Marquis de Lafayette Quotes

'Til the infallibility of human judgements shall have been proved to me, I shall demand the abolition of the penalty of death.

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

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.

Those who favor capital punishment do so in the name of justice. Can there be any argument against insisting that it be imposed justly—and not on the wrong people.

I don't agree with capital punishment as it is now, because too often mistakes are made. But I think that if you eliminate the mistakes, then there are times when it is justified.

I think it is obscene that we should believe that we are entitled to end somebody's life, no matter what that person has supposedly done or not done.

I am passionately opposed to capital punishment, and I have been all my life.

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

The death penalty saves lives.

I hope that America will do away with the death penalty. I truly believe we are better than that.

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.

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 will admit, like Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and some other philosophers, that there are instances where the death penalty would seem appropriate.

Everybody believes that capital punishment is wrong, but when they look at certain cases, they're quick to say, 'Put them to death,' or scream 'capital punishment.'

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

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.

The death penalty is discriminatory and does not do anything about crime.

I'm actually really opposed to the death penalty.

The death penalty issue is obviously a divisive one. But whether one is for or against, you can not deny the basic illogic - if we know the system is flawed, if we know there are innocent people on Death Row, then until the system is reformed, should we not abandon the death penalty to protect those who are innocent?

Capital punishment is our society's recognition of the sanctity of human life.

Countries and states which have capital punishment have a much higher rate of murder and crime than countries that do not, so that makes sense to me, and the moral question - I struggle with it morally.

You know the good part about all those executions in Texas? Fewer Texans.

I shall ask for the abolition for the punishment of death until I have the infallibility of human judgment demonstrated to me.

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.

I would like to see capital punishment suppressed in all democracies.