Entry 201

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs until death is outlawed.

Albert Camus

In sum, just as Justice White ultimately based his conclusion in Furman on his extensive exposure to countless cases for which death is the authorized penalty, I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty represents “the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes. A penalty with such negligible returns to the State [is] patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment.”
Justice John Paul Stevens in his concurrence in Baze et al. v. Rees on 16 April 2008

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.
Justice Thurgood Marshall

You believe an eye for an eye until you're put in that situation. If they kill those guys, it really doesn't mean much to me. My father is gone.
Michael Jordan on the murderers of his father James