One of the more difficult tasks for me as president was to decide on the issue of confirming capital punishment awarded by courts... to my surprise... almost all cases which were pending had a social and economic bias.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The American people have determined that the good to be derived from capital punishment - in deterrence, and perhaps most of all in the meting out of condign justice for horrible crimes - outweighs the risk of error.
And the American public was able to make up their own mind whether this verdict was a just verdict or not. So I think there's a lot of value in the public being able to see how the system works or doesn't work, so I think there's a definite value there.
I am convinced that, because the criminal justice system is run by humans, it is naturally subject to human error. There is no rational basis to believe that this same type of human error will not infect capital murder trials.
The long and distressing controversy over capital punishment is very unfair to anyone meditating murder.
Privatizing bits of the prison industry was a step in the right direction, but what we didn't have - until recently - were proper instruments for incentivizing the judiciary. That's what the 'kids for cash' judges were apparently experimenting with.
I would like to see capital punishment suppressed in all democracies.
I don't agree with capital punishment as it is now, because too often mistakes are made. But I think that if you eliminate the mistakes, then there are times when it is justified.
I support capital punishment. But let's be clear: It's a decision for each state to make.
The American public got to see for themselves every day, all day, how this trial progressed. There's a lot of value in the public being able to see how the system works.
The Supreme Court of the United States... has validated the Nazi method of execution in... concentration camps, starving them to death.