One of the more difficult tasks for me as president was to decide on the issue of confirming capital punishment awarded by courts... to my surprise... almost all cases which were pending had a social and economic bias.
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
There are things I take sides about, like capital punishment, which it seems to me there is only one side about: it is evil. But there are two or three sides to sexual harassment, and the moment you get into particular cases, there is injustice in every conceivable direction. It's a mess.
A. S. Byatt
The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment - in deterrence, and perhaps most of all in the meting out of condign justice for horrible crimes - outweighs the risk of error.
Antonin Scalia
I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.
Benjamin Tucker
And capital punishment, however ineffective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act, - at least in theory.
But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder.
I think capital punishment works great. Every killer you kill never kills again.
Bill Maher
If the executioner goes, my package will never be made public. If he doesn't go, it will be made public exactly fifty years from the day the bill for a moratorium on capital punishment is defeated.
Caryl Chessman
If someone were to say that life at hard labor is as painful as death and therefore equally cruel, I should reply that, taking all the unhappy moments of perpetual slavery together, it is perhaps even more painful, but these moments are spread out over a lifetime, and capital punishment exercises all its power in an instant.
Cesare Beccaria
Countries and states which have capital punishment have a much higher rate of murder and crime than countries that do not, so that makes sense to me, and the moral question - I struggle with it morally.
Charlize Theron
Crimes against children are the most heinous crime. That, for me, would be a reason for capital punishment because children are innocent and need the guidance of an adult society.
Clint Eastwood
Opponents of capital punishment argue that the state has no right to take a murderer's life. Apparently, one fact that abolitionists forget or overlook is that the state is acting not only on behalf of society, but also on behalf of the murdered person and the murdered person's family.
Dennis Prager
The long and distressing controversy over capital punishment is very unfair to anyone meditating murder.
Geoffrey Fisher
Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.
Henry Ford
What becomes a crime deserving capital punishment when the tables are turned is a matter of small moment when the negro woman is the accusing party.
Ida B. Wells
I should not regret a fair and full trial of the entire abolition of capital punishment.
James Madison
Everybody believes that capital punishment is wrong, but when they look at certain cases, they're quick to say, 'Put them to death,' or scream 'capital punishment.'
Jeff Lindsay
I don't agree with capital punishment as it is now, because too often mistakes are made. But I think that if you eliminate the mistakes, then there are times when it is justified.
As an American I wanted to explore... why are we the only first world country that still has capital punishment? Is it because we're too afraid to really examine the system, or is it because we really truly believe that this is the best way to deter future crime?
Jodi Picoult
This country is becoming increasingly authoritarian. It's based on capital punishment.
Kate Millett
Suicide is possible, but not probable; hanging, I trust, is even more unlikely; for I hope that, by the time I die, my countrymen will have become civilised enough to abolish capital punishment.
I would like to see capital punishment suppressed in all democracies.
Capital punishment is the source of many an argument, both good and bad.
I'm always theoretically opposed to capital punishment as a matter of policy; like, I don't believe a state should put its citizens to death.
Capital punishment is neither cruel nor unusual.
My wife runs the charity Reprieve, and so rendition, droning, and capital punishment are very much the topics of our dinner table because of that.
Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.
As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent people won't be put to death.
It's time to join the ranks of nations that have put the ugliness of capital punishment behind them.
There's only one reason to be crucified under the Roman Empire, and that is for treason or sedition. Crucifixion, we have to understand, was not actually a form of capital punishment for Rome. In fact, it was often the case that the criminal would be killed first and then crucified.
I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.
The grieving are surely owed our empathy, but capital punishment can neither right a wrong nor prevent another from happening.
I'm very much interested in getting prisons off the stock market. I'm very much interested in upgrading the public school system... and taking a second look at capital punishment.
If the Old Testament were a reliable guide in the matter of capital punishment, half the people in the United States would have to be killed tomorrow.
I support capital punishment. But let's be clear: It's a decision for each state to make.
In countries with a properly functioning legal system, the mob continues to exist, but it is rarely called upon to mete out capital punishment. The right to take human life belongs to the state. Not so in societies where weak courts and poor law enforcement are combined with intractable structural injustices.
I contend that it's impossible to read the Sermon on the Mount and not come out against capital punishment.
