death penalty

Alright, one last thanks to Pro, and let"s get into this. The organization's confusing, but I'll stick with his points. 1. I actually never mentioned a right to life, but I feel like Pro"s shooting himself in the foot here. He says that "[t]he right to life is the most fundamental of rights. No state should be allowed to take it away easily", even clarifying that it"s more fundamental than other rights which have reasonable restrictions, and stating that it "has to be foolproof and not amenable to subjective readings. " Based on Pro"s own reasoning, voters, you can stop reading right here and vote Con. Pro concedes that it"s not foolproof, as some innocents will die. Pro drops that it"s an unfair and unjust system that sends people to their death without fair representation " remember, a full quarter of condemned inmates has been represented by court-appointed attorneys who have been disciplined for professional misconduct. Many of these attorneys arrive drunk, sleep through trials, or worse, sabotage cases. But let's go on. Pro starts asking a lot of questions, but he never attacks my reasoning, instead attacking this straw man argument of the right to life. Again, this was never my argument. The only protections I've argued for with regards to convicted criminals are those that prevent cruel and unusual punishment, which is sacrosanct (and which Pro has continued to drop). It doesn't matter if these people are deserving of death; we as a society clearly value the principle that no one is due cruel and unusual punishment, as it"s a part of our Bill of Rights. Whether we think they're due a right to life is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they are due the death penalty under current means, which is what Pro"s supporting. Pro argues that we might need to kill some people quicker to prevent jail breaks, but since I've already shown that time spent on death row is also extremely long, there"s no reason to believe that LWOP presents a greater problem. If they"re not going to come for these guys in 9 years, I don"t think that another 10 is going to make the difference. I don"t see how imprisoning terrorists emboldens other terrorists to take action. If anything, I"d say that LWOP shows them a level of fairness in the U. S. justice system, and isn't as likely to turn these captured terrorists into martyrs, which would embolden them. [. http://bit.ly...] Lastly, Pro drops back to this argument that they"re going to commit crimes in prison. Again, I showed that death row offers practically the same opportunity without the chance of rehabilitation. 2. "sending someone to the gallows when he may be innocent is the worst form of injustice. " It's like Pro's handing the debate to me. I pointed out at the end of last round that justice is what we should be most concerned with, that any other impact was secondary. Pro is actively saying that ANY INNOCENT DEATH is the worst form of injustice, and, just to reiterate, he conceded that the death penalty leads to some innocent death. He tries to characterize this as "the rarest of the rare cases", but a) he"s not responsive to my citations that show that it's more common than he believes, and b) 1 person is already too much when, and I will quote him again, this "is the worst form of injustice. " Again, you can stop right here and vote Con. But let"s keep on. Pro now presents an alternative remedy, "by strengthening the law - a law which provides state legal support for the poor. .. a group of concerned citizens can serve as watchdog to ensure that this gets done. " The law provides legal support for the poor, and I"ve shown how that support has been absolutely awful. There are plenty of watchdog groups in existence, including the American Civil Liberties Union and numerous press groups. [. http://bit.ly...] None of these have solved or will solve the problem. The only other suggestion he makes is that "the rules for applying the death sentence can be tightened suitably so that convictions based on weak evidence should automatically attract nothing more than lifers", but a) this is incredibly vague since we don"t know what "weak evidence" looks like, b) these convictions result from unanimous agreement among a given jury, which can"t be altered by law, and c) this defies his own statement from the previous round: "we can never completely eliminate all uncertainty". So long as any uncertainty still exists on, again, "the worst form of injustice" possible, then you vote Con. 3. Again, Pro"s straw manning my argument. I didn't say that LWOP was a better deterrent, I said it was equal. I pointed out that the vast majority of murders committed are done in a fit of extreme emotion or as a result of insanity. Pro doesn't counter this. These people won"t be deterred at all. There are others who might. However, among those, there's no reason to believe that the DP is fundamentally better as a deterrent. And Pro seems to agree with me: "I believe that punishment itself does not deter too many crimes involving the killing of people". He talks about sending a message to society, but I think that message is clearly sent by LWOP sentences. The DP is not a unique message, nor will people be more likely to commit murder simply because they don"t understand what"s acceptable. People don"t suddenly forget that killing is wrong just because the government isn't using the DP anymore. 4. This is a brand new argument, but I"ll address it. Pro argues that the DP exists to prevent people from pursuing vigilante justice. So many problems. .. First, Pro provides no reason why vigilante justice is necessarily wrong. In fact, I would argue that if we"re really focused on retribution and feeding the desires of the victims" family, as Pro has argued in previous rounds, then we should encourage vigilante justice. Now that Pro doesn't want to do so, it calls into question his claims for why retribution is so important. Second, the DP is a very slow process. LWOP may be slower, but I've clearly shown that the DP is incredibly slow. If someone wants quicker retribution, they'll try to take it in either case. Third, the prison system prevents people from taking vigilante justice. There's a reason you"re not allowed in to see a prisoner with weapons on your person. There"s no reason to believe that vigilante justice goes up when people are being imprisoned for life, where they're protected from individuals trying to take vengeance on them. Fourth, turn this argument against Pro: society only has the kind of kill lust that he's talking about because it views the system as reinforcing vengeance. Pro still hasn't responded to my argument that, despite attempts to come off as retributive, the system is inherently vengeful. It is government endorsement of vengeance, which may encourage many who feel the justice system left people out to take that vengeance themselves. Pro talked about how we should restrict the DP to clear cases, yet that would just exacerbate this problem by making more people feel that they have to impose that vengeance themselves. Removing public endorsement of vengeance reduces vigilante justice. Conclusion: On every level, I'm clearly winning this debate. You can use Pro"s own words to pick me up on justice, which we both agree is the most important impact in this debate. I've clearly articulated how the DP perverts justice and warps our legal system. The most you can be doing is buying some level of deterrence, which Pro has only asserted and which remains entirely theoretical. However, even if you're buying this, I still outweigh, since loss of innocent life is always paramount. I've shown how there"s a utilitarian benefit to repealing the DP, explaining that it prevents innocent death, encourages rehabilitation and prisoners giving back to society, and how it prevents tremendous costs and unnecessary court clog, all of which Pro either drops or concedes.