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No man has ever yet been hanged for breaking the spirit of a law.

There was a war crimes trial because an American prisoner had been shot trying to escape. He had obviously been recaptured and shot, and that violated the Geneva Convention.

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.

Since Franklin Roosevelt's leadership in setting up the United Nations and the Nuremberg trials, the U.S. has promoted universal legal norms and the institutions to enforce them while seeking, by hook or by crook, to exempt American citizens, especially soldiers, from their actual application.

If Bush and Blair are eventually put on trial for war crimes, I shall not be among those pressing for them to be hanged.

Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.

The Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders, in open court before an international tribunal, had a profound long-term effect in bringing Germans back to democracy and humanity.

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

I believe that people would be alive today if there were a death penalty.