Top 100 Quotes About The Death Penalty
#1. I support the death penalty and will continue to do that.
Rick Santorum
#2. Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.
John Grisham
#3. The costs can't be borne by smaller counties particularly, so if the crime occurs in a large county you might be charged with the death penalty, in a smaller county you're not. That raises some significant questions about fairness.
Greg Zoeller
#4. Sometimes I have to compromise my views, but I never compromise on issues like the death penalty and the arm trade laws, despite what the readers or letters may say.
Jonathan Shapiro
#5. The court was not previously aware of the prisoner's many accomplishments. In view of these, we see fit to impose the death penalty.
Quentin Crisp
#6. Given the irreversibility of the death penalty, the possibility of a wrongful conviction can never be overstated
George Gascon
#7. In Europe, when tobacco was first introduced, it was immediately banned. In Turkey, if you got caught with tobacco, you had your nose slit. China and Russia imposed the death penalty for possession of tobacco.
Andrew Weil
#8. The verdict of this court is that the accused are guilty of witchcraft. The maximum penalty the law allows is to be burned to death.However, in view of your previous good background I am disposed to be lenient. I therefore sentence you to be burned alive.
Richard Curtis
#9. The surface causes of Adams's anxieties are not difficult to discern. Every activist knew the penalty for treason. Every congressman knew that prison, perhaps death, would be his reward if the American rebellion failed.
John Ferling
#10. The death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment ... It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged members of society.
Thurgood Marshall
#11. My biggest problem is that my flight is to depart from Denpasar International Airport in Indonesia, where the penalty for drug trafficking is death by firing squad.
S.A. Tawks
#12. If the law imposed the death penalty for parking tickets, we'd not only have fewer parking tickets, we'd also have much
less driving.
Lawrence Lessig
#13. With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don't think it's human to become an agent of the angel of death.
Elie Wiesel
#14. They found him guilty, and brother, if Maine had the death penalty, he would have done the airdance before that spring's crocuses poked their heads out of the dirt.
Stephen King
#15. The estate tax punishes years of hard work and robs families of part of their heritage by imposing a huge penalty on inheritance after death - a tax on money that has already been taxed.
Mike Fitzpatrick
#16. Crucial to understanding federalism in modern day America is the concept of mobility, or 'the ability to vote with your feet.' If you don't support the death penalty and citizens packing a pistol - don't come to Texas. If you don't like medicinal marijuana and gay marriage, don't move to California.
Rick Perry
#17. The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often.
Edward Abbey
#18. What right does any church have even attempting to approve of lifestyles or certain acts for which God prescribed the death penalty in the Old Testament?
Billy Graham
#19. In Alabama this would be a capital case, and if we don't get justice in Australia we're going to pursue the death penalty here
Troy King
#20. I'm not in favor of the death penalty. But I'm in favor of locking these people away in maximum security units where they can never get out. They can never escape. They can never be paroled. Lock the bad ones away. But you gotta rethink everybody else.
John Grisham
#21. It's a phony issue. To pretend the death penalty is going to end crime in the United States is to fool people, to promote public ignorance.
Rudy Giuliani
#22. My faith teaches that life is sacred. That's why I personally oppose the death penalty. But I take my oath of office seriously, and I'll enforce the death penalty ... because it's the law.
Tim Kaine
#23. I think the death penalty's easier than life in prison,
Pamela Smart
#24. I hope, by God's grace, that I am truly a Christian, not deviating from the faith, and that I would rather suffer the penalty of a terrible death than wish to affirm anything outside of the faith or transgress the commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jan Hus
#25. The penalty for summoning the dead back to earth is death; if the summoned spirit does not kill its summoner, be assured the Church will.
Stacia Kane
#26. The Lord, however, transferred to His own flesh not sin, as the poison of the serpent, but He did transfer to it death, that the penalty without the fault might transpire in the likeness of sinful flesh, whence, in the sinful flesh, both the fault might be removed and the penalty.
Bishop Serapion
#27. Whatever you think of de Sade, he was a complex figure and we should not look for easy answers with him. He was, strangely perhaps, against the death penalty, and he was never put in prison for murders or anything like that.
Philip Kaufman
#28. God in His law requires the death penalty for homosexuals.
R.J. Rushdoony
#29. Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.
William J. Brennan
#30. I'm using the death penalty to keep Alabama family safe from the most violent criminals, why? It's because it works. Recent studies have said that every time an execution is carried out in the United States, up to 75 murders are prevented the next year.
Troy King
#31. Standing alone among great democratic nations in imposing the death penalty is another moral decision that Americansare being forced to confront.
