"Our process works, and I don't see anything out there that would merit calling for a moratorium on the Texas death penalty... It's fair and appropriate, and we will continue with it."

In his book “Fed Up,” Perry wrote “If you don’t support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol, don’t come to Texas.”

Perry recently was asked on the campaign trail how he defends the death penalty, a sentence often criticized for its cost and inefficiency. “In the state of Texas, our citizens have clearly said that they support by overwhelming majority capital punishment,” he said, adding that, if people disagree, they should pass a constitutional amendment to halt the death penalty.

The Republican Candidate Debate; Wednesday 7 September 2011 =

WILLIAMS: Governor Perry, a question about Texas. Your state has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times. Have you...

(APPLAUSE)

Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?

PERRY: No, sir. I've never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which -- when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that's required.

But in the state of Texas, if you come into our state and you kill one of our children, you kill a police officer, you're involved with another crime and you kill one of our citizens, you will face the ultimate justice in the state of Texas, and that is, you will be executed.

Williams plodded ahead with a sentimental follow-up, asking Perry to react to the fact that members of the audience applauded when hearing Perry has executed 234 individuals. Perry replied, "I think Americans understand justice. I think Americans are clearly, in the vast majority of -- of cases, supportive of capital punishment. When you have committed heinous crimes against our citizens -- and it's a state-by-state issue, but in the state of Texas, our citizens have made that decision, and they made it clear, and they don't want you to commit those crimes against our citizens. And if you do, you will face the ultimate justice.” [The Republican Candidate Debate; Wednesday 7 September 2011]

Explaining in 2004 why he was rejecting clemency and upholding the execution of Kelsey Patterson, Mr. Perry said, “No one can guarantee this defendant would not be freed to commit other crimes were his sentence commuted.” Mr. Patterson would have become eligible for parole at 74.

I do not believe there is a single case in the United States where academics and law enforcement authorities agree that an innocent person has been put to death. Yes, innocent people have been convicted at trial, but as a result of appeals, they have been exonerated before the sentence was carried out. Even if opponents were to cite such a case, I would still support having the penalty available as an option in particularly heinous murders. The reason being that many more innocent lives would be saved because of the deterrence factor. [The Death Penalty Option: I Support It Posted: 05/ 1/2012 11:02 am in The Huffington Post] 

Tyler Overman: Hi. This is Tyler Overman from Memphis, Tennessee. And I have a quick question for those of you who would call yourselves Christian conservatives. The death penalty, what would Jesus do?

Cooper: Governor Huckabee?

Huckabee: “You know, one of the toughest challenges that I ever faced as a governor was carrying out the death penalty. I did it more than any other governor ever had to do it in my state. As I look on this stage, I'm pretty sure that I'm the only person on this stage that's ever had to actually do it.

Let me tell you, it was the toughest decision I ever made as a human-being. I read every page of every document of every case that ever came before me, because it was the one decision that came to my desk that, once I made it, was irrevocable.

Every other decision, somebody else could go back and overturn, could fix if it was a mistake. That was one that was irrevocable.”

“I believe there is a place for a death penalty. Some crimes are so heinous, so horrible that the only response that we, as a civilized nation, have for a most uncivil action is not only to try to deter that person from ever committing that crime again, but also as a warning to others that some crimes truly are beyond any other capacity for us to fix.”

(Applause)

“Now, having said that, there are those who say, "How can you be pro-life and believe in the death penalty?"

Because there's a real difference between the process of adjudication, where a person is deemed guilty after a thorough judicial process and is put to death by all of us, as citizens, under a law, as opposed to an individual making a decision to terminate a life that has never been deemed guilty because the life never was given a chance to even exist.”

Otter told The Spokesman-Review this week, “I support the death penalty,” adding that it’s an issue he’s given a lot of thought to “all my life.”

“I think that as our criminal justice system … suggests, people have to be held responsible, and sometimes it’s to the max, and this is one of those cases,” Otter said. “They have to be held accountable for their actions.” [Saturday 12 November 2011 – Referring to Paul Ezra Rhoades]

“The weakness in the death penalty statutes in other states, of course, is the fear that you may execute someone who is innocent,” Romney said in 2004. “We remove that possibility.”

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Tuesday 10 July 2012 asserted that the death penalty prevented "the most heinous crimes."

During a town hall event in Grand Junction, Colorado, a man who identified himself as "the local D.A." asked Romney to respond to a recent Supreme Court ruling that banned mandatory life sentences for minors who are convicted of murder.

Instead of taking a position on the Supreme Court ruling, the former Massachusetts governor took the opportunity to express his support for capital punishment.

"I realize that this wasn't a death penalty case ... but I happen to believe that the death penalty tends to prevent some of the most heinous crimes," Romney said, pausing for the audience to cheer.

