The story of the Democratic primaries is Hillary Clinton’s leftward shift. (It remains unclear whether the story’s a fiction.) Strangely, a key position she’s not yet “evolved” on is held by more Republicans than Democrats: She’s pro-death penalty.
Yes, Hillary’s said that execution should be reserved for “particularly heinous” crimes, that there should be adequate safeguards against wrongful convictions.
But as a former defense attorney, Hillary knows better. She knows there’s no consistent way to reserve executions for just one sort of “heinous” crime. She knows, for sure, that no matter how many safeguards there are, innocents will die. As with drone strikes, so with state-sanctioned homicide: There’s always collateral damage.
The collateral damage isn’t pretty; and given her red herring stump speech, wherein she maintains that she focuses on progressive issues like racism and crime while Sanders is a one-issue candidate, disregarding it reeks of hypocrisy.
Hillary says she’s fighting for racial justice. But African-American men convicted on dubious evidence are executed at a sickeningly disproportionate rate.
Hillary says she’s fighting for economic justice. But the poor are treated as fodder in a criminal justice system that sometimes treats indigent lives as products to be processed, as hens to the slaughterhouse, instead of human beings.
Hillary says she’s fighting for a justice state rather than a police state. But the dead are unable to hold police who may have mishandled evidence or coerced confessions accountable.
Secretary Clinton: Not just Bernie Sanders, but a majority of Democrats, a fast-growing part of our party, is anti-death.
Join us.
This post was originally published in Huffington Post.