Politico reports, "Obama: Botched Oklahoma execution ‘deeply troubling’," by Jennifer Epstein.
Speaking at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the president said that the execution “highlights significant problems with death penalty” — problems that he’s asked Attorney General Eric Holder to further examine in an analysis.
“I’ve said in the past that there are certain circumstances in which a crime is so terrible that the application of the death penalty may be appropriate,” Obama said, citing mass killings and the killings of children. “But I’ve also said that in the application of the death penalty in this country, we’ve seen significant problems. Racial bias, an uneven application of the death penalty, situations in which there were individuals on death row who later on were discovered to have been innocent because of exculpatory evidence.”
"Obama troubled by botched Oklahoma execution," is AP coverage, via the San Francisco Chronicle.
President Barack Obama says the botched execution of an Oklahoma inmate highlights significant problems with the death penalty and he's asking his attorney general for a review.
Obama says he found inmate Clayton Lockett's execution Tuesday "deeply troubling."
And:
He says he's asking Attorney General Eric Holder for an analysis of the penalty's application.
Earlier coverage begins with the preceding post. White House spokesman Jay Carney adderessed the botched execution on Wednesday.
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