76 Pro Death Penalty Quotes by Journalists from the U.S.A II

	“And capital punishment, however ineffective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act, - at least in theory.” “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.” Benjamin Ricketson Tucker (April 17, 1854 – June 22, 1939) was a journalist, libertarian, and the leading proponent of American individualist anarchism in the 19th century.
	Liberal opponents of capital punishment glibly argue that the death penalty provides no deterrent to the commission of capital crimes. Well, how on earth would we ever know? Only if we have swift and certain justice will we ever have an opportunity to test the deterrent effect of the death penalty. [Source: The Way Things Ought To Be, p.178-79 , Jul 2, 1992] Now, let’s talk about cruel and unusual punishment. The opponents of the death penalty who always try to obtain these last-minute stays of execution will probably say: Hey, we’re just trying to save this guy’s life. [In the case of Robert Alton Harris in California], this guy was led into the gas chamber and strapped into the chair twice in a period of six hours, and then a stay granted. One time the telephone call came one minute before he was to die. He had six hours to ponder all this. He was in and out of there. The witnesses were brought in and out. It was an absolute circus. You could hardly think of anything more cruel to do if you deliberately wanted to torture him. [Source: The Way Things Ought To Be, p.178-79 , Jul 2, 1992] Rush Limbaugh A.K.A Rush Hudson Limbaugh III (born January 12, 1951) is a conservative American radio talk show host and political commentator. Since he was 16 Limbaugh has worked a series of disc jockey jobs. His talk show began in 1984 at Sacramento radio station KFBK, featuring his ongoing format of political commentary and listener calls. In 1988 Limbaugh began broadcasting his show nationally from radio station WABC in New York City. He currently lives in Palm Beach, Florida, from where he broadcasts the The Rush Limbaugh Show, the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States. Talkers Magazine in 2012 lists Limbaugh as the most-listened-to talk show host with a weekly audience of 15 million.In the 1990s Limbaugh's books The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993) made The New York Times Best Seller list. Limbaugh frequently criticizes, in his books and on his show, what he regards as liberal policies and politicians, as well as what he perceives as a pervasive liberal bias in major U.S. media. Limbaugh is among the highest paid people in U.S. media, signing a contract in 2008 for $400 million through 2016.
	“When I think of all the sweet, innocent people who suffer extreme pain and who die every day in this country, then the outpouring of sympathy for cold-blooded killers enrages me. Where is your (expletive deleted) sympathy for the good, the kind and the innocent? This fixation on murderers is a sickness, a putrefaction of the soul. It's the equivalent of someone spending all day mooning and cooing over a handful of human feces. Sick and abnormal.” Syndicated columnist Charley Reese* made an interesting analogy while criticizing the way abolitionists typically behave* “I favor a fair trial, one quick appeal and prompt execution. I don't think murderers ought to live much beyond 12 months from the day their victim is buried. As for not being able to correct a mistake, so what? Virtually all accidental deaths are deaths by mistake. Why impose a standard of perfection only on the criminal justice system? There are no perfect human institutions. Our system is, more than any other, designed to protect the rights of the defendant. The chance of a truly innocent person being executed is exceedingly slim. But if it happens, it happens just as things happen to people every day.” Legal System Is Perverted (5 July 2008) - Let's get our thoughts in order concerning the death sentence. Everybody dies. Everybody is condemned to death from the day of his or her birth. Thus, executing a criminal isn't doing anything to him that won't happen anyway. Good and decent people get death sentences every day from their doctors, and there are no appeals or stays. Legal System Is Perverted (5 July 2008) - When the Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights and prohibited cruel and unusual punishment, it was an era when people were burned alive, torn apart, drawn and quartered or slowly killed by any number of torture devices. Certainly, they did not consider hanging or shooting to be cruel and inhuman punishment. We should be neither hesitant nor squeamish about executing people who take the lives of innocent people, especially children. God knows, if we don't have enough juice to protect and, failing that, avenge the death of children, then we are a poor excuse for a society. Legal System Is Perverted (5 July 2008) - We could provide university education to 10 children for the cost of keeping one of these dysfunctional human slimeballs alive for his natural life. I'd support a return to public hanging in the county where the crime was committed. Let the public come and see justice done. I'd even favor hiring a Saudi with a good, sharp sword to take the man's head off. If beheading was good enough for English royalty, it should be good enough for American animals with two legs. Legal System Is Perverted (5 July 2008) - As for convicting the wrong person, that's a problem with a community's police and prosecutors and sometimes incompetent defense lawyers. Clean house. Fix that problem. Don't use it as an excuse to stop the death penalty. Lawyers, who claim to be professionals, do a lousy job of policing their own ranks. Incompetent lawyers often end up as judges with nice vacations and pensions they don't deserve. One day, the American people may get fed up enough to vow to never elect a single lawyer to a legislative post. Then we might get some clear laws that protect the people rather than provide a lucrative living for lawyers and judges. Charley Reese (born January 29, 1937) is a syndicated columnist known for his plainspoken manner and conservative views. He was associated with the Orlando Sentinel from 1971-2001, both as a writer and in various editorial capacities. King Features Syndicate distributed his column, which was published three times a week.
