New Mexico’s governor is reframing the death penalty debate as the proper response to recent police killings, including one officer killed Friday in her own state.
This response to police killings bucks a national trend as many states and courts are backing away from the death penalty, in part due to practical constraints on cost and the drugs used in capital punishment. In New Mexico, the push for its return faces opposition from Democrats, which have the majority in the state legislature.
But Republican Gov. Susanna Martinez said the shooting of a police officer in Hatch, N.M., on Friday, as well as several police killings elsewhere in the nation, prove the punishment is needed to deter society’s grossest crimes, Dan Boyd reported for the Albuquerque Journal. – READ MORE
