Capital punishment

"The uncanny assemblage of scientific, institutional, legal, and social forces all pushing to strip government of its power to kill make it seem as if there really is a mysterious arc bending toward justice. More prosaically, we are seeing a moral principle—Life is sacred, so killing is onerous—become distributed across a wide range of actors and institutions that have to cooperate to make the death penalty possible. As these actors and institutions implement the principle more consistently and thoroughly, they inexorably push the country away from the impulse to avenge a life with a life. The pathways are manifold and torturous, the effects are slow and then sudden, but in the fullness of time an idea from the Enlightenment can transform the world."

"Those of us who are for the death penalty are sickened that this man was not killed when first convicted. It sickens us that the family had to live with the daily reality that the torturer and murderer of their son was enjoying his meals, watching TV and sharing the camaraderie of his fellow inmates"

"Niles Talbot: First thing you got to understand is when it's their time, all these big tough guys go yellow. Crying, hollering, screaming and blubbering, "The Governor is gonna call," and all that. I been here 12 years, and the Governor ain't called yet."

"Niles Talbot: Fucking guys on TV, what do they know? Let me tell you something. If they put executions on TV it would be the fucking highest-rated show of all time. It'd be Neilsens through the roof. The other networks would start killing people just to compete. Pretty soon, Geraldo Rivera would be pulling that switch."

"Within your system, to kill is obviously a moral crime, but to kill another in punishment only compounds the original error. Someone very well known who established a church -- if you will, a civilization -- once said, "Turn the other cheek if you are attacked." The original meaning of that remark, however, should be understood. You should turn the other cheek because you realize that basically the attacker only attacks himself. Then you are free, and the reaction is a good one. If you turn the other cheek without this understanding, however, and feel resentful, or if you turn the other cheek out of a feeling of pseudomoral superiority, then the reaction is far from adequate."

"As regards capital cases, the trouble is that emotional men and women always see only the individual whose fate is up at the moment, and neither his victim nor the many millions of unknown individuals who would in the long run be harmed by what they ask. Moreover, almost any criminal, however brutal, has usually some person, often a person whom he has greatly wronged, who will plead for him. If the mother is alive she will always come, and she cannot help feeling that the case in which she is so concerned is peculiar, that in this case a pardon should be granted. It was really heartrending to have to see the kinfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment."

"The Bible identifies 15 crimes against the family worthy of the death penalty. Abortion is treason against the family and deserves the death penalty. Adultery is treason to the family; adulterers should be put to death. Homosexuality is treason to the family and it too, is worthy of death."

"Scroggs, L.C.J: My rule is this, in doubtful cases, when men are upon their lives, I had rather hear what is impertinent, than not let them make a full defence. North, L.C.J: I had rather hear things at a venture, than forbid things at a venture."

"In the case of murder, the death penalty - issued by way of putting the culprit to sleep to then apply the lethal injection - is the time delayed procedure of self-defense as carried out by the representatives of the victim(s) who, at the time of the incident and due to the then existing circumstances, was/were unable to defend itself/themselves from the willful murderous attack."

"The Tannam further underscore the distance between the treatment of a fetus and that of a full nefesh in an altogether different circumstance in Mishnah Arakhin: “The execution of a pregnant woman who is condemned to death is not postponed until after she gives birth. But once she is on the birth stool, the execution is postponed until after she gives birth.”"

"The Tannam elaborate upon their commitment to execution until the onset of labor within a middrashic source: I might have thought that if she were pregnant they would postpone [the execution] until she gave birth. Therefore, the Bible teaches, “He that smote him shall surely be put to death.”” I might have thought that if he were three months pregnant, they should not postpone [the execution] until she gives birth; but if she were nine months pregnant, they should postpone [the execution] until she has given birth. Therefore, Scripture teaches: “he shall surely be put to death.”"

"The gemera to Masekhet rakhin conveys a number of important insights that serve to underscore the elevated status of the condemned mother in this case. First, the observation is made that were it not for this mishnah’s explicit demand for her death, the mother would in fact not have been subject to execution, because based on the payment requirement set forth in Exodus 21:22-25, the fetus is the husband’s property “of which he should not be deprived.”” Hence, not only does this mishnah set the condemned woman’s interests over those of her fetus, but over those of her husband, which it is fair to surmise was probably quite a radial notion in the Tannaitic period. Furthermore, in the continuation of the Gemera, the rabbis rule as follows: “Said Rabbi Judah in the name of Samuel: ‘Before such a woman is executed she is struck across her abdomen, so that the fetus will die prior to the execution, to prevent her dishonor at the time of execution.’” Rashi interprets this “”dishonor” to mean that if the fetus did not die, and was expelled from the body after the mother’s execution the bleeding that could result would be a dishonor to the woman. Thus, in addition to the fact that the fate of the fetus was to be given no independent consideration from that of its mother, the law also envisioned that the act of feticide would be carried out separately and deliberately-rather than as a byproduct of the execution – in the interests of the condemned woman’s dignity. At no point in the discussion does the Gemara demur over the proposed feticide. The Tannaitic ruling goes uncontested: the fetus ought to be killed because the interests of the mother in a swift and “dignified” death far outweigh any consideration due to the unborn. Aptowitzer makes the case that the Tannaim were, in this instance, deeply insightful in enacting these provisions, preferring ethics over politics. Politics, it is true, would demand the opposite, for it subordinates the welfare of the individual to the interest of the state; ethics, however, protects the individual in the first place. Politics know subjects of state: taxpayers and soldiers; ethics knows but men. To politics men are members of the state, wheels of a machine; to ethics the state is a union of men. To politics the condemned mother is part of a machine rendered useless, but her expected child is a freshly wrought screw; the former is cast to the heap of old iron, the latter is guarded carefully. To ethics, however, the condemned mother is still a woman having claim to forbearance. Hence the politically motivated laws of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, refused to admit the execution of a pregnant woman; while the ethically motivated law of the Jews prescribes it."

"Waltke notes that Lev. 24:17 requires the death penalty for anyone who “kills any human life,” and says that the death penalty plainly was not prescribed in Exodus, Chapter 21, for killing a fetus. He concludes that the fetus was not reckoned as a soul in the Old Testament. W.A. Criswell agrees with Waltke, focusing as he does on the “birth and breath” criteria for personhood of Gen. 2:7. He says that the legislation in Exodus was “designed to protect pregnant women from injury” and clearly recognized the different standings of women and fetuses under the law."

"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."

"No man e'er felt the halter draw, With good opinion of the law."

"The most marked indication of society's endorsement of the death penalty for murder is the legislative response to Furman."

"But we are concerned here only with the imposition of capital punishment for the crime of murder, and when a life has been taken deliberately by the offender, we cannot say that the punishment is invariably disproportionate to the crime. It is an extreme sanction suitable to the most extreme of crimes."

"After a four-year moratorium on executions in California, multiple proceedings in federal court, a state administrative law proceeding, and state court appeals, it is incredible to think that the deliberative process might be driven by the expiration date of the execution drug."

"Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson."

"Society should not be the Angel of Death. We should not be servants of death. The law should celebrate, glorify, sanctify life, always life."

"Henry Ducard: You are ready to become a member of the League of Shadows. But first, you must demonstrate your commitment to justice."