	*Advice about death penalty in U.S.: Europeans, butt out* *August 12, 2001 -* “Americans can end their debate on the death penalty permanently. No more will death penalty supporters have to chide death penalty opponents for their lack of empathy for survivors of homicide victims. We can put an end to the arguments of those who say the death penalty is racist because more blacks than whites are on death row. (That reasoning is specious anyway; in most states, only those who commit felony murder - homicide that involves another crime like robbery or rape - get the death penalty. And blacks are on death row in approximately the same proportion as African-American involvement in felony murder.)” *"To murder victims' families, executing killers is justice". Baltimore Sun. 5 Feb. 2003 -* "The pain of homicide victims' relatives never ends. It chips away at their souls and psyches year after depressing year." It is as cold-hearted and heinous a crime as has ever been committed in this neck of the woods. But to hear death penalty opponents and other bleeding hearts tell it, Baker - the killer, not Jane Tyson, is the victim. They somehow think that the killer, not Jane Tyson’s surviving relatives, deserve our sympathy. [Timing of Death Penalty Halt Reveals Governor's True Motive By Gregory Kane, Baltimore Sun 15 May 2002] The death penalty isn't supposed to be a deterrent. The death penalty is called "capital punishment" -- as opposed to the "murder deterrent" -- for a reason: It's meant to punish, not deter. [Death penalty is punishment, not a crime deterrent By Gregory Kane Created Feb 14 2011 - 8:05pm] No sanction for criminal conduct is a deterrent. Bank robbers still rob banks, rapists still rape, drug dealers still deal drugs, muggers still mug and carjackers still carjack despite the draconian penalties imposed for these crimes. If it's logical to abolish capital punishment because it's not a deterrent, then it's logical to abolish all penalties for criminal infractions because they don't deter either. We could adopt a you-live-in-this-nation-at-your-own-risk policy where crime victims are told their victimization is their own tough luck and they have to fend for themselves. [Death penalty is punishment, not a crime deterrent By Gregory Kane Created Feb 14 2011 - 8:05pm] How do corrections officer David McGuinn's killers get punished if they are convicted of murdering him in July of 2006? McGuinn worked at the now-defunct Maryland House of Correction. He was doing cell checks when two inmates allegedly stabbed him to death. Both suspects -- Lamarr C. Harris and Lee Stephens -- were serving life terms with enough time added that they may as well have been serving life without parole. Another life sentence, if they are convicted of murdering McGuinn, is no real punishment. They would have gotten away with killing him. [Death penalty is punishment, not a crime deterrent By Gregory Kane Created Feb 14 2011 - 8:05pm] Gregory Kane - Examiner columnist Gregory Kane is an award-winning journalist who lives in Baltimore. He is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan. He is an American journalist and political and social commentator. Kane began his journalism career in 1984 as a freelance writer for The Baltimore Sun, and became a staff writer for the newspaper from 1993 to 2008. In 2008, The Baltimore Examiner hired him as a columnist. After The Baltimore Examiner closed in 2009, he began writing for its sister newspaper, The Washington Examiner, where he currently writes. Kane is also a visiting professor at the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. In 1997, Kane was nominated along with Baltimore Sun reporter Gilbert Lewthwaite for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Journalism for a three-part series about slavery in Sudan. Both men won the Overseas Press Club award for best reporting on human rights and an award from the National Association of Black Journalists for the series. Kane has also won several awards from Baltimore magazine, the Press Club of Atlantic City, and the Maryland chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
	Death penalty advocates point to Biblical admonitions like "an eye for an eye," and the sixth commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Kill." Capital punishment opponents turn that argument back, saying that if God rules over heaven and earth, it is not our place to mete out the ultimate punishment. But there's another theological truism, not in the Bible, but I think it applies here: "God helps those who help themselves." I'll extrapolate that this especially applies to helping our children. We need to start helping ourselves and our children by ensuring swift, sure, lengthy, punishment for child predators. When a child's premeditated death is involved that justice needs to be final. [Death penalty now Thursday 12 July 2012] Here in America we've had it with the child killers. Nobody gives a damn about rehabilitation for these reptiles. The message needs to be sent, to cowards like the Utah killer, powerful perverts like Sandusky, and — as a Catholic this pains me most — those men of the Cross who descended into the lowest circle of earthly Hell. You won't get rehabilitated, there will be no mercy for "good behavior," no cover-ups, and no reassignments. [Death penalty now Thursday 12 July 2012] Human justice will be delivered to you, right up to a final, permanent solution to the mistake that is your existence. After that God will sort things out. [Death penalty now Thursday 12 July 2012] Mark Ellis is a former contributor to Oregon's late and lamented conservative magazine Brainstorm Northwest. As a journalist and writer, he has published essays, interviews, features, and op-eds at the websites The Daily Caller, Renew America, The Good Men Project, and in his own hometown paper, the Oregonian. He is currently a writer and a reporter for the traditional values Portland monthly, the Northwest Connection, and the author of Ladder Memory, Stories From the Painting Trade.
