In this country, you are better off being rich and guilty than poor and innocent.

I fervently believe that capital punishment should be abolished. It's costing the state a huge amount of money.

The death penalty won't bring my brother back or help to apprehend his murderer. We need to start investing in programs that will actually improve public safety and get more killers off the streets.

Given the irreversibility of the death penalty, the possibility of a wrongful conviction can never be overstated

Even in the best of circumstances, our system allows for error...As a matter of public respect for our justice system, we cannot tolerate error in execution.

Conservatives, especially, should draw this lesson... Capital punishment, like the rest of the criminal justice system, is a government program, so skepticism is in order.

...it's impossible to streamline death-penalty litigation to justify the cost, because doing so would dramatically increase the risk of wrongful executions.

It is a human system, and because it is fallible and because it is human, it makes mistakes. Executions make those mistakes irreversible.

Prosecutors must reveal the dirty little secret they too often share only among themselves: The death penalty actually hinders the fight against crime.

Much has changed since I voted to reinstate the death penalty twenty years ago. New technologies such as DNA and other evidence have shown that people can make terrible mistakes.

I spent 17 years, eight months and one day on death row. I was not saved by the system. I was saved in spite of the system.

The capital punishment system may have been put in place to serve us survivors, but it actually has been a colossal failure.

You have to pass a test to be a patent lawyer. You have to pass none to try a death penalty case in so many states.

Before working on Texas Death Row, I strongly supported capital punishment,

EJUSA has been invaluable to the campaign for repeal in Tennessee. Because of the work of EJUSA, Tennessee’s work has become smarter, more strategic, and poised for success.

When you're talking about death, you can't afford to make even one mistake.

[T]here is a real worry by jurors of 'I believe in it, but what if we later find out it was someone else and it's too late to do anything about it?'

It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive...It's a waste of time and money...The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families.

As error-prone humans, we can't guarantee a fail-safe criminal justice system; therefore, to be truly just we must abolish capital punishment.

We are so grateful for the assistance of Mona and Laura from EJUSA. We would be floundering if not for their patience, assistance, cheerleading, and expertise.

Honor my son and other victims of murder by acting with the highest regard for human life. You must act with the minds and spirits at levels higher that the murderer who killed my son.

The death penalty has failed victims’ family members in virtually every way, and many of us – including many who support the death penalty in principle – have come to support its end.

...being selected as a defendant for a capital case is as random and serendipitous as being struck by lightning.

When a criminal defendant is forced to pay with his life for his lawyer’s errors, the effectiveness of the criminal justice system as a whole is compromised.

I think that any reasonable person would have to reach that conclusion that someone has been executed for a crime they didn't commit.

Spending our tax dollars on actually preventing crimes, instead of pursuing death sentences after they've already been committed, will assure us we will have fewer victims.

As a member of the New York Senate from 1966 to 1989, I voted 12 times to establish the death penalty in New York... I regret my votes in favor of the death penalty.

My Tía's killer was her own son -- my cousin. He was in the midst of a psychotic break....Cutting funding to treat mental illness while paying for the death penalty is simply insane.

Two juries were wrong. Two judges were wrong. The state of Maryland was wrong... I am not here because the system worked. I am here because a series of miracles happened.

Unfortunately, no state treasury has a bottomless pit of law enforcement dollars. In making choices about the most effective way to spend them, the death penalty would be last on my list.

When the New York courts struck our death penalty, it was EJUSA that gave us the vision and resources to defeat the death penalty entirely.

I have seen the ugliness of murder up close and personal. But I have never heard a murderer say they thought about the death penalty as consequence of their actions prior to committing their crimes.

As the warden of San Quentin, I presided over four executions. After each one, someone on the staff would ask, ‘Is the world safer because of what we did tonight?' We knew the answer: No.

...it is just absurd that we would pull officers from the streets and at the same time spend millions of dollars to have a death penalty system that has not been proven to prevent crime.

I think I could prove to you that I could put someone in the Waldorf Hotel for 60 to 70 years and feed them three meals a day cheaper than we can litigate a single death penalty case.

One capital case absorbs the resources of another 200 cases. I don't think I'm exaggerating. The truth is, I can spend an 18-month period working out 50 major cases or one capital case.

It's not about crime prevention or crime deterrence or saving money. [With executions] we're creating a lot of other residual victims.

...the death penalty is not an effective law enforcement tool in practice. It is a distraction from justice.

We've had the death penalty since 1994, and we continue to pay for the process with little results... But we continue to cut the programs that could prevent these types of crimes.

At least five men who were sentenced to death in Georgia had lawyers who referred to them in court as 'niggers.'

The death penalty absolutely costs more money, in fact the DA's office and
the Public Defender's Office, everyone agrees it's much more costly than
incarceration.

[The death penalty] consumes huge sums of money that could be used for direct victims' services, such as counseling, funeral expenses, and educational help for the children left behind.

Abolishing the death penalty and using life without parole instead can't fix all the injustices exposed in courts across the nation. But at least no one would be executed as a result.

What I've learned from looking at the Florida system and the other systems around the country is that the death penalty is a quagmire.

The death penalty simply puts families in a state of suspended animation, almost never delivering on the promise of healing while always holding out the false promise of "closure".

We can never build a system that is able to prevent the execution of those who are actually innocent. To me, this is a compelling argument why we should abolish the Death Penalty.

The death penalty is imposed not only in a freakish and discriminatory manner, but also in some cases upon defendants who are actually innocent.

While we must always work to improve our justice system and appeals process, it will never be perfect. Never. But executing a person will always be final.

I think [the death penalty is] very expensive, and the delays are inordinate, delaying closure for the victims' families.

No set of procedures can completely guard against human error. Believe me, I was certain Ronald Cotton was the man who raped me — certain.

I have come to think of it [the death penalty] as a ridiculous institution...You can't design a system where you can ensure that an innocent person is not executed.

In the last quarter-century, more than 100 men sitting on death row have been released because of reviews that have found them innocent.

[A capital case amounts to] playing on a $100-a-roll table instead of a nickel or dime table.

The moral and monetary investment of the death penalty is significantly greater than the return to society.

More and more, the climate is against trying capital cases...

The millions of taxpayer dollars we are currently wasting on a dysfunctional death penalty could be used for actual public safety measures.

It's the roll of the dice. If they can do it to me, they can do it to anyone.

We really can find no way to do this that will take the arbitrariness out of the system.

I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.

If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed.

There's just no way I could conclude that the way we do this makes any sense. I have come to the conclude that, in fact, we apply the death penalty in a very arbitrary manner.

Lest there be any doubt, the idea that the death penalty is fairly and rationally imposed in this country is a farce.

When it comes to human life, a system that gets it right most of the time should not exist at all.

We should rethink the death penalty in this country. If even one innocent person is wrongly put to death on behalf of the state, for me, that is enough to get rid of it.

The Constitution guarantees the right to an attorney. It doesn't say the lawyer has to be awake.

I think the time has come to decide whether it's worth the cost.