Sanders opposed the Violent Crime Prevention Act of 1991 during his first year in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"All over the industrialized world now, countries are saying, ‘let us put an end to state murder, let us stop capital punishment’," Sanders said in a 1991 speech on the House floor. "But here what we’re talking about is more and more capital punishment."
The bill, which included provisions to authorize the death penalty as appropriate punishment for crimes involving the murder of a law enforcement officer, terrorism and drug trafficking, never reached the desk of President George H.W. Bush.
In 1994, however, Sanders voted in favor of the final version of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a bill that expanded the federal death penalty. Sanders had voted for an amendment to the bill that would have replaced all federal death sentences with life in prison. Even though the amendment failed, Sanders still voted for the larger crime bill.
A spokesman for Sanders said
he voted for the bill "because it included the Violence Against Women Act and the ban on certain assault weapons."
Sanders reiterated his opposition to capital punishment in 2015. "I just don’t think the state itself, whether it’s the state government or federal government, should be in the business of killing people," he said on a radio show.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/sep/02/viral-image/where-do-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders-stand-/
Bernie Sanders in 1991 on crime, punishment and poverty:
Bernie has indeed been consistent.
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