Death Penalty quotes:

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I am against the death penalty. -- Andrew Cuomo
The death penalty is discriminatory and does not do anything about crime. -- Bobby Scott
McVeigh's lawyer got him the death penalty, which, quite frankly, I could have done. -- Jon Stewart
We have abolished the death penalty for humans, so why should it continue for animals? -- Brigitte Bardot
I support the death penalty. But I also think there has to be no margin for error. -- George Ryan
Our law is a Jordanian law that we inherited, which applies to both the West Bank and Gaza, and sets the death penalty for those who sell land to Israelis. -- Yasser Arafat
You know, the Bible is so clear. Go to Genesis chapter nine and you will find the death penalty clearly stated in Genesis chapter nine... God ordains the death penalty! -- Rafael Cruz
For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium. -- Albert Camus
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
I come from the state of Michigan. We were the first English-speaking government in the world to outlaw the death penalty, back in the 1840s. We have never had, as a state, the death penalty in Michigan. I was raised with that, and even Republicans in Michigan, nobody would even think of putting a measure on the ballot to have the death penalty. -- Michael Moore
Do they deserve to die?" but "Do we deserve to kill them? -- Helen Prejean
The death penalty is becoming a way of life in this country. -- Dennis Miller
I think life is sacred, whether it's abortion or the death penalty. -- Tim Kaine
You can't reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty. -- N. T. Wright
To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice. -- Desmond Tutu
The death penalty is being applied in the United States as a fatal lottery. -- Bianca Jagger
We're also the only country that has the Death Penalty. That's something to boast about, isn't it? -- Tony Randall
I Don't Want To Live Long. I Would Rather Get The Death Penalty Than Spend The Rest Of My Life In Prison -- Theodore Kaczynski
Only in America can you be Pro-Death Penalty, Pro-War, Pro-Unmanned Drone Bombs, Pro-Nuclear Weapons, Pro-Guns, Pro-Torture, Pro-Land Mines, AND still call yourself 'Pro-Life.' -- John Fugelsang
If a Muslim becomes a non-Muslim and propagates his/her new religion, then it is as good as treason. There is a Death Penalty in Islam for such a person. -- Zakir Naik
The death penalty experiment has failed. -- Harry A. Blackmun
I believe in the death penalty. -- James Dobson
I'm actually really opposed to the death penalty. -- Bill Paxton
Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders. -- Albert Camus
Capital punihsment: That without the Capital get the punishment. -- John Spenkelink
First of all, it does not deter crime, the death penalty. -- Patricia Cornwell
Personally I am very much against the death penalty for several reasons. -- Alan Parker
People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty. -- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
I think more people would be alive today if there were a death penalty. -- Nancy Reagan
I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty. -- Nancy Reagan
Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty... mine's putting in an express lane. -- Ron White
Yes, I support the death penalty. It is an issue that cannot be fudged or hedged. -- Dianne Feinstein
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If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by my friends the murderers. -- Alphonse Karr
If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by our friends the murderers. -- Alphonse Karr
I will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate. -- Jack Kevorkian
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
My overriding belief is that it is always possible for criminals to improve and that by its very finality the death penalty contradicts this. -- Dalai Lama
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
My father was against the death penalty, and that was hard in the Son of Sam summer when fear was driving the desire for the death penalty. -- Andrew Cuomo
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
The reality is that capital punishment in America is a lottery. It is a punishment that is shaped by the constraints of poverty, race, geography and local politics. -- Bryan Stevenson
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
It should be clear that the death penalty does just the opposite of promoting decency and respect for life. It dehumanizes people and promotes murder. It can never be applied fairly. -- John Morrison
My objection to the death penalty is based on the idea that this is a democracy, and in a democracy the government is me, and if the government kills somebody then I'm killing somebody. -- Steve Earle
No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Sometimes I can tackle an issue -homelessness, tobacco litigation, insurance fraud, the death penalty - and wrap a good story around it. These are the best books, the ones with a story and a message. -- John Grisham
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
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
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. -- Byron White
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
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
There's a War Crimes Act in the United States passed by a Republican Congress in 1996, which says that grave breaches of the Geneva Convention are subject to the death penalty. And that doesn't mean the soldier that committed them - that means the commanders. -- Noam Chomsky
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
Our criminal justice system is fallible. We know it, even though we don't like to admit it. It is fallible despite the best efforts of most within it to do justice. And this fallibility is, at the end of the day, the most compelling, persuasive, and winning argument against a death penalty. -- Eliot Spitzer
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
It can be argued that rapists deserve to be raped, that mutilators deserve to be mutilated. Most societies, however, refrain from responding in this way because the punishment is not only degrading to those on whom it is imposed, but it is also degrading to the society that engages in the same behavior as the criminals. -- Stephen Bright
I don't have any authority to talk about the domestic policies of America. But as an outsider, I am mystified by the fact that you are encouraged to buy a gun, but if you use it for the purpose that it is expressly designed for, you get the death penalty. That aspect of America is kind of mystifying. -- Nick Cave
