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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
What you do to these men on California's Death Row, you do to God.
But these days, there's also a strong economic argument for doing away with capital punishment. With California facing its most severe fiscal crisis in recent memory... it would be crazy not to consider the fact that it will add as much as $1 billion over the next five years simply to keep the death penalty on the books.
Paris Hilton got 45 days in jail. A lot of people were upset about this - they were hoping for the death penalty.
The issue that a political campaign would make a human life into - you know - a political football, is unsettling.
It wasn't the intention to do something important, or to even relate about social issues. The ground is so fertile in the justice world, dealing with the death penalty and the Innocence Project, for characters that have a moral ambiguity, which we were both attracted to. It's the idea that everybody has their reasons. Whatever their actions are, whether you agree with them or not, you can understand why they're feeling that way, in terms of racism or even the death penalty.
Hollywood doesn't believe in the death penalty for anyone except people who get cable TV without paying for it. Hollywood is like being nowhere and talking to nobody about nothing.
The death penalty? Give me a break. It's easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state.
After Chernobyl, thousands and thousands of people, if not millions, were given a death penalty and had to pay the price, our father among them.
It's very rare that someone gets the death penalty for charges of conspiracy, for his influence, for his Svengali-Rasputin act.
I was in favour of the death penalty, and disposed to regard abolitionists as people whose hearts were bigger than their heads. Four years of close study of the subject gradually dispelled that feeling. In the end I became convinced that the abolitionists were right in their conclusions...and that far from the sentimental approach leading into their camp and the rational one into that of the supporters, it was the other way about.
Ajamu Baraka is a human rights advocate and an international human rights advocate, who's been defending racial justice, economic justice, worker justice, indigenous justice, and justice for black and brown people all over the world, and in the United States has been helping to lead the charge against the death penalty here, and is an extremely eloquent and empowering person. And one of the great things about running with him is that we speak to all of America.
The fact is that I'm also friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who, during his campaign, once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.
That's why I'm a big supporter of the death penalty. I want to be the hangman. I would put many more people to death like the kids who want to kill other people, I'd put 'em to death.
Look how in societies today where Islam is dominant and prominent, how any non-Islamic person, whether it's a Christian or an apostate or a woman or a critical journalist, how they are treated. This is in a very bad way, often with the death penalty or imprisonment or all those kind of terrible things.
You know who doesn't get the death penalty? Crazy people. That's a defense in America. My client's crazy. He doesn't know what he did. Fine, then he doesn't know we're gonna kill him. If a guy's that retard, you put him the electric chair and tell him it's a ride.
The court was not previously aware of the prisoner's many accomplishments. In view of these, we see fit to impose the death penalty.
I regard the death penalty as a savage and immoral institution that undermines the moral and legal foundations of society.
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