Richard Cohen Quotes
It has become increasingly difficult for states or the federal government to apply the death penalty. But why even try? Nothing is accomplished, and while the chances of making a mistake are now diminished - DNA can prove guilt as well as innocence - life in prison is a worthy substitute.
Cohen, Richard. "The death penalty's pointless persistence." The Washington Post, 4 May 2015.
More and more evidence had been mounting that innocent men had been mistakenly sentenced to death throughout the country and Texas executed more people than any other state.
One of the first actions after the revolution was to abolish the capital punishment used so arbitrarily by the Czars. It was even abolished for the army. Later, when more control over the population was needed, it was reinstated.
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}.
Richard Martin Cohen is an American writer best known for his syndicated column in The Washington Post, which he wrote from 1976 to 2019.
