“An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the
privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death
a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization
which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death.
Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no
criminal’s deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an
equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had
warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death
on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for
months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.”
Albert Camus—“Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion &
Death” (1956).
Plea Against the Death Penalty
Look, examine, reflect. You hold capital punishment up as an example. Why? Because of what it teaches. And just what is it that you wish to teach by means of this example? That thou shalt not kill. And how do you teach that “thou shalt not kill”? By killing.
I have examined the death penalty under each of its 2 aspects: as a direct action, and as an indirect one. What does it come down to? Nothing but something horrible and useless, nothing but a way of shedding blood that is called a crime when an individual commits it, but is (sadly) called “justice” when society brings it about. Make no mistake, you lawmakers and judges, in the eyes of God as in those of conscience, what is a crime when individuals do it is no less an offense when society commits the deed.
Victor Hugo, Speech at the Constituent Assembly, September 15, 1848
- Current Updates and News
- Pending Executions
- Urgent Actions Against the Death
Penalty - Addresses of United States Governors
- 2014 Executions in US
- 2013 Executions in US
- 2012 Executions in US
- 2011 Executions in US
- 2010 Executions in US
- 2009 Executions in US
- 2008 Executions in US
- 2007 Executions in US
- 2006 Executions in US
- 2005 Executions in US
- 2004 Executions in US
- 2003 Executions in US
- 2002 Executions in US
- 2001 Executions in US
- 2000 Executions in US
- 1999 Executions in US
- 1998 Executions in US
- 1997 Executions in US
- 1996 Executions in US
- 1995 Executions in US
- Executions and Victims since 1977
- USA Executions by Year and State, 2002-
- USA Executions by Year and State, 1977-2001
- Execution Statistics Summary — State and Year
- Texas Execution Statistics
Links to Death Penalty Related Sites
- Death Row Prisoner Pages
- Links for State Organizations and Death Row
Rosters - International Death Penalty
Organizations - General Death Penalty Links
Updates are available for at least 2 weeks. This information along
with other death penalty information is archived at the Abolish archive
site. See related links here and here.
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opinions or policies of SMU. The administrator of this web page is Rick
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