Rehabilitation, as the word is used today, has no part in the Death Penalty's justification.

~ Today, the State is generally viewed simply as an instrument of the will of the governed. In this modern perspective, the death penalty expresses, not the divine judgment on objective evil, but rather the collective anger of the group, as a self-assertive act of vengeance, which is always sinful.

"But what does such a justification mean to the society we live in, a society which in its institutions and manners alike has become almost entirely secular? When an atheist - or skeptic - or agnostic judge imposes the death penalty on an unbelieving criminal, he is pronouncing a definitive punishment that cannot be revised. He sits upon God's throne, but without possessing God's powers and, moreover, without believing in them."

- Albert Camus