Best Death Penalty Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 7

“Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.”

Ifs Humor Would Be Funny Crime Punishment Death Penalty Capital Punishment Crime And Punishment

“What will be left of the power of example if it is proved that capital punishment has another power, and a very real one, which degrades men to the point of shame, madness, and murder?”

Ifs Men Real Left Example Madness Murder Shame Punishment Death Penalty Degrade Capital Punishment Real Ones

Author:Albert Camus

“Evidence of innocence is irrelevant!”

Evidence Innocence Irrelevant Death Penalty

Author:Mary Sue Terry

“Our ancestors... purged their guilt by banishment, not death. And by so doing, they stopped that endless vicious cycle of murder and revenge.”

Murder Guilt Revenge Endless Cycles Ancestor Vicious Death Penalty Vicious Cycles Banishment

Book:Euripides IV: Helen, The Phoenician Women, Orestes

Source: Euripides IV: Helen, The Phoenician Women, Orestes

“The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country.”

Country Crime Tests Regard Criminals Mood Treatment Temper Death Penalty Civilisation Crime And Criminals

Author:Baron de Montesquieu

“It's not about whether you are innocent or guilty. It's about whether or not you can prove you're innocent. If you can't prove you're innocent, then you're considered guilty. It's been flipped: Now it's guilty until proven innocent.”

Ifs Prove Innocent Guilty Proven Death Penalty Flipped Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Author:Ronald Jones

“It's strange when they near your cell. You lose all your strength, and you are like this. You lose all your strength as if a rope is dragging it out of you. Then the footsteps stop in front of another solitary confinement cell, and when you hear the sound of the key turning you feel relieved.”

Ifs Feels Sound Loses Fronts Strange Keys Cells Solitary Rope Death Penalty Footsteps Relieved Confinement Solitary Confinement

Author:Sakae Menda

“I regard the death penalty as a savage and immoral institution that undermines the moral and legal foundations of society. I reject the notion that the death penalty has any essential deterrent effect on potential offenders. I am convinced that the contrary is true - that savagery begets only savagery.”

Moral Effects Essentials Regard Institutions Foundation Notion Convinced Contrary Rejects Savages Penalties Immoral Death Penalty Begets Offenders Savagery Deterrent

Author:Andrei Sakharov

“The death sentence is a barbaric act.”

Sentences Death Penalty Barbaric Death Sentence

Author:Nelson Mandela

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy... In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”

Facts Night Hate Stars Darkness Violence Kings Weakness Ultimate Increase Deeper Death Penalty Non Violence Spirals Descending Violence And Peace

Author:Martin Luther King, Jr.

“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.”

Want Humans I Can Country Rights Human Rights Committed Usa Penalties Death Penalty Abolition Obscenity

Author:Desmond Tutu

“With respect to the death penalty, I believe that a majority of the Supreme Court will one day accept that when the state punishes with death, it denies the humanity and dignity of the victim and transgresses the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. That day will be a great day for our country, for it will be a great day for our Constitution.”

“At bottom, the battle has been waged on moral grounds. The country has debated whether a society for which the dignity of the individual is the supreme value can, without a fundamental inconsistency, follow the practice of deliberately putting one of its members to death.”

Has Beens Country Values Individual Moral Practice Battle Members Dignity Fundamentals Bottom Supreme Death Penalty Inconsistency

Author:William J. Brennan

“It is tempting to pretend that minorities on death row share a fate in no way connected to our own, that our treatment of them sounds no echoes beyond the chambers in which they die. Such an illusion is ultimately corrosive, for the reverberations of injustice are not so easily confined.”

Way Dies Sound Fate Share Illusion Injustice Connected Minorities Treatment Echoes Chamber Death Penalty Confined Tempting Death Row Reverberation

Author:William J. Brennan

“Everyone is calm and collected but I am telling you something - I am not calm and I am not collected. It's a sick world out there.”

World Sick Calm Death Penalty Sick World

Author:Clive Stafford Smith

“The time will come when all people will view with horror light way in which society and its courts of law now take human life; and when that time comes, the way will be clear to device some better method of dealing with poverty and ignorance and their frequent byproducts, which we call crime.”