	Ron Jackson: Death penalty ban won't cure flawed system 03/19/2011, 6:30 pm - Supporters of the ban are celebrating the end of an imperfect system. "No more innocent men sent to death," they accurately proclaim. Yet, they fail to scream just as loudly, "We will, however, allow innocent men to rot in jail for the remainder of their lives." Ron Jackson: Death penalty ban won't cure flawed system 03/19/2011, 6:30 pm - I realize this is an isolated case and from another state, but Illinois has allowed killers out of jail only to have them kill again. In the interest of doing the right thing by ending the death penalty to avoid killing an innocent person, as long as a person is in jail with nothing to lose, don't we risk allowing a guilty person a chance to repeat a crime? Ron Jackson: Death penalty ban won't cure flawed system 03/19/2011, 6:30 pm - Yes, our capital punishment system is flawed, and innocent men have died. But, just as imperfect is our judicial system that allows guilty, serious criminals to go free. I have not heard anyone protesting to have it banned. So instead of executing 15 men who deserve to die, we will now just take good care of them for the rest of their lives along with the other unknown number of innocent men serving life in our correctional system. Ron Jackson is a regular contributor to The Daily Journal newspaper of Kankakee, Illinois. His columns appear in their Sunday Editorial section entitled Think - which is exactly what he intends for you to do for yourself with his writings. We will include each Sunday's new column as well as an archive of his past newspaper columns.
	I’ve always thought that abortion and execution are two things you’re convinced you know where you stand on until they affect your life. Whatever affect they have, it may strengthen or soften your view, but you just don’t know until you get there. Also, I have a personal belief that having a child die in your hands will reset your “what’s important” meter. My mindset going into Wednesday was, “I’ve seen so many innocent people die in so many ways they didn’t deserve. I’m fine with the state wielding the sword of justice in these cases.” [My First Execution Wednesday 15 February 2012] Therese Apel is a beat reporter who reports on Crime beat news, views and analysis from The Clarion-Ledger.
	Morgan then moved on to challenge Santorum on capital punishment, asserting that a pro-lifer should oppose the death penalty if innocent people were executed. Morgan had no sympathy in this scenario for the innocent people who are murdered by criminals. [Piers Morgan Pushes Santorum If He'd Oppose Abortion If His Raped Daughter Was 'Begging You' For It By Tim Graham \| January 23, 2012 \| 08:07] Tim Graham is the Media Research Center's Director of Media Analysis. He is responsible for supervising media analysts and researching and writing regular Special Reports on the News.
	The same liberals who insist on the infallibility of the government on all other matters want citizens to believe that the government is all fumbles when it comes to criminal justice. Executions are rare, and occur only after exhaustive review by appeals courts. Far from being evidence of a barbaric society, this shows a very civilized society that reveres justice even if it means guilty men sometimes get away with murder. [Wrong way to attack the death penalty Saturday 1 October 2011] Don Surber is an editorial writer and columnist for the Charleston Daily Mail. The Charleston Daily Mail is a Pulitzer Prize winning Monday-Friday morning newspaper in Charleston, West Virginia.
