Against Death Penalty Quotes

• Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Kings, Stars, Hate

  "Where do we go from here: Chaos or community?". Book by Martin Luther King, 1967.

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• Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life.

  Coretta Scott King

  Justice, Death Penalty, Human Life

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• Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Death, Wise, Giving

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Lord of the Rings: One Volume”, p.53, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Expression, Punishment, Death Penalty

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• An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed in retaliation.

  Coretta Scott King

  Evil, Deeds, Death Penalty

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• Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.

  Albert Camus

  Punishment, Death Penalty, Murder

  "Reflections on the Guillotine". Book by Albert Camus, 1957.

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• Since I was a law student, I have been against the death penalty. It does not deter. It is severely discriminatory against minorities, especially since they're given no competent legal counsel defense in many cases. It's a system that has to be perfect. You cannot execute one innocent person. No system is perfect. And to top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics it, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole.

  Ralph Nader

  Law, Innocent Person, Perfect

  "Meet the Press" Interview, June 25, 2000.

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• 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

  Reality, Race, Punishment

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• With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don't think it's human to become an agent of the angel of death.

  Elie Wiesel

  Memories, Believe, Angel

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• 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.

  Helen Prejean

  Government, Citizens, Death Penalty

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• Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protecting society, fulfill that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others? The forfeiture of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process.

  Kofi Annan

  Levels, Death Penalty, Life Is

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• Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Fellowship, Death Penalty, Lord Of The Ring

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Lord of the Rings: One Volume”, p.53, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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

  Criminals, Belief, Death Penalty

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• 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

  Punishment, People, Trials

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• 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

  People, Locks, Favors

  "Bill Moyers talks with John Grisham". "Bill Moyers Journal" with Bill Moyers, www.pbs.org. January 25, 2008.

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• 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

  Government, Ideas, Democracy

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• I support the death penalty. But I also think there has to be no margin for error.

  George Ryan

  Thinking, Errors, Support

  "Death penalty officially ends in Illinois". www.wbez.org. July 1, 2011.

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• 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

  Winning, Best Effort, Justice

  "All Police Interrogations Should Be Tape-Recorded" by Eliot Spitzer, www.slate.com. October 08, 2012.

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• Perhaps the bleakest fact of all is that the death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.

  William J. Brennan

  Facts, Death Penalty, Innocent

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• People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Punishment, People, Trials

  "10 Ways to Blow a Death Penalty Case" by Marc Bookman, www.motherjones.com. April 22, 2014.

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• I am pleased that I am able to stand here today and say with a pure heart and meaningful heart that I am against the death penalty. There is no purpose that it serves except to further the damage that death has already done.

  Mamie Till

  Meaningful, Heart, Purpose

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• To top it off, for those of you who are interested in the economics, it costs more to pursue a capital case toward execution than it does to have full life imprisonment without parole.

  Ralph Nader

  Doe, Cost, Execution

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

  Alphonse Karr

  Friendship, Death, Taken

  'Les Guêpes' January 1849

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• From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.

  Harry A. Blackmun

  Tinkering, Death Penalty, Human Rights

  Callins v.Collins (dissenting opinion) (1994)

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• I am against the death penalty.

  Andrew Cuomo

  Death Penalty, Penalties

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