Supporters of capital punishment bear a special responsibility to ensure the fairness of this irreversible punishment.
Interpretation
Capital punishment supporters must ensure its fairness due to its irreversible nature.
This quote emphasizes the moral obligation of those who advocate for capital punishment to guarantee that the process is just and fair. Given that capital punishment is an irreversible act, the consequences of an unjust execution are profound and irreversible, making it critical for supporters to uphold the highest standards of justice and fairness in such matters.
In practice
In a debate about the ethics of capital punishment, this quote could underscore the need for rigorous judicial processes.
You know, there was a recent poll which said that young people in the generation of the students here felt it was far more likely that they would see a UFO than that they would draw Social Security... It's very important you understand this. Once you understand this, you realize this is not an episode from the X Files, and you're not more likely to see a UFO if you do certain specific things.
When we got organized as a country, [and] wrote a fairly radical Constitution, with a radical Bill of Rights, giving radical amounts of freedom to Americans, it was assumed that Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly...When personal freedom is being abused, you have to move to limit it.
For too long we've been told about 'us' and 'them.' Each and every election we see a new slate of arguments and ads telling us that 'they' are the problem, not 'us.' But there can be no 'them' in America. There's only us.
There is a huge body of business evidence now showing that energy savings give better service at lower cost with higher profit. We have to tear down barriers to successful markets and we have to create incentives to enter them.
Demand that your government pays more attention. It's immoral that people in Africa die like flies of diseases that no one dies of in the United States. And the more disease there is, the more political unrest there will be, leading to more Darfurs, which the U.S. will have to pay to fix.
I was not elected to produce a pile of vetoes.
Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.
After decades of persistent, courageous advocacy - often at risk to their own lives, livelihoods, and safety - African Americans succeeded in securing their right to a voice in our government, and their work laid the foundation for the social justice work of generations to follow.
If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of mass incarceration is just too big, too daunting for us to do anything about and that we should instead direct our energies to battles that might be more easily won, history will judge us harshly. A human rights nightmare is occurring on our watch.
Terrorism does not disappear with revenge tactics but through making justice and equality before law a reality.
Swift justice demands more than just swiftness.
The risk of racial prejudice infecting a capital sentencing proceeding is especially serious in light of the complete finality of the death sentence.
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