People Way Humans Light Law Views Poverty Clear Crime Ignorance Horror Method Court Human Life Devices Death Penalty

Author:Clarence Darrow

“Our emotions may cry for vengeance in the wake of a horrible crime, but we know that killing the criminal will not undo the crime, will not prevent similar crimes by others, does not benefit the victim, destroys human life and brutalizes society. If we are to still violence, we must cherish life. Executions cheapen life.”

Ifs Knows Humans May Doe Stills Emotion Violence Crime Cry Benefits Victim Killing Criminals Horrible Human Life Cherish Execution Vengeance Death Penalty Life Death

Author:Ramsey Clark

“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.”

Has Beens States Shows Poor Sick Ignorant Administration Hated Penalties Powerless Death Penalty Judicial Rehabilitation

Author:Ramsey Clark

“Crime is redeemed by remorse, but not by a blow of the axe or slipknot. Blood has to be washed by tears but not by blood.”

Blood Crime Tears Blow Remorse Death Penalty Redeemed

Author:Victor Hugo

“I know something about killing. I don't like killing. And I don't think a state honors life by turning around and sanctioning killing.”

Thinking Knows States Belief Honor Killing Death Penalty Personal Beliefs

Author:John F. Kerry

“That led me to say that when push comes to shove, I'm against capital punishment.”

Punishment Death Penalty Capital Punishment

Author:Scott Turow

“For whence did Dante take the materials for his hell but from this our actual world? And yet he made a very proper hell of it.”

World Made Hell Materials Death Penalty

Author:Arthur Schopenhauer

“It is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree....I do not now believe that any one of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge.”

Way Believe Said Views Murder Agree Revenge Punishment Execution Death Penalty Capital Punishment Deterrent

Author:Albert Pierrepoint

“They sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable. Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species - we, in short - had the potential to construct an enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.”

Men Humans Enough Pain Force Effort Happened Cost Prove Species Constructs Death Penalty Human Species Irrevocable

Book:The Drowned and the Saved

Source: The Drowned and the Saved

“To exclude all jurors who would be in the slightest way effected by the prospect of the death penalty would be to deprive the defendant of the impartial jury to which he or she is entitled under the law.”

Way Would Be Law Entitled Penalties Death Penalty Jury Jurors

Author:Byron White

“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.”

Doe Crime Offers Guilty Tragic Penalties Death Penalty Life Death Heinous Crimes

Author:Joseph Fiorenza

“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.”

Fall Poor Members Burden Punishment Ignorant Penalties Evident Death Penalty Imprisonment Capital Punishment Deterrent Underprivileged

Author:Thurgood Marshall

“The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life who will proclaim, celebrate, and serve the Gospel of life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. I renew the appeal I made ... for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.”

Humans Made Ends Done Evil Christ Situation Cases Taken Dignity Celebrate Recognition Appeals Human Life Followers Unnecessary Penalties Consensus Death Penalty Pro Life

Author:Pope John Paul II

“If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call.”

Ifs Facts Failing Risk Effects Tough Murder Victim Killing Bunch Innocent Former Murderer Death Penalty Deterrent Innocent Victims

Author:John C. McAdams

“Sometimes you just have the thin the herd.”

Sometimes Death Penalty Herds

Author:Dennis Miller

“Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.”

Humans Political Death Politics Punishment Recognition Human Life Our Society Death Penalty Life Death Sanctity Capital Punishment Sanctity Of Life Sanctity Of Human Life

Author:Orrin Hatch

“The king governs without decapitation or (other) corporal punishments. Criminals are simply fined, lightly or heavily, according to the circumstances (of each case). Even in cases of repeated attempts at wicked rebellion, they only have their right hands cut off.”

People Country Hands Cases Cutting Kings Circumstances Creatures Criminals Punishment Wicked Rebellion Death Penalty Living Creatures Corporal Punishment

Author:Faxian

“The national laws of the five regions of India prescribe no cangue, beatings or prison. Those who are guilty are fined in accordance with the degree of the offence committed. There is no capital punishment.”

Law Five Degrees India Prison Committed Punishment Guilty Regions Death Penalty Offence Capital Punishment

Author:Hyecho

“The death penalty fulfills a preventive function, but it is also very clearly a form of revenge. It is an especially severe form of punishment because it is so final. The human life is ended and the executed person is deprived of the opportunity to change, to restore the harm done or compensate for it.”

