The death penalty experiment has failed.
I am passionately opposed to the death penalty for anyone. . . I think, myself, that it is an obscenity. . .
The death penalty is barbaric. And I think we as a society need to come face-to-face with that. If we're not willing to face up to the cruelty, we ought not to be doing it.
Evidence of innocence is irrelevant!
Capital punihsment: That without the Capital get the punishment.
Standing alone among great democratic nations in imposing the death penalty is another moral decision that Americansare being forced to confront.
For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
Our ancestors. . . purged their guilt by banishment, not death. And by so doing, they stopped that endless vicious cycle of murder and revenge.
Government. . . can't be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.
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.
The system is not perfect. Until it's perfect, let's do away with the death penalty.
I support the death penalty and will continue to do that.
What you do to these men on California's Death Row, you do to God.
Now I am dedicating that life to campaigning against the death penalty and raising awareness about human rights.
The death penalty only should be - if you agree with it, which I don't, only allowed for murder. You have to murder someone to get the death penalty.
I believe that the death penalty is the ultimate deterrent to violent crime. . . period.
I have come to think that capital punishment should be abolished.
In all religions, we make a choice about what we emphasize, and I choose to come down on the side of a loving God.
Eliminating the death penalty. . . will not hinder the prosecutorial capacity to seek, or the court's ability to impose, 'life without parole' sentences for serious, heinous crimes and criminals.
To condemn someone to death is to surrender; it proves that you failed. You are not able to change him, to change her; you have to kill him or her. You surrender. . . . You only demonstrate your lack of capacity, your helplessness. This is failure.