"There are certain circumstances in which the death penalty is essential to our respect for life. If we do not in our law send the message to everybody that by calculatedly, coldly taking a human life in a way that assaults the structures of law in a society or shows a cold-blooded and studied disregard for the value of that life, if we are not willing to implement the death penalty in those circumstances, then we are actually sending a message of contempt for human life. We are encouraging people to believe that that step is not in fact a terminal step, when they fatefully and fatally decide to move against the life of another human being. So I think that there are circumstances under which it is essential, in fact, that we have and apply the death penalty in order to send a clear moral message to people throughout our society that we will not tolerate that kind of disrespect for life."

- Alan Keyes