Capital Punishment Abolition Quotes

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

The death sentence is a barbaric act . . . It is a reflection of the animal instinct still in human beings.

I cannot see any of these death penalty cases where there hasn't been a violation on the ground of either poverty or race. If we can ever get that straightened out, it will help. But, of course, the real answer to it is to do away with the death penalty.

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. ... I fell morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.

The death penalty experiment has failed.

The system is not perfect. Until it's perfect, let's do away with the death penalty.

If we could do away with death, we wouldn't object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.