Assembly candidate and Mountain View Mayor Sally Lieber says she supports the death penalty, but she's won the favor of a group that sees her as an ally against capital punishment.

Lieber, vying for Elaine Alquist's Assembly seat, told the Daily News she "supports the existence" of the death penalty, although she doesn't support the way it's implemented in California. She said she favors a moratorium until the state sorts out enforcement issues.

Meanwhile, the San Jose/Silicon Valley branch of the NAACP which opposes the death penalty and holds that it discriminates against people of color -is praising Lieber for being a death penalty opponent.

The group had interpreted her answer on a written questionnaire to mean she's an opponent.

The NAACP doesn't endorse candidates, but it grades them on a questionnaire designed to show how candidates' views measure up with the values of the NAACP. Lieber, a member of the San Jose NAACP, received the highest mark of all 16 Silicon Valley candidates in this year's primary who took the test.

The NAACP gave Lieber an A plus on the test. Her grade, 99 out of 100, is a measure of her "excellent commitment to civil and human rights and issues impacting communities of color," according to the NAACP Web site's explanation of grades. Lieber's answer to the test question on the death penalty available on the group's Web site is as follows:

"I oppose the way the death penalty is being implemented in California. As used, it is a racially biased instrument with negative implications for the rights of people of color, those with disabilities and people with a lower socioeconomic background. I believe the state must invest more in innocence determination by testing DNA samples already collected and ensuring that new samples are accu-rately assessed. ..."

Rick Callender, the president of the San Jose NAACP, said that the group's committee in charge of the questionnaire interpreted Lieber's answer to mean she opposes the penalty. It's why she got a near-perfect score, he said.

"We assume that our questions are very clear," Callender said. "Sally's grade reflects the fact that she opposes the death penalty."

Of the other candidates, Rosemary Stasek is opposed to the death penalty and Rod Diridon Jr. supports it. Stasek earned a B-plus on the NAACP test and Diridon, also a member, earned an A. Callender said he hopes it wasn't Lieber's intention to mislead the NAACP.

When asked to clarify her position on the death penalty and to respond to her NAACP score yesterday, Lieber reiterated her previous statement.