The Death Penalty should be legal in the United States

The death penalty is punishment in which the person who committed the offense is put to death by the state. [1. http://en.wiktionary.org...] Currently 35 of the 50 states have a death penalty, as well as does the federal government and the U.S. Military. [2. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.... The resolution allows states to continue to use a death penalty if they choose. In this debate, I will argue that there are some circumstances in which the death penalty should be legal; my opponent must argue that there are no circumstances in which it should be legal. 1. Justice demands that the death penalty be legal. In the United States, the death penalty is and should be reserved for the most heinous crimes, usually upon demonstration of aggravating circumstances like multiple murders. In a just society, punishments should be proportionate the seriousness of the offense. Some crimes are so heinous that only a death penalty provides justice for horrific crimes. One example will suffice: Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against four of seven suspects facing murder charges in the July death of a Florida couple known for adopting special-needs children, authorities said Monday. ... prosecutors believe there were dual motives in the killings -- robbery and a contracted hit. ... one of the children, a boy who has autism and speech issues, was in his parents' room at the time they were killed there. ... The boy, ... in an interview with a nurse ... told her that "two bad men" wearing black masks awakened Byrd Billings and told him: "You're going to die." [3. http://articles.cnn.com...] What punishment short of the death penalty would be just in this case? 2. Execution saves innocent lives We should be greatly concerned that no innocent person is falsely executed. To prevent wrong executions, states should and have enacted laws requiring extra scrutiny of death sentences. In addition, there are well-financed expert legal teams that independently examine death penalty cases, e.g., “The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 ... to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, 266 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row.” [4. http://www.innocenceproject.org...] Having been on death row does not mean that the prisoner would have been executed. The prisoner might be in a state like California that theoretically has the death penalty, but it is virtually never applied. In California, felons sometimes request death penalty conviction to get the extra privileges that status affords. [3. http://lapd.com... ] The person might also be found innocent as a matter of course, such as by the requirement for additional scrutiny or by the confession of the real perpetrator. The death sentence might also have been commuted to a lesser sentence by the governor. The Innocence Project is reluctant to say if they have actually saved anyone from wrongful execution. It is at most 17, and probably less than five. While the Innocence Project keeps precise statistics on wrongful convictions, the statistics are incomplete on additional killings by those given a life sentences instead of execution. A partial count is those given life instead of execution have killed four guards, 12 fellow inmates, and 13 upon escaping. Another 12 people were killed upon being paroled from a life sentence, and 67 upon release. [5. http://www.wesleylowe.com...] "Life" does not mean that the person will never be released. Even "life without parole" is can be commuted to "life with parole." The compilers of the list claim that they have enumerated only a small fraction of murders committed subsequent to life imprisonment, but the absolute minimum is 30. Associate U.S. Attorney General D. Lowell Jensen told a Senate subcommittee that it is impossible to punish or even deter such prison murders because, without a death sentence, a violent life-termer has free rein "to continue to murder as opportunity and his perverse motives dictate." [5] It's wrong to think that sentencing a heinous criminal to life eliminates their moral responsibility for loss of innocent life. that's no true. Preserving murders to kill again increases the moral responsibility. It's like preserving a time bomb. It's irresponsible because the danger increases, not decreases. 3. False convictions are now extremely unlikely due to modern forensics The Innocence Project and opponents of the death penalty scour the records of the past 14,000 post-WWII executions looking for false convictions. The claim to find a few. However, the era of DNA testing only began about ten or fifteen years ago. Juries are now reluctant to convict someone of a serious crime without very solid forensic evidence. This recent demand for forensic evidence is called the CSI effect. [6. http://en.wikipedia.org...] There are disputes over whether the jury awareness really came from watching crime shows on TV, and whether it makes convictions easier or more difficult. A suspect cleared by DNA evidence is certainly harder to convict, and one fingered by DNA evidence is certainly easier to convict. The bottom line is that wrongful convictions for serious crimes are no much more unlikely than in the past. Wrongful convictions are not impossible, but there have been only a handful in the past 14,000 executions, and we expect even fewer in the future. 4. Justice should not be compromised by a very small risk of error Many of us will venture out in automobiles today. The circumstances may align through no fault of our own to involve us in a fatal traffic accident. That's unfair, but we face the odds anyway, knowing that 30,000 accidental deaths occur each year. the odds of our untimely end are about 1 in 100,000. Under the most pessimistic of assumptions of ten per year, our odds of departing via a wrongful execution are 1 in 30,000,000. What do we get for using automobiles? We get a great deal of convenience in our lives. What do we get in return for a legal death penalty? We get a just society and we save the lives of those innocent people that would murdered by the killers we had preserved. 5. Justice deters crime Statistics from states are unclear. Some states may enact a death penalty in response to high rates, others may abandon the penalty because of low homicide rates. States like California theoretically have a death penalty, but actually don't enforce it. The fair generalization is that societies that make the rules of the law clear and consistently enforce those rules deter criminal behavior in general. Japan has the death penalty and the lowest crime rate and homicide rate of advanced countries. [7. http://en.wikipedia.org...] Some criminals believe they won't be caught. Some will be deterred, even some crimes of passion. Littering is a crime of passion. No one sets out a plan to litter at 2 PM the next day. But if there is a thousand dollar fine, and one just read a story of someone receiving the fine, then potential litterers will think twice. Contemplated crimes, like the killings in prison escapes are also likely to be deterred. 6. The death penalty supports plea bargaining Killers confess and list their victims in return for not seeking the death penalty. [8. http://edition.cnn.com... ] That provides certain conviction, closes previously unsolved murders, and provides closure to the friends and families of victims of unsolved crimes. ----- For all these reasons, the death penalty should be legal.