RP, I wonder if he really believes that ” than anything else” thing he said or it was unfortunate verbal drooling. He also said “You only should do it in what I would consider the most extreme cases and I think my point was there are a lot of death penalty statutes on the books for crimes that are committed where the death penalty is a potential option for a jury that I think may be a little bit overboard.” My guess is that he is genuinely uncomfortable with the death penalty, and the we-make-mistakes-often conventional wisdom (well-debunked by you) was something concrete he grabbed onto (err on the side of life). But I’m totally guessing and possibly projecting.