The death penalty issue is obviously a divisive one. But whether one is for or against, you can not deny the basic illogic - if we know the system is flawed, if we know there are innocent people on Death Row, then until the system is reformed, should we not abandon the death penalty to protect those who are innocent? -- Richard LaGravenese
We as Americans believe it's OK to kill people. We believe it's OK to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. We think it's OK to invade a country where we think Osama Bin Laden is and he's in the other country. So we just go in and we just kill. And we have the death penalty; we sanction it. -- Michael Moore
Remember, the death penalty is murder. -- Robert Drew
I'm for a stronger death penalty. -- George W. Bush
The death penalty makes us all murderers. -- Dean Smith
I am not anti-death penalty, but I'm damned sure anti-the-wrong-guy-getting-executed. -- Kinky Friedman
The death penalty is reserved for people who do not -- Paul Simon
I think the death penalty's easier than life in prison, -- Pamela Smart
God in His law requires the death penalty for homosexuals. -- R.J. Rushdoony
I support the death penalty and will continue to do that. -- Rick Santorum
How can anyone be against abortion but for the death penalty -- Loesje
If you're stealing a television, that should not be the death penalty. -- Jesse Ventura
I'm excited we can be part of making the death penalty history. -- Shane Claiborne
We need to acknowledge that the death penalty is broken beyond repair. -- George Gascon
I have evolved to where I don't think the death penalty is effective. -- Evelyn Lundberg Stratton
The penalty for planting the wrong thing in the wrong place is death. -- Cassandra Danz
The death penalty doesn't need your assent to continue ... it needs your indifference. -- Ray Krone
Homicide's illegal and death is the penalty What justifies the homicide when he dies? -- Masta Killa
I believe that the death penalty is the ultimate deterrent to violent crime...period. -- Troy King
[I support] term limits for career politicians and the death penalty for career politicians. -- Bill Frist
Life is indeed precious, and I believe the death penalty helps affirm this fact. -- Ed Koch
I want to accelerate, not slow down, the enforcement of the death penalty in Florida. -- Jeb Bush
The attorney general doesn't favor one method or the other, he favors the death penalty. -- Bob Butterworth
The system is not perfect. Until it's perfect, let's do away with the death penalty. -- Kinky Friedman
The death penalty is inhumane... whether that person is in a [jail] or it's bin Laden. -- Danny Glover
I'm very glad that [the death penalty] hasn't existed for many years in the U.K. -- Hilary Swank
May the death penalty, an unworthy punishment still used in some countries, be abolished throughout the world. -- Pope John Paul II
As a Christian, as an individual, as a doctor, I am absolutely opposed to the death penalty. -- Joycelyn Elders
Given the irreversibility of the death penalty, the possibility of a wrongful conviction can never be overstated -- George Gascon
It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty. -- Anthony Kennedy
Most conservatives also believe in the death penalty, but not abortion, which proves they like to procrastinate. -- Margaret Cho
Now I am dedicating that life to campaigning against the death penalty and raising awareness about human rights. -- Hafez Ibrahim
Only the doctor and the judge have the right to inflict the death penalty without receiving the same. -- Philemon
I'm pro-death penalty, but what I have not seen is anybody that would mock someone on death row. -- Gary Bauer
I was badly mauled by people in New York State for being against the death penalty for 12 years. -- Mario Cuomo
For me the hardest struggle in my faith life was the Catholic Church is against the death penalty. -- Tim Kaine
Jesus has borne the death penalty on our behalf. Behold the wonder! There He hang upon the cross! -- Charles Spurgeon
I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone . . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity . . . -- Desmond Tutu
I'm for the death penalty, I'm pro-abortion, I'm pro-assisted suicide, I'm pro-regular suicide. Anything that'll get the traffic moving. -- Bill Maher
I support guns and I support the death penalty. Half of my interviews are convincing liberals they're not liberal. -- Ann Coulter
I think [the death penalty is] very expensive, and the delays are inordinate, delaying closure for the victims' families. -- Rob McKenna
Now let me get this straight. Bush is anti-abortion, but pro-death penalty. I guess it's all in the timing, huh? -- Dennis Miller
The death penalty symbolizes whom we fear and don't fear, whom we care about and whose lives are not valid. -- Bryan Stevenson
The death penalty would be even more effective, as a deterrent, if we executed a few innocent people more often. -- Edward Abbey
It's very rare that someone gets the death penalty for charges of conspiracy, for his influence, for his Svengali-Rasputin act. -- Raymond Pettibon
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
Standing alone among great democratic nations in imposing the death penalty is another moral decision that Americansare being forced to confront. -- Jimmy Carter
This case has had full analyzation and has been looked at a lot. I understand the emotionality of death penalty cases. -- George W. Bush
My main area of activism is the death penalty, and it will continue to be once this crisis is over with. -- Steve Earle
You see,' [Armand] said, 'killing other vampires is very exciting; that is why it is forbidden under penalty of death. -- Anne Rice
I am not a proponent of the death penalty, but I will enforce the law as this Congress gives it to us. -- Eric Holder
Paris Hilton got 45 days in jail. A lot of people were upset about this - they were hoping for the death penalty. -- Jay Leno
Those of us who spent time in the agricultural sector and in the heartland, we understand how unfair the death penalty is. -- George W. Bush
'Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death. -- Marquis de Sade
Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death. -- Marquis de Sade
I haven't committed all the crimes in my movies, I would have gotten the death penalty many years ago if I had. -- John Waters
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
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
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
Prosecutors must reveal the dirty little secret they too often share only among themselves: The death penalty actually hinders the fight against crime. -- Robert M. Morgenthau
[Conservative talk radio hosts] have conned the American people into thinking there is such a thing as a pro-life, pro-war, pro-gun, pro-death penalty Christian. -- Janeane Garofalo
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

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