Kerry and the Death Penalty

I'm not sure why evil genius Rove hasn't given this issue more play. Kerry is adamantly opposed to the death penalty. Prior to September 11, 2001, he even opposed it for terrorists. This article from the Washington Times archives has more.

Sen. John Kerry opposes the death penalty almost without exception, making him the first major-party presidential candidate in more than 15 years to take such a strong stand against capital punishment.

"I know something about killing," he sometimes says when asked about it, a reference to his months in Vietnam as a swift-boat commander. "I don't like killing. That's just a personal belief I have."

He did, however, slightly amend his view in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Before then he had opposed the death penalty, even for terrorists, but he now says he supports it, in limited cases, for foreign terrorists.

The reason Mr. Kerry opposes the death penalty in most cases is because he believes it is unfairly applied by the U.S. criminal justice system.

Factcheck.org has more:

A Club for Growth PAC TV ad released July 26 accurately cites Kerry's changing positions over the years on welfare reform, the death penalty for terrorists, and gasoline taxes...

It’s true, as the ad states, that Kerry once opposed the death penalty for terrorists and now supports it. He's long been an opponent of the death penalty in general. In 1989, he was among a small minority of senators who voted against a bill (S. 1798) to impose the death penalty “for the terrorist murder of United States nationals abroad.” The bill passed with a bipartisan vote of 79-20. (Kerry voted for an amendment (S. Amdt. 1068) to the bill that would have imposed life imprisonment without parole for the same crime, in preference to the death penalty. The amendment failed by a 20-79 vote.)

The ad also gets it right when it says Kerry still opposed the policy seven years later in 1996. During a Sept. 16, 1996 Senate campaign debate between Kerry and then-Massachusetts Governor William Weld, Kerry said anti-death penalty countries wouldn’t allow the U.S. to extradite suspected terrorists who could be put to death. As quoted by the Boston Globe:

Kerry: Your policy (the death penalty) would amount to a terrorist protection policy. Mine would put them in jail.

That, of course, was long before September 11, 2001. Kerry now supports the death penalty for terrorists:

Kerry: We are talking about people who have declared war on our nation, and just as I was prepared to kill people personally and collectively in Vietnam…I support killing people who declare war on our country .

So Kerry’s position did change -- though he still opposes the death penalty in other cases. Was Kerry simply "blowing in the wind" of public outrage? His explanation is that he responded to changed facts, not changed public opinion. He told the Boston Globe on Dec. 18, 2002 that anti-death penalty countries would be more willing to turn over terrorists after the 9/11 attacks: “I think 9/11 has changed the capacity for extradition.”