	This is a common technique among opponents of the death penalty. They compare the United States to countries that use the death penalty for abominable reasons and say, in effect, “Do we really want to be like them?” The answer, of course, is that we don’t want to be like them and, more importantly, we are not like them. We don’t murder people for whistle-blowing on corruption in the government and we don’t murder them for converting to Christianity. We lawfully execute people for crimes like Leal’s. The man raped a teenager, mutilated her body with a stick, and crushed her head with a rock. That is not a “crime of conscience,” it is a crime that shocks the conscience. Blurring the distinction between the two is slanderous. (E.J. Dionne Blurs Distinctions on Death Penalty By Jonah Goldberg July 11, 2011, 5:00 pm) I am 100% in favor of lawfully executing people who deserve the death penalty and 100% opposed to killing people who do not deserve it. [Executions: Why opponents of death penalty cannot win By Jonah Goldberg Wednesday 22 September 2011] We hear so much about the innocent people who've gotten off death row - thank God - because of new DNA techniques. We hear very little about the criminals who've had their guilt confirmed by the same techniques. Death penalty opponents are less eager to debate such cases because they want to delegitimize "the system." [Executions: Why opponents of death penalty cannot win By Jonah Goldberg Wednesday 22 September 2011] Death penalty opponents believe that no one deserves to be executed. Again, it's an honorable position, but a difficult one to defend politically in a country where the death penalty is popular. So they spend all of their energy cherry-picking cases, gumming up the legal system and talking about "uncertainty." That's fine. But until they can explain why we shouldn't have a death penalty when uncertainty isn't an issue - i.e., why McVeigh and Brewer should live - they'll never win the real argument. [Executions: Why opponents of death penalty cannot win By Jonah Goldberg Wednesday 22 September 2011] Now I don’t want anyone — anyone — to ever be wrongly executed. One misapplied death penalty is one too many. At which point opponents of the death penalty say “Aha. Then you most oppose the death penalty for everyone.” Really? Must I? If anything, I’m even more opposed to police accidentally shooting bystanders or shop clerks mistaken for robbers. Well we know that happens. And yet, I’m still in favor of cops carrying guns. I’m against — absolutely against — all sorts of accidental deaths that are the direct result of government messing something up. I’m against Air Traffic Controller errors that lead to deaths, but I’m still in favor of flying and air traffic controllers. It is a scandal, given how much we spend on the death penalty and all the endless appeals, for any mistake to go as far as it has. But why is it that the death penalty is the only government function that must be abolished after a single error? [On the Death Penalty by Jonah Goldberg Posted on September 28, 2011 1:41 PM] And that’s why I find nearly all of the arguments against the death penalty insufficient or unpersuasive. “World opinion” — by which most people seem to mean the UK, France and parts of Italy — is against us. Okay, who cares? I mean that seriously. Why should it matter? These are our laws, not theirs. And when I hear a European opponent of capital punishment declare we’re no different than China or Saudi Arabia for keeping capital punishment on the books that strikes me as more of an indictment of European reasoning skills than of American justice. We don’t execute people for their political or religious beliefs. We execute them for first degree murder. It’s a big difference. [On the Death Penalty by Jonah Goldberg Posted on September 28, 2011 1:41 PM] I favor the death penalty. I don't support killing insane or mentally disabled people who are truly not responsible for their actions, but I don't believe that committing an "act of madness" necessarily makes you a madman. But committing an act of wanton evil makes you an evil man. [Death penalty foes won't take a stand in Colorado By Jonah Goldberg 27 July 2012] Jonah Jacob Goldberg (born March 21, 1969) is an American conservative syndicated columnist and author. Jonah Goldberg, a contributing editor to The American Magazine, was the founding editor and is currently editor-at-large of National Review Online. He is a Pulitzer-nominated columnist for The Los Angeles Times. Goldberg is currently a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His column is carried by the Chicago Tribune, New York Post, Dallas Morning News, and scores of other papers. His first book, Liberal Fascism, was a #1 New York Times and Amazon bestseller and was selected as the #1 history book of 2008 by Amazon readers. He is a member of USA Today's Board of Contributors and previously served as a columnist for the Times of London, Brill’s Content, and the American Enterprise. His writings have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, Commentary, The New Yorker, Food and Wine, and numerous other publications. He is currently a Fox News Contributor. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Jessica Gavora, and their daughter.
	I have no idea whether Troy Davis was innocent of the crime he died for. It's beyond my competence to judge. But I have no problem with a sentence of death for the taking of an innocent life. It is rooted in civilizations that go back thousands of years. It is supported by the Bible, too, in case that counts for anything in today’s societal discourse. [The Problem with Death Wednesday 28 September 2011] Things were like that well into my lifetime. Killing a mere shopkeeper – or anyone – could get the killer a date with the Chair or the gas chamber. But the times have a-changed. If you’re not on the A-list of victims, your killer will be watching Days of Our Lives and General Hospital long after you’re in the ground. I’m not the only person in the country who sees this entire construct as a problem. We need a reformation of the “system” we have now. Either every innocent human life has value, or none does. And justice needs to be swift. [The Problem with Death Wednesday 28 September 2011] Woody Zimmerman is a columnist for the Atlantic Highlands Herald.
