A Quote by Cass Sunstein

Those subject to capital punishment are real human beings, with their own backgrounds and narratives. By contrast, those whose lives are or might be saved by virtue of capital punishment are mere 'statistical people.' They are both nameless and faceless, and their deaths are far less likely to be considered in moral deliberations.

Cass Sunstein

Quote Topics

Backgrounds Beings Both Capital Capital Punishment Considered Contrast Deaths Faceless Far Human Human Being Human Beings Less Likely Lives Mere Might Moral Nameless Narratives Own People Punishment Real Real Human Saved Statistical Subject Those Virtue Whose

Quote Author

Cass Sunstein
American - Lawyer
Born: September 21, 1954

My own view on capital punishment is that it is morally justified, but that the government is often so inept and corrupt that innocent people might die as a result. Thus, I personally oppose capital punishment.

Ed Crane

It doesn't make any difference if you are in favor of capital punishment or if you are opposed to capital punishment. The fact of the matter is that as a viable penalty, capital punishment does not work at this time and has not worked in the State of Florida for many, many years.

Gerald Kogan

We have a legal system, and this is not something that happens all the time. We have capital punishment. America has capital punishment. Iran has capital punishment. Iran hangs people and leaves their bodies hanging on cranes. Iran put to death more than a thousand people last year. I don't see EU reporting on it.

Adel al-Jubeir

I'm disappointed that my own Catholic Church has decided that capital punishment is wrong. Which is pretty hypocritical if you think about it, because they wouldn't even have a religion if it wasn't for capital punishment.

Stephen Colbert

When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery. If not remedied, the scandalous state of our present system of capital punishment will cast a pall of shame over our society for years to come. We cannot let it continue.

Thurgood Marshall

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.'

Jeff Lindsay

Embracing a certain quotient of racial bias and discrimination against the poor is an inexorable aspect of supporting capital punishment. This is an immoral condition that makes rejecting the death penalty on moral grounds not only defensible but necessary for those who refuse to accept unequal or unjust administration of punishment.

Bryan Stevenson

I have been brought up in a culture where capital punishment is indeed anathema. I have always thought of myself as a principled opponent to capital punishment. However, when thinking about how the topic is handled in other cultures, in particular the American, Russian and Chinese ones, I have realised that my own tack on the issue was utterly superficial.

Torbjorn Tannsjo

It's a tract against capital punishment in the genre of Swift's Modest Proposal. I was simply following a formula to its logical conclusion. Some people appear to have understood it. The publication of Naked Lunch in England practically coincided with their abolition of capital punishment. The book obviously had a certain effect.

William S. Burroughs

Capital punishment has probably been responsible for a good deal of human progress. The overwhelming majority of those executed were of the sort whose departures for bliss eternal improved the average intelligence and decency of the race.

H. L. Mencken

Muslims who convert to Christianity are not protected. That carries capital punishment. He would be given the opportunity to repent, and the Sharia court would need to determine if he was really a Muslim in the first place, did he know what he was doing, and once all of that has been determined, there is capital punishment for that in Islam.

Anjem Choudary

The way the terrorist is trained to operate, especially the suicide terrorists, makes punishment and the threat of punishment far less valuable to those who would prevent the crime.

John Ashcroft

The way the terrorist is trained to operate, especially the suicide terrorists, makes punishment and the threat of punishment far less valuable to those who would prevent the crime

John Ashcroft

In one sense, no act of reparation will be satisfactory for those whose lives were so under-valued both as human beings held in slavery and then as human chattel to satisfy the financial indebtedness of a Catholic institution. Nonetheless, the university must also put into place - as it is attempting to do - a program that both admits the horror and error of its past actions and directs its students, faculty, and administrations to an awareness of the dignity of all people, especially those who even today are often considered less than worthy of respect and dignity.

Wilton Daniel Gregory

Of all parties I now see only one party- The Anarchist- which respects human life, and loudly insists upon the abolition of capital punishment, prison torture and punishment of man by man altogether.