"And I also believe that the prison terms that are of the nature you describe can also prevent some of the most heinous crimes from occurring," the candidate continued. "I believe in this case, the Supreme Court was looking at the age of the offender. Boy, I'll tell you, a 17 year old, a setting like that just breaks my heart. I'll look at the particular case."

"But I can tell you, I'm someone who comes down on the side of swift and severe punishment for those who commit these serious crimes."

In trying to set a new and higher bar, Romney also was chasing two political goals.

The first was to fulfill a promise, made during his 2002 run for governor, to try to reinstate the death penalty in Massachusetts, then one of a dozen states that had banned the punishment. The second was to burnish his conservative resume as he looked ahead to 2008 and his first run for president.

"We believe that the capital punishment bill that we put forward is not only right for Massachusetts, but it's a model for the nation," Romney said at the time, in comments similar to what he said about his overhaul of the state health insurance system. That law became a blueprint for the sweeping federal health care overhaul enacted by President Barack Obama, which has become an issue in the White House race.

Highlights of the death penalty bill Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney filed as Massachusetts governor in 2005. The bill would have:

- Limited capital punishment to people convicted of terrorism, multiple murders, killing law enforcement officers and murder involving torture.

- Required conclusive scientific evidence, such as DNA, linking the suspect to the crime scene.

- Mandated a scientific review of the physical evidence before an execution was carried out.

- Established a "no doubt" standard which meant that even after a guilty verdict was rendered, the death penalty could not be imposed if any juror harbored the slightest doubt about the defendant's guilt.

- Required two trials, one to determine guilt and the second to decide whether to impose the death penalty.

- Required an automatic review by the Supreme Judicial Court.

- Barred the execution of anyone who was younger than 18 at the time of the crime.

- Required the creation of a list of "capital case qualified" defense attorneys to represent any defendant facing the death penalty.

- Created a commission to review complaints and investigate errors.

Wednesday 6 July 2011 – Gov. Dave Heineman expressed frustration Wednesday that seemingly less concern is shown for the victims of murder than those condemned to die for such slayings.

“I find it frustrating, and I’m a bit angry that we’re worried about the cruel and unusual punishment about these criminals convicted of first-degree murder,” he said. “I don’t hear them express any remorse about their victims and their families. So no, I'm more determined than ever" to make sure the executions are carried out.”

Monday 9 January 2012 - Gov. Dave Heineman sees much more behind the latest legal paperwork filed to keep Michael Ryan from being executed.

Heineman asserts that the latest filing by defense attorney Jerry Soucie isn’t as much about Ryan as it is about preventing Nebraska from carrying out the death penalty. Soucie claims in a motion filed with the Nebraska Supreme Court that the state didn’t appropriately and legally acquire its latest batch of sodium thiopental, the first of three drugs used in lethal injection.

Heineman says Ryan’s legal team hopes to undermine the state’s ability to carry our executions.

“This is about whether we’re going to have a death penalty or not in this state,” according to Heineman. “And all those who are opposed to it are trying to think of every reason known to mankind to delay it.”

The Swiss pharmaceutical company, Naari, claims it never intended to sell sodium thiopental to be used in lethal injections. The state Attorney General has filed paperwork claiming that the drug was appropriately and legally obtained.

Heineman asserts the latest filing by Ryan’s attorneys have a bigger agenda in mind.

“But what this is all about from the other side is they’re trying to make sure we don’t have a death penalty,” Heineman says. “Most Nebraskans agree with me that we need to have one.”

Ryan, a former religious cult leader, has been sentenced to death for the 1985 torture and killing of James Thimm, a member of his religious cult in Rulo. Ryan has also been convicted of 5-year-old Luke Stice, the son of a cult member. Ryn is 63. An execution date has not been set.

Graham supports capital punishment as a deterrent, maintaining that it is "not inconsistent with Christian values." Said he, while signing the death warrants: "There are other values of life involved here, including the value of the lives that were taken."

"In Virginia, there has long been broad public support for capital punishment as the ultimate penalty for only the most heinous crimes. Our criminal-justice system provides for multiple hearings, safeguards and appeals to ensure that the penalty is employed properly and justly."

North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue on Thursday 28 June 2012, vetoed legislation passed by the state's Republican-controlled Legislature to roll back a landmark law allowing death row inmates to use evidence of racial bias to challenge their sentences.

The state's Racial Justice Act, passed in 2009, directs judges to cut a death sentence to life in prison if race is found to be a factor in jury composition or sentencing.

Perdue, a Democrat, said it was a long overdue step to make sure racism did not infect the way the death penalty was carried out. "As long as I am governor, I will fight to make sure the death penalty stays on the books in North Carolina,' Perdue said in announcing the veto.

"But it has to be carried out fairly — free of prejudice."  

“I must confess that probably some of the most ardent capital punishment advocates are people like me who have seen up close and person the flotsam, the jetsam of those who horribly, cruelly treat other people.”

