The New York Times

Thursday, February 17, 2000

THE PRESIDENT'S NEWS CONFERENCE: The Domestic Focus

Excerpts from Clinton's Comments at Wide-Ranging News Conference

Following is excerpt on Capital Punishment, from President Clinton's news conference yesterday, as recorded by the New York Times

- CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Q: Mr. President, there are growing calls for a national moratorium on capital punishment from the American Bar Association to members of Congress. Governor Ryan has halted executions in Illinois, as you know, because the convictions of 13 people on death row were overturned. On the other hand, Governor Bush said last night that he's confident that the 100 people who were put to death in Texas under his watch were all guilty.

You've had some experience with this. You signed four death warrants or death -- execution warrants while you were governor. What's your feeling about a moratorium on executions?

CLINTON: Well, first, I think Governor Ryan did the right thing, probably a courageous thing to do, because the majority of the American people support capital punishment as the law. But I think Illinois had a situation where the exonerations and the executions were about equal in number over the last several years. So it -- he had a difficult situation; I think he did the right thing.

And I think that if I were a governor still, I would look very closely at the situation in my state and decide what the facts were. There are -- I think there are not those ground for that kind of moratorium under federal law because of the circumstances under which people are convicted.

Now, we have a different review going on here -- a Justice Department review on the racial impact, or whether there was one, in the death penalty decisions under the federal law. There are 27 people who have been sentenced to death under federal law, 20 in the civilian courts and seven through the military system.

We also are in the process of developing guidelines for clemency applications when any individual claims of innocence are questioning of the sentence, even though guilt is not a question, can be pressed.

And, I think, in an attempt to address the problem you mentioned, I think Senator Leahy has introduced some legislation to try to give convicted criminal defendants access to DNA testing and other things which might tend to disprove their guilt.

So, I think that this is -- you know, all these things need to be looked at. But the people who support the death penalty, it seems to me, have an especially heavy obligation to see that in cases where it is applied there is no question of whether the guilt was there.

So the main issue left is whether philosophically you think it's the right or wrong thing to do.

Q: So you would not support suspending it -- or a moratorium now?

CLINTON: In the federal cases, I don't believe it's called for. But as I say, we do have the review in terms of the racial implications of the way it's being applied. And we also are in the process of drawing up guidelines for clemency requests, which obviously would give people an opportunity to raise the question of whether there was some doubt about their guilt or innocence. But I do think Governor Ryan did the right thing. I think it was a brave thing to do.