Top 115 Death Penalty Quotes

The possibility of sending an innocent person to their death is a reason why I’m against the death penalty.

I believe that the death penalty is an effective penalty.

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.

I don’t believe in the death penalty, but I understand personal vengeance.

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.

If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by my friends the murderers.

The death penalty has been one of many examples where racial discrimination has played out. You can see it in the simple fact that someone convicted of the same crime is more likely to face the death penalty if they are black.

Personally I am very much against the death penalty for several reasons.

To exclude all jurors who would be in the slightest way affected 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.

The death penalty in the U.S. has become a political tool – and it should never be that.

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.

The majority of Utah’s citizens do not merely approve the death penalty, they demand it – the state religion demands it.

My faith teaches that life is sacred. That’s why I personally oppose the death penalty. But I take my oath of office seriously, and I’ll enforce the death penalty… because it’s the law.

If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by my friends the murderers.

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.

If, through death penalty, we can create fears, though it’s against my will, we have to do it.

McVeigh’s lawyer got him the death penalty, which, quite frankly, I could have done.

Because values change, legislatures abolish the death penalty, permit same-sex marriage if they want, abolish laws against homosexual conduct. That’s how the change in a society occurs. Society doesn’t change through a Constitution.

We’re also the only country that has the Death Penalty. That’s something to boast about, isn’t it?

While I am a pro-life woman, I am also a woman who is concerned about rights for the disabled, maternity leave, the death penalty, health care, domestic violence, breastfeeding rights, etc.

I don’t want to put one innocent person to death to put 99 that are guilty to death. So philosophically I’m a tooth-for-tooth guy, but the reality is the death penalty as public policy is flawed.

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!

We must work to build a criminal-legal system that is deeply rooted in a love for humanity, which begins with ending the federal death penalty in our country.

The death penalty is being applied in the United States as a fatal lottery.

The death penalty not only takes away the life of the person strapped to the table – it takes away a little bit of the humanity in each of us.

Yes, I support the death penalty. It is an issue that cannot be fudged or hedged.

I don’t want to put one innocent person to death to put 99 that are guilty to death. So philosophically I’m a tooth-for-tooth guy, but the reality is the death penalty as public policy is flawed.

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.

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.

Almost all the early Christian Fathers were opposed to the death penalty, even though it was of course standard practice across the ancient world.

It has become increasingly difficult for states or the federal government to apply the death penalty. But why even try? Nothing is accomplished, and while the chances of making a mistake are now diminished – DNA can prove guilt as well as innocence – life in prison is a worthy substitute.

You can’t reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty.

For one, as I’ve written before, the death penalty is plainly unjust. When the number of wrongful convictions and death penalty cases that are eventually exonerated number in the hundreds, if not thousands, we can not call it a moral system.

When the state imposes the death penalty, it proclaims that taking one human life counterbalances the taking of another life. This assumption is profoundly mistaken.

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.

The death penalty has been one of many examples where racial discrimination has played out. You can see it in the simple fact that someone convicted of the same crime is more likely to face the death penalty if they are black.

States without the death penalty have had consistently lower murder rates. And national murder rates have declined steadily since 1992, despite fewer executions.

McVeigh’s lawyer got him the death penalty, which, quite frankly, I could have done.

It’s absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may – may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it’s clear that – that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.

But I’m not pro death penalty. I – I’m just anti the notion that it is not a matter for democratic choice, that it has been taken away from the democratic choice of the people by a provision of the Constitution.

I am against the death penalty.

I believe life imprisonment is far worse than the death penalty.

It’s absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may – may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it’s clear that – that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.

The death penalty question should be put on the agenda in Hungary.

You can’t reconcile being pro-life on abortion and pro-death on the death penalty.

Do I favor the death penalty? Theoretically, I do, but when you realize that there’s a 4 percent error rate, you end up putting guilty people to death.

I think life is sacred, whether it’s abortion or the death penalty.

No politician after the Nixon-Agnew years would say, ‘I was against the death penalty,’ because they replaced ‘soft on communism’ with ‘soft on crime.’ You just see the horror of this thing.

While I oppose the death penalty as a policy matter, in a legal culture in which we reserve the right to execute people for relatively routine street crimes, it seems quite absurd for the justice system to get squeamish about executing the operational masterminds of Sept. 11.

My nation wants the death penalty. That is the decision of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

When I arrived in France aged 20, I marched against the death penalty, which was an unpopular thing to protest against at the time.

I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

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!

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.

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.

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.

I am against the death penalty.

I don’t believe in death penalty even though my background is soldiering.

No country can become an E.U. member state if it introduces the death penalty.

Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious – and therefore immoral – I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.