Jimmy Carter
#32. I have reached the conviction that the abolition of the death penalty is desirable. Reasons: 1) Irreparability in the event of an error of justice, 2) Detrimental moral influence of the execution procedure on those who, whether directly or indirectly, have to do with the procedure.
Albert Einstein
#33. I can't talk politics with my cousin because he's such a hypocrite. He's against the death penalty and he hanged himself.
Anthony Jeselnik
#34. [The] penalty of death was abolished in the Roman empire, a law of mercy most delightful to the humane theorist, but of which the practice, in a large and vicious community, is seldom consistent with the public safety.
Edward Gibbon
#35. I believe that the death penalty is the ultimate deterrent to violent crime ... period.
Troy King
#36. As a member of the New York Senate from 1966 to 1989, I voted 12 times to establish the death penalty in New York ... I regret my votes in favor of the death penalty.
John R. Dunne
#37. It's absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may - may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it's clear that - that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.
Antonin Scalia
#38. You can't reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty.
N. T. Wright
#39. We as the Church need to express wherever appropriate and wherever possible our stance against the death penalty. We need to talk about it. A lot of people don't feel comfortable in doing this but I think we need to, as the Pope says, preach the whole gospel of life.
Gabino Zavala
#40. I believe [ ... ] that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.
Neil Gaiman
#41. If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility.
Antonin Scalia
#42. [Sen. John] Kerry is also a man who opposes the death penalty, wants to restrict access to guns and voted against the resolution approving the start of ground operations against Saddam Hussein in 1991 - just what you would expect from Ted Kennedy's partner and Michael Dukakis's running mate.
David S. Broder
#43. I had concluded when I was the prosecutor that I would vote against the death penalty if I were in the legislature but that I could ask for it when I was satisfied as to guilt.
Janet Reno
#44. The sole motivating factor behind the death penalty is vengeance, not justice, and I firmly believe that a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself.
Larry Flynt
#45. The death penalty is used in such a blatantly racist way in the United States. There is no way that can be defended under any kind of definition of justice by anybody.
Assata Shakur
#46. It is cold at six-forty in the morning on a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.
Frederick Forsyth
#47. The death penalty can be imposed fairly only after carefully considering all the reasons why death might not be the appropriate sentence
Bryan Stevenson
#48. How come life in prison doesn't mean life? Until it does, we're not ready to do away with the death penalty. Stop thinking in terms of "punishment" for a minute and think in terms of safeguarding innocent people from incorrigible murderers.
Jesse Ventura
#49. The death penalty makes us all murderers.
Dean Smith
#50. Christ died for our sins. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took upon Himself a human nature and died a horrible death on our behalf. That is the reason for the cross. He suffered what we should have suffered. He died in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.
Jerry Bridges
#51. I am in favour of capital punishment if the execution of the sentence is immediate. The purpose of the death penalty is to send out a message to society.
Ujjwal Nikam
#52. We may be indifferent to the death penalty and not declare ourselves either way so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes. But when we do, the shock is violent, and we are compelled to choose sides, for or against ... Death belongs to God alone.
Victor Hugo
#53. I was badly mauled by people in New York State for being against the death penalty for 12 years.
Mario Cuomo
#54. The attorney general doesn't favor one method or the other, he favors the death penalty.
Bob Butterworth
#55. The death penalty is discriminatory and does not do anything about crime.
Bobby Scott
#56. The campaign against the death penalty has been - while a powerful campaign, its participants have been those who attend all of the vigils, a relatively small number of people.
Angela Davis
#57. Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.
Martin Luther King Jr.
#58. Jurors realize that instead of having to make that terrible decision (voting for the death penalty), they can vote to put someone in prison and ensure that defendant is no longer a harm to society. It makes it easier for them to return a verdict of life without the possibility of parole.
Robert Falcon Scott
#59. The Bible identifies 15 crimes against the family worthy of the death penalty. ABORTION is treason against the family and deserves the DEATH PENALTY. ADULTERY is treason to the family; adulterers should be put to DEATH. HOMOSEXUALITY is treason to the family, and it too, is worthy of DEATH.
R.J. Rushdoony
#60. Almost all the early Christian Fathers were opposed to the death penalty, even though it was of course standard practice across the ancient world.
N. T. Wright
#61. I believe in the inherent good of people. I believe that someone can make a mistake and live to redeem themselves another day. Maybe that's why I don't believe in the death penalty. It forecloses all possibilities.
Carsen Taite
#62. But secondly you say 'society must exact vengeance, and society must punish'. Wrong on both counts. Vengeance comes from the individual and punishment from God.
