Harry A. Blackmun Quotes
I feel morally and intellectually required to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.
Harry A. Blackmun, 1908-1999, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Quoted on C-SPAN, Book TV, March 5, 2005
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Elliott had electrocuted over 400 condemned criminals including Sacco and Vanzetti and the first woman who was electrocuted.
Although this is generally followed as a legal principle in America, states like Texas have executed felons who most other jurisdictions would see as Coke’s “mad man.”
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}.
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.