	George Will and capital punishment By Dennis Prager 11/4/2003 - “An innocent may be killed? Many moral social policies have the possibility and even the inevitability of the death of innocents. As I noted in a previous column on this very issue, even if raising speed limits means an inevitable increase in innocents' deaths, the greater good of higher speed limits will still prevail.” George Will and capital punishment By Dennis Prager 11/4/2003 - In fact, if preventing the killing of innocents is what should determine capital punishment policy, one should support capital punishment. It is the absence of the death penalty that leads to more innocent people being killed. When there is no death penalty, convicted murderers kill other prisoners and guards; and, when these murderers escape, they kill innocent civilians. If those of us who are for the death penalty have blood on our hands when the state executes an innocent man, abolitionists -- now including George Will -- have the blood of innocents on their hands every time a convicted murderer murders again. Recently, a former Roman Catholic priest imprisoned for child molestation was murdered in prison by a convicted murderer. His blood is on the hands of the abolitionists. George Will and capital punishment By Dennis Prager 11/4/2003 - And if the system is flawed, fix it. That is what Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is arguing in trying to bring capital punishment back to his state. You don't end a good policy because it is flawed, you end a bad policy, flawed or not. Moreover, the possibility of error has always existed, and it is actually less likely to occur today in the age of DNA. I therefore have to believe that other, unspoken, considerations have prompted George Will to align himself on one of life's seminal moral issues with people with whom he otherwise shares few values. George Will and capital punishment By Dennis Prager 11/4/2003 - I don't presume to know what those considerations are. But they surely cannot be the other reason he gives: Capital punishment doesn't deter. The assertion violates common sense. We can never measure how many people do not do something. But more telling is the late Ernest van den Haag's argument: Imagine a state that passed a law that all murders committed on Monday, Wednesday or Friday would be punished by imprisonment and all murders committed on the other days of the week would be punished by execution. Would murders take place on each day of the week at the same rate as they did prior to the law? I doubt it. George Will and capital punishment By Dennis Prager 11/4/2003 - And, in any event, the primary purpose of capital punishment is not deterrence. It is to prevent the greatest conceivable injustice -- allowing a person who deliberately takes an innocent person's life to keep his own. And it tells society that murder is evil in ways that no amount of imprisonment can ever convey. Every member of society, from young child to old adult -- perceives that killing murderers means society hates evil in a way that it clearly does not if it only imprisons them. Yet they certainly do. Whereas the shedding of innocent blood that proponents of capital punishment are responsible for is thus far, thankfully, only theoretical, the shedding of innocent blood for which opponents of capital punishment are responsible is not theoretical at all. Thanks to their opposition to the death penalty, innocent men and women have been murdered by killers who would otherwise have been put to death. - Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands By Dennis Prager 11/29/2005 Opponents of capital punishment give us names of innocents who would have been killed by the state had their convictions stood and they been actually executed, and a few executed convicts whom they believe might have been innocent. But proponents can name men and women who really were -- not might have been -- murdered by convicted murderers while in prison. The murdered include prison guards, fellow inmates, and innocent men and women outside of prison. - Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands By Dennis Prager 11/29/2005 Had Clarence Allen been executed for the 1974 murder of Mary Sue Kitts, three innocent people under the age of 30 would not have been killed. But because moral clarity among anti-death penalty activists is as rare as their self-righteousness is ubiquitous, finding an abolitionist who will acknowledge moral responsibility for innocents murdered by convicted murderers is an exercise in futility. Perhaps the most infamous case of a death penalty opponent directly causing the murder of an innocent is that of novelist Norman Mailer. In 1981, Mailer utilized his influence to obtain parole for a bank robber and murderer named Jack Abbott on the grounds that Abbott was a talented writer. Six weeks after being paroled, Abbott murdered Richard Adan, a 22-year-old newlywed, aspiring actor and playwright who was waiting tables at his father's restaurant. Mailer's reaction? "Culture is worth a little risk," he told the press. "I'm willing to gamble with a portion of society to save this man's talent." - Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands By Dennis Prager 11/29/2005 Abolitionists are certain that they are morally superior to the rest of us. In their view, we who recoil at the thought that every murderer be allowed to keep his life are moral inferiors, barbarians essentially. But just as pacifists' views ensure that far more innocents will be killed, so do abolitionists' views ensure that more innocents will die. There may be moral reasons to oppose taking the life of any murderer (though I cannot think of one), but saving the lives of innocents cannot be regarded as one of them. - Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands By Dennis Prager 11/29/2005 1. It is a cosmic injustice to allow a murderer to keep his life. 2. Killing murderers is society's only way to teach how terrible murder is. The only real way a society can express its revulsion at any criminal behavior is through the punishment it metes out. If murderers all got 10 years in prison and thieves all got 20 years in prison, that would be society's way of saying that thievery is worse than murder. A society that kills murderers is saying that murder is more heinous a crime than a society that keeps all its murderers alive. 