"A modern nation that deals in state-sponsored death, becomes, in part, dead in itself..."

As Sister Helen sees it, attempts to make the penalty more consistent have failed. Yet where defects are only procedural, they could be remedied; given political will and a bottomless public purse, possibly they could be fixed. If the bureaucrats were wise and the system fair—if the process met tightly defined legal criteria of objectivity—would it be all right to have a death penalty? Many would say yes. Sister Helen is clear in her view. "I don't believe that the government should be put in charge of killing anybody, even those proven guilty of terrible crimes." This is what the world would like to hear America say. You do not have to be a Christian, or have any faith at all, to support Sister Helen's basic position: "Every human being is worth more than the worst act of his or her life."

The death penalty is not wrong because it is inconsistently administered. If it were fairly administered, it would still be wrong. Finally, the issue is moral; a nation so God-besotted should be able to grasp that. When the government touches a corpse, it contaminates the private citizen. A modern nation that deals in state-sponsored death, becomes, in part, dead in itself; dead certainly, to the enlightened ideals from which America derives its existence as a nation.
Hilary Mantel, New York Review of Books