Source:The Open Mind With Richard Heffner– Governor Mario Cuomo: Democrat, New York (1983-95) 

“Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo discusses his firm belief that the death penalty is wrong and that it is time for American to banish capital punishment.”

From The Open Mind With Richard Heffner

At risk of insulting Mario Cuomo and making Bill O’Reilly look bigger than the rat that he really is: O’Reilly was once asked his position on the death penalty and he answered that he was opposed to the death penalty because he didn’t believe it was a harsh enough punishment. And part of his opposition might be his Irish-Catholicism. O’Reilly’s alternative was essentially to make convicted murderers slaves and give them life sentences of hard labor.

I think Governor Cuomo’s alternative to the death penalty is even worst. Which would be solitary confinement for the rest of their lives. Which would be a form of cruel an unusual punishment, as well as unproductive.

Because you would be putting people who probably aren’t mentally all together anyway and putting them in a situation where they would just get worst. And acting out end up becoming a problem for the prison staff that is supposed to supervise these inmates.

As far as people in poverty in America: the more money you have, the more influence you have. The idea of one person one vote, is a technicality and in places in Chicago, perhaps not even real where dead people apparently still have the right to vote there. So what kind of influence do you think a long-term low-skilled, perhaps not even with a high school diploma unemployed person is going to have.

Or a low-skilled low-wage worker, perhaps making fifteen-thousand-dollars a year and collecting public assistance to make up for what they don’t earn, will have.