Humans Persons Done Form Life Is Opportunity Function Finals Revenge Harm Punishment Human Life Penalties Severe Deprived Death Penalty Opportunity To Change

Author:Dalai Lama

“What you do to these men on California's Death Row, you do to God.”

Men California Death Penalty Death Row

Author:Mother Teresa

“I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . .”

Thinking Penalties Death Penalty Obscenity

Author:Desmond Tutu

“The death sentence is a barbaric act . . . It is a reflection of the animal instinct still in human beings.”

Humans Stills Human Beings Animal Reflection Instinct Sentences Death Penalty Barbaric Death Sentence Animal Instinct

Author:Nelson Mandela

“I cannot in all conscience agree to anyone being sent to the gallows. God alone can take life because He alone gives it . . .”

Giving Conscience Agree Death Penalty Gallows

Author:Mahatma Gandhi

“I have examined the death penalty under each of its two aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is sadly called "justice" when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed.”

“When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery. If not remedied, the scandalous state of our present system of capital punishment will cast a pall of shame over our society for years to come. We cannot let it continue.”

Source: Thurgood Marshall: His Speeches, Writings, Arguments, Opinions, and Reminiscences

“The same divine authority that forbids the killing of a human being establishes certain exceptions, as when God authorizes killing by a general law or when He gives an explicit commission to an individual for a limited time.”

Giving Humans Law Certain Individual Human Beings Divine Authority Killing Exception Death Penalty Explicit Limited Time

Author:Saint Augustine

“I was a supporter and believer in the death penalty, but I've begun to see that this system doesn't work and it isn't functional. It costs an obscene amount of money.”

Amount Cost Believer Penalties Supporter Law Enforcement Death Penalty Obscene

Author:Gil Garcetti

“By reserving the penalty of death for black defendants, or for the poor, or for those convicted of killing white persons, we perpetrate the ugly legacy of slavery-teaching our children that some lives are inherently less precious than others.”

Children Persons Black White Poor Teaching Our Children Slavery Killing Ugly Legacy Penalties Death Penalty

Author:Joseph Lowery

“Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.”

Moments Death Dying Months Mercy Murder Victim Deeds Criminals Monsters Punishment Horrible That Moment Penalties Private Life Death Penalty Confined Life Death Capital Punishment

Author:Albert Camus

“Frankly, I don't think you should perform in a plaza where thousands of Cubans have been subjected to the death penalty, by firing squad, including three young black men in 2003. What is needed in Cuba is a concert in favor of democracy, civil liberties for the people, the freedom of political prisoners, free elections and the expulsion of dictatorial power.”

“When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty.We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.”

People Needs Order Turns Realizing College Regret Contemplating Penalties Death Penalty Intimidating Traitor Walkers

Book:If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans

Source: If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans

“If the Pope were to deny that the death penalty could be an exercise of retributive justice, he would be overthrowing the tradition of two millenia of Catholic thought, denying the teaching of several previous popes, and contradicting the teaching of Scripture.”

Ifs Two Would Be Justice Teaching Exercise Tradition Catholic Deny Scripture Penalties Pope Death Penalty Contradicting Retributive Justice

Author:Avery Dulles

“Given my experience, I believe there are three compelling reasons why the death penalty should be replaced. (1) The criminal justice system makes mistakes and the possibility of executing innocent people is both inherently wrong and morally reprehensible; (2) My personal experience and crime data show the death penalty does not reduce crime; and (3) The death penalty wastes precious resources that could be best used to fight crime and solve thousands of unsolved homicides languishing in filing cabinets in understaffed police departments across the state.”

“Those of us who spent time in the agricultural sector and in the heartland, we understand how unfair the death penalty is.”

Heart Humor Political Unfair Penalties Death Penalty

Author:George W. Bush

“If I had admitted my guilt, it would have been the same as putting my head on the chopping block - lifetime ban. Death penalty. I spent my entire life on the baseball fields of America, and I was not going to give up my profession without first seeing some hard evidence ... right or wrong, the punishment didn't fit the crime, so I denied the crime.”

Source: My Prison Without Bars

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