3. It can, if widely enacted, deter some murders. Though I regard this as a less important argument than the first two, there is no doubt that it is true. Everyone acknowledges that punishments can deter all other crimes -- why wouldn't capital punishment deter some murders? Is murder the only crime unaffected by punishment? Opponents in capital punishment have blood on their hands By Dennis Prager 11/29/2005 3. "Certainly I don't believe (the executions of murderers) made us more noble as a society." Why is it noble to keep all murderers alive? Was Israel less noble for executing Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Holocaust? When two men enter the home of a family of four; rape the wife and two young daughters; beat all four nearly to death, leaving them in the agony of crushed bones and skulls; and then tie them up and burn the three females to death, why is it "noble" to keep the men who did that alive? [A Response to Oregon's Governor on Capital Punishment By Dennis Prager · Tuesday, November 29, 2011] 4. Oregon has an "unworkable system that fails to meet basic standards of justice." Opponents of the death penalty make it virtually impossible to execute murderers. They then lament how long and laborious the effort is to execute a murderer. [A Response to Oregon's Governor on Capital Punishment By Dennis Prager · Tuesday, November 29, 2011] Societies that allow all murderers to live have lost some of their hunger for justice and certainly lost their hatred of evil. They also cheapen the crime of murder. Punishment is society's way of communicating how serious it views a crime, and there is all the difference in the world between the death penalty and life (not to mention less time) in prison. When all murderers are allowed to live, the evil exult while the victims weep. Why is that noble? [A Response to Oregon's Governor on Capital Punishment By Dennis Prager · Tuesday, November 29, 2011] Opponents of capital punishment for murderers 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 on behalf of the murdered person and the murdered person's family, not only on behalf of society. [If You're Ever Murdered, Here's an Idea By Dennis Prager · Tuesday, February 21, 2012] Dennis Prager (born August 2, 1948) is an American syndicated radio talk show host, syndicated columnist, author, and public speaker. He is noted for conservative political and social views emanating from Judeo-Christian, Jewish, and American values. He defines the latter as E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust, and Liberty (which includes small government). He is a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. He taught Jewish and Russian History at Brooklyn College, and was a Fellow at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, where he did his graduate work at the Russian Institute (now the Harriman Institute) and Middle East Institute from 1970-1972. He has lectured in 46 states and on six continents and traveled in 98 countries and the 50 U.S. states. He speaks French, Russian, and Hebrew, and has lectured in Russian in Russia and in Hebrew in Israel. An avid classical music lover, he periodically conducts orchestras in Southern California.
	Let's be honest — the sacred hierarchy in recent decades has expended so much energy focusing on the dignity of human life as it exists in convicted killers that the infinite value of the innocent lives taken in the commission of violent crime have been inadvertently overshadowed. [Expressing human dignity via the death penalty Thursday 14 October 2011] It's high time to admit that the hierarchy's stand against capital punishment in recent decades has sent the unintended, false message that human life is of finite, calculable value. In other words, it has apparently been interpreted by the culture at large to mean that the worth of human life can be measured just as the price one must justly pay in exchange for murder is something to be weighed, similar to the way in which various sentences are determined in response to other serious crimes. [Expressing human dignity via the death penalty Thursday 14 October 2011] Hindsight and logic alone would seem to suggest that the infinite value of human life may only be truly reflected when the price paid for murder is of equally infinite value; that penalty, of course, being death itself. [Expressing human dignity via the death penalty Thursday 14 October 2011] As such, it is reasonable to believe that the death penalty might paradoxically be the clearest and surest way to demonstrate to the culture at large the inherent dignity and infinite value of every human life. [Expressing human dignity via the death penalty Thursday 14 October 2011] Louie Verrecchio, M.I. (born August 4, 1961) is a Catholic author, columnist and speaker residing in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, MD. He is the President and Founder of Salve Regina Publications, Inc., and the author of the highly acclaimed Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II series of conciliar document study materials which explore the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. He is also the author of “Ten Things Every Catholic Should Know About Vatican II” with Foreword by Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless – Bishop of Sioux City, IA, and the book, “And With Your Spirit – Recovering a sense of the sacred in the Roman Missal – 3rd Edition.”
	"A sure way to prevent prison escapes". - Life sentences too often are mere challenges for prisoners to escape, terrify law-abiding citizens and sometimes kill again. The death penalty's detractors cannot refute this fact: Even the toughest criminals become remarkably docile once separated from society by six feet of soil. Israel urgently needs something far closer to the Obama model. Rather than "punish" terrorist killers with meaningless multiple life sentences, Israel should give them the death penalty -- good and hard. Terrorists can be neither demanded, nor exchanged, nor killed again, while dead. Israel should execute this filth, cremate them, and then dump their ashes into the Mediterranean. They will no longer bother anyone, save for a few unfortunate fish that will deserve apologies for having to swim amid such filth. [How Bibi blew it with Hamas By Deroy Murdock Published: Friday 28 October 2011 in The National Review] Rather than meaningless "life sentences," Israel immediately needs to enact and implement the death penalty. Terrorists neither can be demanded, nor exchanged, nor kill again while dead. [Israeli Death Penalty the Answer for Hardened Terrorists By Deroy Murdock Published: Tuesday 1 November 2011] Deroy Murdock is an American libertarian syndicated columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service and a contributing editor with National Review Online.
