The Death Penalty should be Abolished

Unfortunately, there are a few fundamental problems with my opponent's case about deterrence that needs to be addressed before this debate continues. DOUBLE STANDARDS FALLACY Con treats the results of his pro death penalty studies as if they are proven facts. He says in his constructive speech "Facts are what we are looking for in this debate and I've already shown that: Criminals fear death, 3 lives are saved per execution, crime rates went down 38%...".He contends that these results are "facts" because they were in a study he read. In the same breath, he also admits that a myriad of anti - death penalty studies contradict these statistics and show completely different results. He says earlier "Five of the studies find that the death penalty shows no difference in crime or that it has a slight increase in crime". He even concedes afterwards that there are much more than 5 studies that prove this.The problem with this is obvious. My opponent gives us no reason to believe that one study is more reliable than the other, but for some reason only treats studies that support his arguments as facts and dismisses all other results. I'm going to have to be firm here and say: no, until you have give us a reason to believe that pro death penalty studies should be taken as more reliable than the enormous amount of evidence that begs to differ, you have NOT shown that criminals fear death, or 3 lives are saved per execution, or crime rates went down solely because of the death penalty in any way, shape or form. CAUSATION FALLACY My opponent commits a causation fallacy in regards to his historical example about capital punishment because he does not give us one reason to believe that there is a correlation between the drop in murder rates and the implementation of capital punishment.A) He says that after the Death Penalty was temporarily suspended crime rates went "way up". What does "way up" even mean? What about the crime rates for the states who didn't suspend the Death Penalty, how were they affected?B) The study he cites to support him says that the executions were only responsible for a 14%, not the 38% number my opponent is spewing around, of the drop, meaning that even if capital punishment played a part in the change crime rates were already dropping before then. Additionally, I don't even believe this figure is true - my opponent's citation for it is broken and only takes me to the FoxNews homepage.Finally, my opponent offers a faulty syllogism in the form of:1. Capital Punishment was re-implemented in several states in the 1990s.2. Eight years later the homicide rate dropped by 38%.3. Therefore, the Death Penalty must have caused this deterrence!This is as flawed as saying:1. The grunge band Nirvana became popular in the 1990s.2. Eight years later the homicide rate dropped by 38%.3. Therefore, grunge music must lower homicide rates!I think my point is clear - my opponent doesn't show why these two statistics relate. Consider the following explanations for the decline. The legalization of abortion in the United States meant that an increasing amount of unwanted pregnancies were terminated - most of the unwanted babies would have became criminals because they wouldn't have been able to grow up in a healthy environment since their parents did not want to support them. Therefore, the legalization of abortion is what caused these crime rates to drop. Alternatively, crime rates could have been steadily decreasing in other states before capital punishment was even reimplemented - my opponent doesn't give us these statistics, so for all we know states that didn't reinstitute the death penalty could have experienced an even greater decline in murders! Or perhaps a boom in the economy meant that many people who were forced to resort to crime before had an opportunity to become contributing citizens of society, causing the decline in crime.As my opponent is the one making the assertion about deterrence, the burden of proof is on him to show that the Death Penalty is the catalyst that caused the decline in crime and not these alternative explanations. Until then, his statistics should be disregarded. ABOUT DETERRENCE Although it is clear at this point that most of my opponents objections to my arguments are based of faulty logic, there are still a few ideas I want to address on this topic.First off, my opponent asks me to explain how the Committee on Law and Justice at the National Research Council (a government funded organization that has been publishing research on government decision making ever since 1916) demonstrated that the majority of Pro Death Penalty studies are based off of flawed methodlogy. This is an unreasonable demand because I am obviously not willing to summarize over 144 pages of information into a brief sentences for my opponent - just like I don't expect my opponent to explain the how the death penalty studies he cites arrived at the conclusions they did. However, I have linked to a free PDF version of the document below so my opponent can delve through the paper if he wishes.http://www.nap.edu...;Secondly, my opponent completely dismisses the fact that over 87% of criminologists and the majority of American police chiefs agree that the Death Penalty is ineffective at deterring crime as irrelevant. These opinions are relevant because they are the opinions of experts who have been researching or experiencing first hand the effects of capital punishment on crime for years. Regardless of whether my opponent believes he can arrive at a more accurate conclusion than experts who have spent over eight years studying the idea of criminal deterrence at universities by just googling death penalty studies, we should factor in the opinions of these people when we debate this resolution.Finally, my opponent completely misinterprets my last argument. I am not saying that criminals who commit murders on impulse or when impaired shouldn't be punished, I am saying that from a common sense perspective, murderers wouldn't be deterred by the death penalty since they are either A) acting on impulse or impairment and not able to realize the consequences of their actions or B) commiting crimes fully aware that they will spend the rest of their life in prison if they are caught. ABOUT COST Although I technically don't even have to address this since my opponent agrees that if I can show that the Death Penalty doesn't actually deter criminals, it is pointless and expensive. However, I need to clear up a few things my opponent mentions in the previous round.A) My opponent says that "That's actually relatively inexpensive for the whole roughly 38% less crimes you get from it". This statement is false because even if the Death Penalty actually does deter crime, which it doesn't, the 38% figure doesn't make sense - my opponent's own studies admit that the actual portion that the Death Penalty is possibly responsible for is much lower. So I ask that my opponent would stop throwing that number around because it is false and misleading to the readers.B) "My opponent states that we should invest the 1,100,000 dollars we use on the death penalty per year into actual things that are proven to prevent crime". This sentence is also misleading because we don't just spend 1,100,000 per year on the Death Penalty as a nation, we spend that sum per state. In total America actually spends 55,000,000 on the Death Penalty per year.Finally, my opponent asks for an alternative program we can invest in that would lower crime rates more effectively than capital punishment. There are numerous examples, the most notable being drug rehabilitation. Since we know that a majority of criminal acts are commited under the influence, drug rehabilitation programs would be able to address these crimes, in addition to positively impacting our culture and fixing the root of the problem. There are numerous studies that support this idea, I have 15 to cite next round since I'm running out of space.