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To applause, Rick Perry defends Texas death penalty

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To applause, Perry defends Texas death penalty

3News NZ

Texas Governor Rick Perry (Reuters)

Texas Governor Rick Perry (Reuters)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is defending the death penalty in Texas and says he's never struggled with whether any of the inmates executed during his time as governor might have been innocent.

When Perry defended capital punishment, he drew strong applause from the scores of people in the audience at the Republican debate Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

As of today, 234 people have been executed in the 10-plus years that Perry has served as governor of Texas. That's the highest number of any American governor.

The audience first applauded when NBC News anchor Brian Williams cited the number of executions in Texas. Perry says he believes that such a response reflects how much Americans support capital punishment for particularly heinous crimes.

AP

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Comments

9/09/2011 5:55:27 a.m.

Robert wrote:

I bet Perry didn't mention the innocent man he killed.

8/09/2011 5:34:51 p.m.

Davo wrote:

I find it somewhat strange that a party that believes in small government and small budgets insists on maintaining a system that is somewhat more costly than life imprisonment.