Victor Hugo
#63. The death penalty, I think, is a terrible scar on American justice, especially the concept of equal justice under law, but also of due process. And it goes state by state, and it's different in different states.
Burke Marshall
#64. The victims of crime have been transformed into a group oppressively burdened by a system designed to protect them.
Ronald Reagan
#65. We need to acknowledge that the death penalty is broken beyond repair.
George Gascon
#66. I think being condemned to death is the only real distinction," said Mathilde. "It is the only thing which cannot be bought.
Stendhal
#68. I would say, people use labels all the time, but I'm kind of a traditional Catholic: Personally, I'm opposed to abortion, and personally, I'm opposed to the death penalty.
Tim Kaine
#69. The fanatic has the courage of his conviction and the intolerance of his courage. He is opposed to the death penalty for murder, but he would willingly have anyone electrocuted who disagreed with him on the subject.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
#70. As governor, I came to believe that the death penalty would be a just punishment for certain, especially heinous crimes, such as the murder of a child or the murder of a police officer. The events of September 11 convinced me that terrorists also deserve the ultimate punishment.
Howard Dean
#71. I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial ... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
#73. Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not ... with regard to abortion and euthanasia.
Pope Benedict XVI
#74. Many states and even many people who are in support of the death penalty question their support of the death penalty because of the imperfection of our courts. Through DNA testing, we don't always get it right, even with that.
Rand Paul
#75. I was personally opposed to the death penalty, and yet I think I have probably asked for the death penalty more than most people in the United States.
Janet Reno
#76. There's a second life involved. No matter what your position is on abortion or the death penalty, you shouldn't put a pregnant woman to death.
George H. W. Bush
#77. Homicide's illegal and death is the penalty
What justifies the homicide when he dies?
Masta Killa
#78. When I arrived in France aged 20, I marched against the death penalty, which was an unpopular thing to protest against at the time.
Jane Birkin
#79. I am not anti-death penalty, but I'm damned sure anti-the-wrong-guy-getting-executed.
Kinky Friedman
#80. Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.
Angela Davis
#81. I always try to tell a good story, one with a compelling plot that will keep the pages turning. That is my first and primary goal. Sometimes I can tackle an issue-homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty-and wrap a good story around it.
John Grisham
#82. The penalty for planting the wrong thing in the wrong place is death.
Cassandra Danz
#83. You do not cut a check in the state of Kansas to John Doe, executioner. The executioner is paid in cash so there's no trail to him
George Plimpton
#84. I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone ... I think, myself, that it is an obscenity ...
Desmond Tutu
#85. At some point in this death-penalty debate, the sanctity of innocent life demands that men and women of conservative conscience have to say: Enough.
Rod Dreher
#86. I don't have any personal upset at the death penalty as an abstraction, What I do realize is how many mistakes can be made with the way things are being done now.
Michael Baden
#87. [I support] term limits for career politicians and the death penalty for career politicians.
Bill Frist
#88. Personally I am very much against the death penalty for several reasons.
Alan Parker
#89. We may remain more or less open-minded on the subject of the death penalty, indisposed to commit ourselves, so long as we have not seen a guillotine with our own eyes.
Victor Hugo
#90. Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious - and therefore immoral - I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.
George Ryan
#91. If society gives up the right to impose the death penalty, then self-help will appear again and personal vendettas will be around the corner.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#92. The death penalty doesn't need your assent to continue ... it needs your indifference.
Ray Krone
#93. Only the doctor and the judge have the right to inflict the death penalty without receiving the same.
Philemon
#94. So something that never should have happened did, all because of my thoughts and actions. A clear-cut cause-and-effect relationship. I was the one who caused it, and I should probably get the death penalty. Or maybe what I should say is I'm the one who pronounced the death sentence on myself
Natsuo Kirino
#95. I find that students are very strong on my issues, stronger than anyone: anti-death penalty, anti-racial profiling, campaign finance reform, questioning the anti-terrorism bill.
Russ Feingold
#96. We oppose the death penalty not just for what it does to those guilty of heinous crimes, but for what it does to all of us: It offers the tragic illusiion that we can defend life by taking life.
Joseph Fiorenza
#97. I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty. I want the abolition of it. I can't understand why a country [USA] that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity.
Desmond Tutu
#99. From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death ... I fell morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.
Harry A. Blackmun
#100. Our history shows that the death penalty has been unjustly imposed, innocents have been killed by the state, effective rehabilitation has been impaired, judicial administration has suffered. It is the poor, the sick, the ignorant, the powerless, and the hated who are executed.
Ramsey Clark
