Harry A. Blackmun Quotes
There is no deterrent effect whatsoever by the presence of the death penalty.
Harry A. Blackmun, 1908-1999, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Law Day Speech, New England School of Law, March 24, 1993
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was one of the longest serving District Attorneys in America, He also served the largest jurisdiction of a District Attorney. When he first was elected DA of Manhattan there were over 600 murders a year. When he retired, there were only about 60, a 90% reduction. Yet, his experience was that capital punishment was useless in deterring murder. He had many other techniques far more effective.
The most common example that capital punishment does not work as a deterrent is that while thieves were being hung for their crime, other thieves would circulate among the watching crowd at the scaffold and pickpocket the observers.
Sherman was distressed at the full due process and trials that had to be given to Confederate spies and guerrillas and wanted to execute them quickly as an example. He complained to the Judge Advocate General that his men were “losing prisoners in the swamp” which both of them realized meant the immediate execution of prisoners by soldiers and junior officers which Sherman did not like either. The Lincoln administration insisted on the full due process. Even after conviction, President Abraham Lincoln tended to pardon many of the condemned.
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.
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.
