As one whose husband and mother-in-law have both died the victims of assassination/murder, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses.  An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed in retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life.  Morality is never upheld by legalized murder.
Coretta Scott King

A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.  Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals a chance to reform.
Pope John Paul II

It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it.  Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind.
Geroge Bernard Shaw

Make your way to death row and speak with the tragic victims of criminality. As they prepare to make their pathetic walk to the electric chair, their hopeless cry is that society will not forgive. Capital punishment is society's final assertion that it will not forgive.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

I don't want a moratorium on the death penalty. I want the abolition of it. I can't understand why a country that's so committed to human rights doesn't find the death penalty an obscenity.
Desmond Tutu