Capital punishment
55 quotes
Biography
"The abolition of capital punishment, surely coming, is delayed by God's edict, "He that sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," and God's servants have ever been the opponents of this humane reform. Witchcraft has been believed in and men and women have been killed because God said, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.""
"The punishment of death is pernicious to society, from the example of barbarity it affords. If the passions, or the necessity of war, have taught men to shed the blood of their fellow creatures, the laws, which are intended to moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase it by examples of barbarity, the more horrible as this punishment is usually attended with formal pageantry. Is it not absurd, that the laws, which detest and punish homicide, should, in order to prevent murder, publicly commit murder themselves?"
"Death is an unusually severe and degrading punishment; there is a strong probability that it is inflicted arbitrarily; its rejection by contemporary society is virtually total; and there is no reason to believe that it serves any penal purpose more effectively than the less severe punishment of imprisonment. The function of these principles is to enable a court to determine whether a punishment comports with human dignity. Death, quite simply, does not. When this country was founded, memories of the Stuart horrors were fresh and severe corporal punishments were common. Death was not then a unique punishment. The practice of punishing criminals by death, moreover, was widespread and by and large acceptable to society. Indeed, without developed prison systems, there was frequently no workable alternative. Since that time, successive restrictions, imposed against the background of a continuing moral controversy, have drastically curtailed the use of this punishment. Today death is a uniquely and unusually severe punishment."
"Bran Stark: Our way is the old way."
"Ned Stark: The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword."
"To the left of the stairway was an opaque glass door with a sign that read: SOCIETY FOR THE ABOLISHMENT OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. The door was locked but the next morning, I knew, the stiff-looking lady with the bleached blond hair would be back at her typewriter. What did one do to abolish capital punishment? I wondered. I had asked Father one day what capital punishment meant. "Killing," said Father, "but they are wasting their time." How strange, I had thought, to waste one's time sitting at a typewriter all day long to abolish something that was already against the law."
"The chief and worst pain may not be in the bodily suffering but in one's knowing for certain that in an hour, and then in ten minutes, and then in half a minute, and then now, at the very moment, the soul will leave the body and that one will cease to be a man and that that's bound to happen; the worst part of it is that it's certain. When you lay your head down under the knife and hear the knife slide over your head, that quarter of a second is the most terrible of all. You know this is not only my imagination, many people have said the same. I believe that so thoroughly that I'll tell you what I think To kill for murder is a punishment incomparably worse than the crime itself. Murder by legal sentence is immeasurably more terrible than murder by brigands."
"I have reached the conviction that the abolition of the death penalty is desirable. Reasons: 1) Irreparability in the event of an error of justice, 2) Detrimental moral influence of the execution procedure on those who, whether directly or indirectly, have to do with the procedure."
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
"Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good. Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption. Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide."
"I still support the death penalty — not because it’s a deterrent or a fitting act of vengeance, but because, properly carried out, it is the only penalty that truly reflects the enormous value of innocent life. There are times when it is the only punishment that truly fits the crime. It is for this reason that the same scriptures that so clearly direct the children of Israel to “choose life” also direct that “whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Nor was the power of the sword taken from government by the New Testament. To the contrary, in Romans 13, Paul explicitly acknowledges that the power of the sword should rest with government, and that it holds “terror” for those who do wrong."
"I would draw distinction between killing and detention and even corporal punishment. I think there is a difference not merely in quantity but also in quality. I can recall the punishment of detention. I can make reparation to the man upon whom I inflict corporal punishment. But once a man is killed, the punishment is beyond recall or reparation. God alone can take life, because He alone gives it."
"The pain was maddening. You should pray to God when you're dying, if you can pray when you're in agony. In my dream I didn't pray to God, I thought of Roger and how dearly I loved him. The pain of those wicked flames was not half so bad as the pain I felt when I knew he was dead. I felt suddenly glad to be dying. I didn't know when you were burnt to death you'd bleed. I thought the blood would all dry up in the terrible heat. But I was bleeding heavily. The blood was dripping and hissing in the flames. I wished I had enough blood to put the flames out. The worst part was my eyes. I hate the thought of gong blind. It's bad enough when I'm awake but in dreams you can't shake the thoughts away. They remain. In this dream I was going blind. I tried to close my eyelids but I couldn't. They must have been burnt off, and now those flames were going to pluck my eyes out with their evil fingers, I didn't want to go blind. The flames weren't so cruel after all. They began to feel cold. Icy cold. It occurred to me that I wasn't burning to death but freezing to death."
"Many of us do not believe in capital punishment, because thus society takes from a man what society cannot give."
"If we could do away with death, we wouldn’t object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time."
"Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life."
"Death penalty is the special and eternal sign of barbarism. Where death penalty is applied, barbarism dominates; where death penalty is rare, civilisation reigns."
"Three things belong to God and do not belong to men: the irrevocable, the irreparable and the indissoluble. Woe to men if they introduce it in their laws!"
"... Like lightning the swords fell on the outermost prisoners, then on the three by their sides, and so on the next rows in rapid succession The knives were used but in two or three instances in cutting off those heads which had not fallen at the first blow. Everything was over in a minute or two. The s had moved off with their escort, the executioners followed them into the city, when as customary, friends or relations appeared with coffins and removed some of the bodies, others being carried for burial in a on the east side of the city. The prisoners on these occasions are brought to the ground in new suits of blue cotton cloth, which become the property of the burial party, while one or two heads are thrown into a large cage of iron bars, on one side of the execution ground, and left there as a warning to evil-doers. It is a well-known and a remarkable fact, that substitutes may often be found for a very small sum to undergo the last penalty. Men appear at the prison and offer themselves, instigated by some such such motive as the extreme poverty of aged parents, to whom the money agreed upon shall be paid after the execution. This is looked upon as a proof of , one of the first virtues, and as the law is satisfied, a life for a life, the arrangement is granted by the authorities, except in cases of treason to the , when the more frightful penalty is inflicted called or cutting into small pieces. This punishment is also imposed in cases of or , and no substitute allowed."
"“For the most part, executions happen in obscurity. If people did hear about executions, if they were publicized, even televised, I fear more would enjoy them than be repelled by them.”"
"You guys in AZ are life savers."
"Yea, such is the law of England, the tenderest law in the world of a man's life. I say again, that no such trial for life is to be found in the world, as in England. In any place but in England, a man's life may be taken away upon two or three witnesses; but in England two or three witnesses do not do it: For there are two juries besides, and you have four-and-twenty men returned; you have one-and-twenty men upon their oaths and consciences that have found you guilty: And yet when you have done that, it is not enough by the law of England, but you are also to have twelve rational understanding men of your neighbours to hear all over again, and to pass upon your life. This is not used in any law in the world but in England, which hath the most righteous and most merciful law in the world."
"I do not think God approves the death penalty for any crime—rape and murder included. God’s concern is to improve individuals and bring them to the point of conversion. Even criminology has repudiated the motive of punishment in favor of the reformation of the criminal. Shall a good God harbor resentment? Since the purpose of jailing a criminal is that of reformation rather than retribution—improving him rather than paying him back for some crime that he has done—it is highly inconsistent to take the life of a criminal. How can he improve if his life is taken? Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God."
"Death penalty: The death penalty will not solve the problem of crime, but it is more than merely symbolic. There are some people who commit murder that so subvert society that they deserve nothing less than a death sentence. I believe, as does the Supreme Court, that some people will be deterred by it."
"There has to be a risk of the death sentence in order for 'mastery' to exist."