, there has to be alertness to say, ‘Wait a minute, have we got the wrong guy?’ If the wrong guy is put to death, then that’s a double tragedy, not only has an innocent person been executed but the real perpetrator of the crime has not been held accountable for it and in some cases may be still at large. But I support the death penalty in the most heinous cases.

Mr. LEHRER: Do both of you believe that the death penalty actually deters crime? Governor?

Gov. BUSH: I do. That’s the only reason to be for it…. I don’t think you should support the death penalty to seek revenge. I don’t think that’s right. I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives.

Vice Pres. GORE: I think it is a deterrence. I know it’s a controversial view but I do believe it’s a deterrence.

Back to the present day, In this prior post and in many others, I have already detailed some of the federal criminal justice questions I would love to hear asked of the candidates this season. Perhaps readers will join in my on-going (and seemingly futile?) debate game by adding some queries of interest via the comments.

A few recent and older related posts: