Harry A. Blackmun Quotes
I am more optimistic though, that this court will eventually conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness in the infliction of [death] is so plainly doomed to failure that is - and the death penalty - must be abandoned altogether. I may not live to see that day, but I have faith that eventually it will arrive.
Blackmun, Harry A. Dissenting Opinion. Callins v. Collins, 510 U.S. 1141, Supreme Court of the United States, 22 Feb. 1994, p. 1159.
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}.
The book was very critical of the way capitol punishment is meted out in Singapore. The Singapore Attorney General’s Office then claimed that the book had brought disrespect on the courts of Singapore by being so critical and tried him for “criminal defamation”. Shadrake was fined $30,000 and when he planned on publishing a second edition he was tried again and threatened with Jail. The fundamental problem is that if part of a nation’s government is corrupt, ineffective or incompetent and someone tells that to the public, there will certainly be less respect for the institution. So demanding respect, is tantamount to abandoning freedom of speech in general and criticism of the government in particular,
Harry Andrew Blackmun was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 until 1994. Appointed by Republican President Richard Nixon, Blackmun ultimately became one of the most liberal justices on the Court. He is best known as the author of the Court's opinion in Roe v. Wade, which prohibits many state and federal restrictions on abortion.