	Keep Life Without Parole, Life After Death A Commentary by Debra J. Saunders Sunday, August 02, 2009 - Because courts can sentence murderers to life without parole, why not get rid of the death penalty? It's a frequent question posed by readers and advocates who oppose the death penalty. For years, my answer has been: If death-penalty opponents ever succeed in eliminating capital punishment, their next target for elimination will be life without parole --or as lawyers call it, LWOP. As if to prove my point, the Sentencing Project just released a report, "No Exit: The Expanding Use of Life Sentences in America," which advocated for -- you guessed it -- the elimination of LWOP. The report also lamented that governors and parole boards are not paroling more prisoners serving life (with parole) sentences. The death penalty still stands, and already opponents are trying to shave the only alternative sentence that ostensibly protects the general public from the most dangerous predators. And they can repent on Death Row. "No Exit" cites the American Law Institute's support for "elimination of life without parole as an alternative to the death penalty." But it's clear advocates don't want an alternative. Given their objections to life sentences, if California or the federal government ever discards the death penalty, all the money that gets sucked into fueling bogus death-penalty appeals simply will move to bankroll anti-LWOP appeals. End the death penalty, and these violent con artists could be the first to walk -- and it won't be transformative growth for society. And what happens when California's Death Row lawyers discover they've got time on their hands and a receptive audience in the Ninth Circuit? Next argument: Life without parole is too expensive. (Death penalty foes' self-fulfilling prophecies Sunday, July 17, 2011) Now, I don't want Baze to suffer when he is executed - should that day ever come - but there is no reason to expect he would suffer, other than suffering loss of his life. Which is the whole point. And until the courts get wise to the anti-death penalty lobby's bait-and-switch, citizens can expect to watch countless dollars fund these dishonest appeals. Sleep safe, America, secure in the knowledge that the safest man in America is a death-row inmate with a pending appeal. (Dishonest on the death penalty Tuesday, January 8, 2008) When they've won on the death penalty, they'll start trying to shave time from life-without-parole sentences, which they also consider to be inhumane - on your dime as well. (DEATH PENALTY: We need injection of common sense Sunday, October 3, 2010) Debra J. Saunders (born 1954) is a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Syndicated by Creators Syndicate, her thrice weekly column is also carried by newspapers throughout the country and on townhall.com. Saunders also blogs for the Chronicle under the moniker Token Conservative.
	Fundamentally, most Americans who support the death penalty do so because they want to believe that our justice system is just, and not merely a mechanism for quarantining the dangerous in order to keep the law-abiding safe. The case for executing murderers is a case for proportionality in punishment: for sentences that fit the crime, and penalties that close the circle. [Justice After Troy Davis Posted: September 24, 2011 in The New York Times] Abolishing capital punishment in a kind of despair over its fallibility would send a very different message. It would tell the public that our laws and courts and juries are fundamentally incapable of delivering what most Americans consider genuine justice. It could encourage a more cynical and utilitarian view of why police forces and prisons exist, and what moral standards we should hold them to. And while it would put an end to wrongful executions, it might well lead to more overall injustice. [Justice After Troy Davis Posted: September 24, 2011 in The New York Times] Ross Douthat joined The New York Times as an Op-Ed columnist in April 2009. Previously, he was a senior editor at the Atlantic and a blogger for theatlantic.com. He is the author of "Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class" (Hyperion, 2005) and the co-author, with Reihan Salam, of "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream" (Doubleday, 2008). He is the film critic for National Review. A native of New Haven, Conn., he now lives in Washington, D.C.
	Compassion is good, but not if compassion for a killer transcends any compassion or concern for the killer's victims. [The death penalty for a killer is debated in state Supreme Court 6:59 PM EDT, October 2, 2012] Paul Carpenter is a columnist for The Morning Call in Allentown, PA. His column appears in The Morning Call and themorningcall.com on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
	News reports about the death penalty usually include someone saying that executing a person for a violent crime such as murder is not a deterrent to crime. I don’t understand this. Common sense tells me that if a perpetrator of a heinous crime is tried and found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and is then executed and put in the ground, if nothing else, that person has certainly been deterred. In the case of the blatant and vicious taking of another person’s life during a robbery, rape, etc., I believe in an eye for an eye. Sentencing a vicious killer to life in prison is too costly to us taxpayers. A person can get used to any type of lifestyle. . . . even prison. Prisoners get free room and board, free medical care and schooling, recreation time and, in some states, conjugal visits. On the other hand, the victim is still six feet under, no longer enjoying any of life’s pleasures, and will never, ever be paroled from the grave — not even 40 years later. The death penalty may not sit well with some people who claim it is cruel and unusual punishment. I say what is cruel is letting the murderer languish on Death Row for 10 to 15 years while his lawyer files appeal after appeal tying up the courts with mountains of paperwork and wasting everyone’s time. If the person is guilty BEYOND a shadow of a doubt, get it over with. The death penalty is harsh and in a few cases flawed, but tell that to the doctor in Connecticut who survived an attack in his home by two thugs who tortured, raped and set afire his beloved wife and two daughters. And even if the death penalty is forever abolished in Illinois by Gov. Quinn, mass murderers should be the exception. Some human beings are just plain EVIL. Also, lifers in jail have nothing to lose, so they still can kill guards and other prisoners. And I applaud Mayor Daley for being a staunch advocate of the death penalty. Stella Foster is a columnist for the Chicago Sun Times.
