Eric H. Holder Jr. said earlier this year he opposes the death penalty because “the ultimate nightmare” is that someone will be executed in error. And because death sentences are handed out as part of a system that ultimately relies on the judgments of human beings — people can, and do, make mistakes — such a failure is “inevitable,” he said.

Although isolated passages of religious scripture have been quoted in support of the death penalty, almost all religious groups in the United States regard executions as immoral

The researchers surveyed a thirteen year period of police homicides. The study concluded " we find no consistent evidence that capital punishment influenced police killings during the 1976-1989 period

Year 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Murder Rate in Death Penalty States* 9.5 9.94 9.51 9.69 9.23 8.59 7.72 7.09 6.51 5.86 5.70 5.82 5.82 5.91 5.71 5.87 5.9 Murder Rate in Non-death Penalty States 9.16 9.27 8.63 8.81 7.88 6.78 5.37 5.00 4.61 4.59 4.25 4.25 4.27 4.10 4.02 4.03 4.22 Percent Difference 4% 7% 10% 10% 17% 27% 44% 42% 41% 28% 35% 37% 36% 44% 42% 46% 40%

If we design a legal system that will be so generous to the suspect that there is absolutely no possibility of unjustly convicting that one out of ten thousand defendants who, in spite of overwhelming evidence, is really innocent, then we have also designed a legal system that is utterly incapable of convicting the other 9999 about whose guilt there is no mistake." 

Death-penalty opponents are very likely to view the system as being racially unfair: Seven in 10 opponents say the sentencing is racially unfair, while about four in 10 supporters say the same thing.

Since 1973, more than 150 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. (Staff Report, House Judiciary

• Beheading• Electrocution• Hanging• Lethal injection• Shooting in the back of the head and by firing squad

Denial of human rights. Sentencing someone to death denies them the right to life – enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

The eye of a little god

Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view, Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judg). At thy return my blushing was not small, My rambling brat (in print) should mother call, I cast thee by as one unfit for light, Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight; Yet being mine own, at length affection would Thy blemishes amend, if so I could: I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw. I stretched thy joynts to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet; In better dress to trim thee was my mind, But nought save home-spun Cloth, i’ th’ house I find. In this array ’mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam. In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come; And take thy way where yet thou art not known, If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none: And for thy Mother, she alas is poor, Which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door.

The Author to Her Book

In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come;

I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw