One of the issues in your profile.

"Okay, that's fine argue with statistics that show that you are wrong. .. like the one I just posted. The death penalty deters 8 murders from occurring. " --> These statistics are completely sound. When a criminal planning the murder of someone, the criminal obviously doesn't expect to be caught and therefore would have no regard of the punishment (in this case, capital punishment). However, if the possibility of being caught was increased, there would be a greater chance that the criminal is deterred from committing the crime. Therefore, preventing murders is not done by increasing the harshness of the punishment but by increasing the possibility that the person responsible for the crime will be caught. "Murder, at least in a philosophical sense, is the intentional killing of an innocent, and you brought up a philosophical matter. " --> What is murder if it is not the intentional killing of an innocent? If the intentional killing of an innocent is defined as murder, then I do not see what the fuss is about. Uhh. .. yeah. .. no. The people who rejected Copernicus were uneducated peasants. The Supreme Court is comprised of brilliant men and women. " --> They were not all uneducated. They were humans who carried some prejudices and biased opinions. The same can be said of Supreme Court judges. They are human and are therefore liable to error and the other faults of humans. They may not be extremely biased or prejudiced, but are still a biased to a certain extent. Indeed, this can be proved through the fact that statistics show that two-thirds of any case involving a black or hispanic killing a white result in the death penalty. Overall, a black person is 5 times more likely to get the death penalty. "Life imprisonment, a) does not deter as well, and b) it allows criminals to cause more harm, my mother, a psychologist has treated many prison guards who have faced emotional challenges after injuries resulting from prison breaks. " --> I'll say that life imprisonment deters just as well as the death penalty. Spending a life time in a small cell v. getting a quick death both sound pretty grim to me. The reason for prison breaks is because of the faults with security, not because of the faults with the punishment. Since the death punishment is currently legal, those criminals who caused emotional challenges to guards were not sentenced to death for a reason. Therefore, with or without the death penalty, the same prison breaks that have occurred in the past would still have occurred. "And I already stated that you're wrong, sacrifice is necessary. Life imprisonment won't deter as well. " --> I have also stated that both will deter the same amount. Both life imprisonment and capital punishment are grim consequences. There is no difference. The true way to deter criminals is to increase the possibility of them being caught. "I am saying that the death penalty should only be applied to murder 1, and this was a murder 2 case, and should not have been made a capital offense. I only have to affirm capital punishment, I can choose the conditions. " --> You are saying that only murder 1 should get the death penalty. Yet, in this case, murder 2 also got the death penalty. Therefore, this shows that either a) my opponent's definition of the crimes deserving the death penalty is faulty, or, b) that human fallibility can cause errors when judging and do not always judge both fairly and according to the rules laid out, or, c) both of the above. Therefore, the death penalty is a fallible form of punishment and there are other alternative punishments that would work just as effectively in both preventing murders from happening and assuring the safety of innocents.