Quote of the Day for 2016-09-13

"It was better to let the crime of a guilty person go unpunished than to condemn the innocent."

— Trajan (53-117 CE) Quoted by Justice Edward Douglass White in Coffin Vs. United States (March 4, 1895)

The execution chamber in Huntsville, Texas (2008) Photograph by Pat Sullivan

Quote of the Day for 2016-06-10

"As I see it, the sole motivating factor behind the death penalty is vengeance, not justice, and I firmly believe that a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself."

— Larry Flynt (1942-    ) "Don't Execute the Man Who Paralyzed Me," The Hollywood Reporter (October 17, 2013)

Electric Chair at Sing Sing by William van der Weyde (circa 1900)

Quote of the Day for 2015-10-18

"If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by my friends the murderers."

— Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808-1890) Les Guêpes, volume 6, January 1849

Mug shot of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted of murdering his three daughters by arson, and executed at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville on February 17, 2004. Subsequent investigations concluded his trial and rejected appeals were a gross miscarriage of justice.