darren-white-picBernalillo County Sheriff Darren White, who is term-limited out of his current position, is working to repeal the state’s death penalty repeal — even before the death penalty repeal goes into effect. The sheriff sat down with Dave Maass of the Santa Fe Reporter to talk about why he wants to keep capital punishment on the books and how he will go about it.

White said his PAC will be working over the next four months to get signatures from 10 percent of the population in three-quarters of the counties to get the initiative onto the ballot.

Maass, staff writer for the Reporter, asked White about life without the possibility of parole vs. capital punishment.

Would you like to see both penalties on the books?

The thing is, when we look at somebody who has been charged with murder, there’s usually a variety of other charges that go along with it. So, with a lot of these defendants, there’s enough charges where you can keep the person in prison for life. So, I’d argue we have that now. It was just the term that was used by the anti-death penalty groups as a compromise.

The sheriff remains confident because of a poll by GOP pollster Public Opinion Strategies that showed 67 percent of voters in New Mexico were supporters of the death penalty.

And as for the thought that White is just positioning himself for a potential 2010 statewide run? Well, White pretty definitively squashed that thought, saying: “I’m not running for office. I ran for office last year. I’m not running for office. I was asked this on the radio a week ago. I am not running for office.”

White also said there was one big difference between himself and accused cop-killer Michael Astorga, whom Maass interviewed a few weeks ago. White said  that White “will never watch ‘The Bachelor.’”