Charles E. Schumer: “I certainly believe, when you are going to invoke the ultimate punishment, that is capital punishment, we ought to be…”

“I certainly believe, when you are going to invoke the ultimate punishment, that is capital punishment, we ought to be very careful and very delineating in what we do. To say that there should be an opened aggravating factor, that anything could be an aggravating factor, does, in my opinion--it is a close case, but it does, in my opinion, tip the scales over in favor of too much discretion and too much abuse leading to some of the other kinds of things that we have seen in certain capital cases, and so I would urge my colleagues to support this amendment. Those of us who believe in capital punishment have an obligation, I think, to see that it is administered fairly, carefully, and with every, every, every predisposition so that mistakes are not made, and for that reason I urge that we adopt this amendment.”