	It's insane to save death-row inmate only to kill him (12 March 2010) - UNLIKE other bleeding-heart liberals, I have never opposed the death penalty. In the past, I've written about how my views on capital punishment hardened after my first cousin was murdered. Anne was only 24 years old when she was viciously stabbed multiple times and left to die on a street a few blocks from her home. Her killer has never been caught. But if that day ever comes, I'd want a life for a life. Marilou Johanek is a Blade commentary writer.
	Liberal Lies About the Death Penalty Wednesday 10 November 2010 - Yesterday, Steven Hayes was sentenced to death by lethal injection in a state that has only executed one person since 1960. For most people, the only shame is that his death won’t come quick enough. Not so for death penalty opponents, who spend more time bleating for monstrous criminals than for their victims. When Hayes is finally strapped to that gurney, there will no doubt be candlelight vigils, where criminal-coddlers will spout canards about capital punishment. We know what they’ll say. They’ll say the death penalty does not deter murder. We don’t know that, since it’s never actually been studied. This is a statement of personal belief, not fact. What we do know is that the murder rate soared when the Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in 1972. In 1960, the U.S. murder rate was 5.1 per 100,000 people. By late 70s, it had nearly doubled, reaching 10.2 in 1980. The U.S. government didn’t execute a single person that year. The murder rate only began to fall as more capital sentences were handed down in the 1990s. By 2009, it had plummeted to an all-time low of 5 per 100,000. 52 people were executed last year. Liberal Lies About the Death Penalty Wednesday 10 November 2010 - They’ll say the death penalty is the easy way out for murderers. While a few might feel that way, most of them spend years filing appeals. They resist execution until their legal options run out—which is why it often takes decades to execute a death row inmate. Liberal Lies About the Death Penalty Wednesday 10 November 2010 - They’ll say the death penalty is racist, so we need a moratorium. To hear them tell it, Southern juries would be stringing innocent blacks from trees if the ACLU didn’t keep them in check. Liberal Lies About the Death Penalty Wednesday 10 November 2010 - If it’s barbaric to execute someone who has been granted an attorney, formally tried, convicted, and had his conviction upheld after decades of appeals, I’m happy to live in a nation of savages. Is death by lethal injection too cruel a punishment for a man who raped a woman before suffocating her in a trash can? Or a man who burned a child alive in her bed, surrounded by stuffed animals? Only if you have no sense of justice. For the Petit family, justice has finally been served. Ashley Herzog is a Townhall columnist and the author of Feminism vs. Women.
	Troy Davis’ execution is nothing to celebrate. The only satisfaction it offers, if any, is the grim kind that comes from knowing a killer got his just deserts. Of course, to opponents of the death penalty, every execution is an outrage. Davis’ supporters say this one is worse: the deliberate state killing of a man despite evidence that he is innocent. If they’re right, Georgia and all of America should be ashamed. But they’re wrong: Troy Davis is guilty. [Troy Davis: guilty as charged By Charles Lane Posted at 02:30 PM ET 22 September 2011] Among its other benefits, limiting the death penalty more strictly to the “worst of the worst” would shrink the risk of executing an innocent man. [Troy Davis: guilty as charged By Charles Lane Posted at 02:30 PM ET 22 September 2011] Norway has suffered deeply because of Breivik, and I don’t mean to add insult to injury. But this situation illustrates what’s wrong with banning the death penalty in all cases. If executing an innocent man is the worst-case scenario for proponents of the death penalty, then threatening Breivik with prison is the reductio ad absurdum of death-penalty abolitionism. [Sometimes the death penalty is warranted By Charles Lane Posted: 1 May 2012] Charles Lane A.K.A Charles "Chuck" Lane is an American journalist and editor who is a staff writer for The Washington Post. His articles are concerned chiefly with the activities and cases of the Supreme Court of the United States and judicial system. He was the lead editor of The New Republic from 1997 to 1999. In 2008 he published The Day Freedom Died, about the Colfax massacre of 1873 in Louisiana and its political repercussions during Reconstruction, including the resulting Supreme Court case, United States v. Cruikshank.