2014 State of the Union address: on Crime


Mike Pence: I support the death penalty; justice demands it

Q: Do you see down the line in Indiana any chance that the death penalty would be removed from law?

PENCE: I don't see that prospect in the state of Indiana. I support the death penalty. I believe justice demands it in our most heinous cases. But I think what you see in high relief here is a part of the American experiment that explains a lot of the prosperity and success our nation has had for more than two centuries and that is to allow states to have the freedom and flexibility to craft policies, whether it be in the area of criminal justice or whether be in the area of economic policy, in the area of education, in the area of health care, I would argue that will allow the states to be those laboratories of innovation and to reflect the values and the ideals -

Source: 2014 CNN "State of the Union" interview of Mike Pence Feb 23, 2014

Mike Lee: Keep violent predators behind bars, not nonviolent offenders

Lee gave credit to and highlighted a number of conservative reforms that offer an alternative to failed liberal statism: