Holly Near Quotes

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.

I'm actually really opposed to the death penalty.

I have reached the conviction that the abolition of the death penalty is desirable. Reasons: (1) Irreversibility in the event of an error in justice; (2) detrimental moral influence on those who have to carry out the procedure.

If we are trying to establish a culture of life, it’s difficult to have the state sponsoring executions.

The death penalty will seem to the next generation, as it seems to many even now, an anachronism too discordant to be suffered, mocking with grim reproach all our clamorous professions of the sanctity of life.

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 personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live. I believe that that death penalty should be used only very rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer the death penalty.

As a society are we going to murder people to show that murder is wrong

I think in some instances that the death penalty is required.

For me, the ethical arguments that resonate strongest are the ones that oppose the death penalty.

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.

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.'

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

I am against the death penalty.

I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.

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

Capital punishment is the source of many an argument, both good and bad.

Opponents of capital punishment argue that the state has no right to take a murderer's life. Apparently, one fact that abolitionists forget or overlook is that the state is acting not only on behalf of society, but also on behalf of the murdered person and the murdered person's family.

I don't want to put one innocent person to death to put 99 that are guilty to death. So philosophically I'm a tooth-for-tooth guy, but the reality is the death penalty as public policy is flawed.

I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.

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

I'm pro-death. I believe in the death penalty. Let's get on with it.

I believe that capital punishment serves no useful purpose and is a form of revenge.

Malcolm is worthy of death.