The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
Dudley Sharp

The death penalty has a foundation in justice and it spares more innocent lives.

The majority populations of all countries may support the death penalty for some crimes (1).

Why? Justice.

THE DEATH PENALTY: SAVING MORE INNOCENT LIVES

Of all endeavors that put innocents at risk, is there one with a better record of sparing innocent lives than the US death penalty? Unlikely.

1) The Death Penalty: Saving More Innocent Lives
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/...g-more-innocent.html

2) Innocents More At Risk Without Death Penalty
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/...k-without-death.html

MORAL FOUNDATIONS: DEATH PENALTY PT. 1

1) Saint (& Pope) Pius V: "The just use of (executions), far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this (Fifth) Commandment which prohibits murder." "The Roman Catechism of the Council of Trent" (1566).

2) Pope Pius XII; "When it is a question of the execution of a man condemned to death it is then reserved to the public power to deprive the condemned of the benefit of life, in expiation of his fault, when already, by his fault, he has dispossessed himself of the right to live." 9/14/52.

3) John Murray: "Nothing shows the moral bankruptcy of a people or of a generation more than disregard for the sanctity of human life."

"... it is this same atrophy of moral fiber that appears in the plea for the abolition of the death penalty."

"It is the sanctity of life that validates the death penalty for the crime of murder. It is the sense of this sanctity that constrains the demand for the infliction of this penalty. The deeper our regard for life the firmer will be our hold upon the penal sanction which the violation of that sanctity merit." (Page 122 of Principles of Conduct).

4) Immanuel Kant: "If an offender has committed murder, he must die. In this case, no possible substitute can satisfy justice. For there is no parallel between death and even the most miserable life, so that there is no equality of crime and retribution unless the perpetrator is judicially put to death.".

"A society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else's life is simply immoral."

5) Billy Graham: "God will not tolerate sin. He condemns it and demands payment for it. God could not remain a righteous God and compromise with sin. His holiness and His justice demand the death penalty." ( "The Power of the Cross," published in the Apr. 2007 issue of Decision magazine ).

6) Theodore Roosevelt: "It was really heartrending to have to see the kinfolk and friends of murderers who were condemned to death, and among the very rare occasions when anything governmental or official caused me to lose sleep were times when I had to listen to some poor mother making a plea for a criminal so wicked, so utterly brutal and depraved, that it would have been a crime on my part to remit his punishment.".

7) Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "Again, every rogue who criminously attacks social rights becomes, by his wrong, a rebel and a traitor to his fatherland. By contravening its laws, he ceases to be one of its citizens: he even wages war against it. In such circumstances, the State and he cannot both be saved: one or the other must perish. In killing the criminal, we destroy not so much a citizen as an enemy. The trial and judgments are proofs that he has broken the Social Contract, and so is no longer a member of the State." (The Social Contract).

8) John Locke: "A criminal who, having renounced reason... hath, by the unjust violence and slaughter he hath committed upon one, declared war against all mankind, and therefore may be destroyed as a lion or tyger, one of those wild savage beasts with whom men can have no society nor security." And upon this is grounded the great law of Nature, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Second Treatise of Civil Government.

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"Moral/ethical Death Penalty Support: Christian and secular Scholars"
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/...modern-catholic.html

"The Death Penalty: Neither Hatred nor Revenge"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2...red-nor-revenge.aspx

"The Death Penalty: Not a Human Rights Violation"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2...ights-violation.aspx

"Killing Equals Killing: The Amoral Confusion of Death Penalty Opponents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2...ces--new-mexico.aspx

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1) US Death Penalty Support at 80%; World Support Remains High
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/...ort-at-80-world.html

Much more, upon request. sharpjfa@aol.com