Sarah Palin on the death penalty

Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's pick for the next Dick Cheney (to borrow a phrase from Joe Biden), is "pro-life" but not opposed to capital punishment.

According to several web sites, she said in November, 2006: "If [Alaska's]legislature passed death penalty law, I would sign it."

Source: Abolish! newsgroup

Who is Sarah Palin?

In selecting Palin, McCain counters the historic nature of Barack Obama’s candidacy. She’s young — 44, three years younger than Obama — and she’s a woman, the first to land a spot on the ticket of a major political party since Walter Mondale picked Geraldine Ferraro 24 years ago.

Disheartened Clinton supporters who were thinking about crossing over to vote for McCain may now have one more reason to do so.

Voters on the right will like Palin’s conservative credentials: She’s opposed to both abortion rights and gay marriage, supports increased domestic drilling for oil, is a lifelong member of the National Rifle Association and has a son in the U.S. Army. She's not opposed to capital punishment (If the legislature passed a death penalty law, I would sign it. We have a right to know that someone who rapes and murders a child or kills an innocent person in a drive by shooting will never be able to do that again. )

Obama spokesman Bill Burton seized immediately on the experience issue, saying McCain has put "the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency."

A former high school basketball star and beauty queen, Palin has limited experience in elected office: She served for four years as a member of the Wasilla City Council and four more years as the mayor of Wasilla, and she hasn’t yet completed her second full year as governor of Alaska.

Palin herself has been the subject of a probe involving the firing of her former brother in law, a state trooper who was fighting over child custody with Palin’s sister. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan has said he felt pressure from the governor’s office to fire the trooper.

Source: politico.com

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Florida executes Michael Tanzi

Florida on Tuesday executed a death row inmate described by one local detective as a "fledgling serial killer" for the murder of a beloved Miami Herald employee. Florida executed Michael Tanzi on Tuesday, 25 years after the murder of beloved Miami Herald employee Janet Acosta, who was attacked in broad daylight on her lunch break in 2000. Michael Tanzi, 48, was executed by lethal injection at the Florida State Prison in Raiford and pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. ET.

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Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

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