Potter Stewart Quotes

The death penalty is being applied in the United States as a fatal lottery.

The system of death-penalty justice is compromised and inequitable.

The death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, and the appeals process is expensive and cruel to the surviving family members.

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

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

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?

I’m not necessarily against the death penalty. But I am damn sure against the wrong man getting executed.

The death penalty saves lives.

We cannot allow the spectacle of constant executions to be swept under the rug. We know that already over 100 individuals who were put on death row have been released. And we should shudder to think how many people have been sent to their deaths that were innocent.

I believe it contrary to any standard of decency to execute someone who is actually innocent. The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder.

The death penalty in the U.S. has become a political tool - and it should never be that.

I was put on death row because of hate.

Being on death row has taken so much from me as a human being.

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.

The death penalty, I think, is a terrible scar on American justice, especially the concept of equal justice under law, but also of due process. And it goes state by state, and it's different in different states.

I am pro-death penalty, but not an enthusiastic death-penalty person. I think there's a place for it, that it should serve as a deterrent.

The death penalty is becoming a way of life in this country.

I don't think I would want the responsibility for enforcing the death penalties. There's always the inevitable question of whether someone you gave the order to execute might truly have been innocent.

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.'

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

It's absolutely clear that whatever cruel and unusual punishments may - may mean with regard to future things, such as death by injection or the electric chair, it's clear that - that the death penalty, in and of itself, is not considered cruel and unusual punishment.

I'm pro-death penalty, but what I have not seen is anybody that would mock someone on death row.

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.

This death sentence is not surprising. It had to be.

We've sent 130 men to death row to be executed in this country, at least 130 that we know of, who have later have been exonerated because they were either innocent, or they were not fairly tried. That's 130 people that we've locked down on death row. And they've spent years there.