Joseph R. Biden Jr. Quotes
For God's sake, if you acknowledge that you should not put children to death, acknowledge that you should not put to death the mentally retarded.
Joseph R. Biden Jr., Vice President of the United States (Democrat, DE), U. S. Senator (Democrat, DE), Senate Debate, May 25, 1990
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Kennedy, who had supported the Juvenile death penalty in a 1989 case, but by 2005 he had changed his mind and the court by a narrow 5-4 vote abolished the juvenile death penalty.
Einstein had changed his mind. He like almost everyone else at the time favored the death penalty, but in 1927 came to the new conclusion for the same reasons that many American politicians stated 70 years later. He had no compunctions against capital punishment for murderers who were dangers to society, but the potential error of the justice system led him to oppose state sanctioned execution. At the time the number of errors in capital cases that had been demonstrated were few. But as a scientist, Einstein knew that all human endeavors were prone to error. He was a strong law and order supporter however—see {588606}.
This is the earliest surviving attempt of the Romans to formulate a legal code.
The capital punishment debate was raging in Europe. Belgium and parts of Switzerland had just abolished the death penalty.
In his early career, her supported capital punishment, but changed his mind as can be seen in this quotation.
The Abenaki Indians from Canada had come South and raided many of the settlements of upstate New York. In the process, they committed many atrocities killing civilian men, women and children. Amhurst ordered Robert Rogers and his rangers to attack the Abenaki home villiage in Canada on a famous punitive raid. The Rangers, did indeed, raid the Abenaki and wiped out all the males of the tribe that were in the camp at the time. Amhurst hated Indians, but still had his standards regarding the killing of women and children, but was perfectly willing to kill all the mature males. There were no Geneva Conventions at the time. The same general introduced biological warfare by giving Indians smallpox infected blankets. See {619646}
This quotation produced an angry reaction by extreme conservatives. Some anti-intellectual conservatives feel that there should never be any consideration given in American Jurisprudence to any ideas, laws, practices, or even scientific studies emanating from foreign counties. This was especially offensive to them because the reference to foreigners was made in a case that involved capital punishment. Execution of juveniles is one of the factors that has prevented the U.S. Senate from ratifying the United Nations Treaty on the Rights of the Child after it has been signed and then endorsed by administrations of both major political parties. America has been a pioneer of children’s rights, but the two sticking points are capital punishment and the right of a parent to apply corporal punishment at parental discretion which are banned by the Treaty.
Rosemary Barkett, Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, was nominated to the U. S. Court of Appeals. In her previous role she had upheld over 200 death sentences. Nonetheless, Senator Hatch, an advocate of capital punishment, held up her swift confirmation.
The most common example that capital punishment does not work as a deterrent is that while thieves were being hung for their crime, other thieves would circulate among the watching crowd at the scaffold and pickpocket the observers.
At the time, the dependence on Saudi oil inhibited American criticism . This began to change in the 21st century.
Her view was only held by a few British citizens. Capital Punishment was ended in Britain.
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is an American politician who is the 46th president of the United States. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under Barack Obama and represented Delaware in the United States Senate from 1973 to 2009.; Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden Jr. was the 47th Vice President of the United States, having been jointly elected twice with President Barack Obama. A member of the Democratic Party, Biden represented Delaware as a United States Senator from 1973 until becoming Vice President in 2009.
