Death Penalty Cases

Famous quotes containing the words death, penalty and/or cases:

    “And anyone is free to condemn me to death
    If he leaves it to nature to carry out the sentence.
    I shall will to the common stock of air my breath
    And pay a death tax of fairly polite repentance.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “The Reverend Samuel Peters ... exaggerated the Blue Laws, but they did include “Capital Lawes” providing a death penalty for any child over sixteen who was found guilty of cursing or striking his natural parents; a death penalty for an incorrigible son; a law forbidding smoking except in a room in a private house; another law declaring smoking illegal except on a journey five miles away from home,...”
    —Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    “After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)