How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
We were told that the Indian's neck had not been broken, as was the case with the other two, and that he swung there and strangled for more than half an hour before a doctor pronounced him dead and had him lowered. (2.16)
Mattie doesn't exactly seem to disapprove of the death penalty, but she does describe it in such a way as to make us think that hanging can be really, really brutal and drawn out. Notice how she spends more time describing his death than the other men's? Her description is drawn out, just like his death. Creepy.
Quote #2
I have since learned that Judge Isaac Parker watched all the hangings from an upper window in the Courthouse. I suppose he did this from a sense of duty. There is no knowing what's in a man's heart. (2.16)
Judge Parker was a real person and he wrote extensively about his life, including his feelings on the death penalty. (He was anti.) Juries decided the guilt or innocence of men sentenced to hanging, and Parker sentenced them according to the laws at the time. But it doesn't seem like he liked it much.
Quote #3
When he died of dropsy in 1896 all the prisoners down there in that dark jail had a "jubilee" and the jailers had to put it down. (3.91)
The prisoners see Judge Parker as the human face of a justice system that they believe is treating them unjustly. They can't separate the man from the system of justice he represents—but the death penalty isn't dying with Parker.