“I think there should be a moral certainty standard, which I apply to myself. If I don’t have in these cases a confession or physical evidence, if I don’t have that even higher standard than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, I’m willing and do commute. But once that standard is established in my own mind – and this is not easy, because you’re dealing with another human being – if that standard is applied, I with no hesitation can deny clemency, because I believe if we love and elevate human life -- that means innocent human life -- for those who would intentionally, with malice, with violence, take another human being’s life, that person has forfeited the right to live."

A trio of former California governors urged voters on Tuesday 30 October 2012 to preserve the death penalty in the state by defeating a ballot initiative seeking to abolish capital punishment on cost grounds, and a recent poll showed the measure gaining support but falling short of passing.

The initiative, if passed by voters next week, would automatically commute the sentences of 725 death row inmates in California, which has nearly a quarter of the nation's condemned prisoners but has executed none in the last six years.

"Prop. 34 is a horrible injustice," said former Democratic Governor Gray Davis, referring to the ballot proposition. "Like a giant eraser, it would wipe out the death penalty convictions of 700 killers on death row."

Those convicts are responsible for killing 200 children and 43 police officers, said Davis, who was governor from 1999 to 2003 and who was joined in opposing death penalty repeal by former Republican governors Pete Wilson and George Deukmejian.

"Don't let the bad guys on death row win," Davis said. The governors were joined at a Los Angeles hotel by relatives of murder victims, prosecutors and police officers.

Polls have shown that Connecticut residents generally have been in favor of the death penalty over the last few years. It's been an issue in the gubernatorial race this year, as well.

The state Senate sent a bill to Gov. M. Jodi Rell in May 2009 that would have abolished the death penalty in Connecticut, but Rell vetoed it.

"I appreciate the passionate beliefs of people on both sides of the death penalty debate," Rell said at the time. "I fully understand the concerns and deeply held convictions of those who would like to see the death penalty abolished in Connecticut.”

"However, I also fully understand the anguish and outrage of the families of victims who believe, as I do, that there are certain crimes so heinous — so fundamentally revolting to our humanity — that the death penalty is warranted."

On November 8, 2010, Rell issued the following statement regarding the jury's recommendation of a sentence of death for Hayes:

The crimes that were committed on that brutal July night were so far out of the range of normal understanding that now, more than three years later, we still find it difficult to accept that they happened in one of our communities. I have long believed that there are certain crimes so heinous, so depraved, that society is best served by imposing the ultimate sanction on the criminal. Steven Hayes stands convicted of such crimes – and today the jury has recommended that he should be subjected to the death penalty. I agree.

“The death penalty sends a clear message to those who may contemplate such cold, calculated crimes,” Rell wrote in her June 2009 veto message. “We will not tolerate those who have murdered in the most vile, dehumanizing fashion.”

“We don’t have the death penalty so that families can feel a sense of vengeance,” Blunt said. “We have the death penalty because we believe as a society, we believe as a state and we believe as a people that some crimes are so horrific that the only appropriate punishment is the death penalty.”

“The death penalty is the law in South Dakota, and I support it,” Daugaard said. “The state has a solemn responsibility to carry out this penalty in the rare cases where it is applied.” [Thursday 11 October 2012]

"There are some crimes that are just so horrific that the death penalty is warranted."

"It has to be done very thoughtfully and very carefully, and it needs to involve discussions with law enforcement, the Legislature, advocates," he said. "But I would support the expansion of some murders that occur during home invasions."

"Our state has used the death penalty statute judiciously and cautiously, as is appropriate, and changes to the law should be carefully considered," Lynch said. "I believe that murder committed during home invasion fits the category of crimes that should be included in New Hampshire's death penalty statute."

Tuesday 15 March 2011 - Gov. John Lynch has expressed support for expanding the death penalty, as long as it's done carefully.

"I do support the death penalty, and I support a modest expansion of the death penalty, as long as there are clear parameters around it," he said.

Tuesday 28 June 2011 - Gov. John Lynch signed a bill Tuesday expanding the state's death penalty to cover burglaries in response to a machete and knife attack that killed a New Hampshire woman and maimed her daughter during a home invasion.

"I believe strongly that there are some crimes so heinous that the death penalty is warranted. As a state, we've used our death penalty statute judiciously and cautiously, as is appropriate. But there are some horrific crimes that are not currently covered under our capital murder statute," Lynch said in a statement.

A trio of former California governors urged voters on Tuesday 30 October 2012 to preserve the death penalty in the state by defeating a ballot initiative seeking to abolish capital punishment on cost grounds, and a recent poll showed the measure gaining support but falling short of passing.

Also, opponents say those sentences could be commuted in the future, possibly freeing murderers once on death row.

"We've had enough crime victims in this state," Wilson said.