Resolved: Criminals convicted of violent crime should be executed

Here are my arguments:Death penalty is killing innocent peopleThis is the most important point in my argument: Death penalty is an irreversible and final punishment that caused, currently causes and will continue to cause final irreversible mistakes that cost the lives of innocent people. Just a small selection of citations to back this up with facts:"Many Prisoners on Death Row are Wrongfully Convicted - Researchers estimate that more than 340 U. S. inmates that could have been exonerated were sentenced to death since 1973" [1]"A number of people are claimed to have been innocent victims of the death penalty. Newly available DNA evidence has allowed the exoneration and release of more than 17 death row inmates since 1992 in the United States, but DNA evidence is available in only a fraction of capital cases. Others have been released on the basis of weak cases against them, sometimes involving prosecutorial misconduct; resulting in acquittal at retrial, charges dropped, or innocence-based pardons. " [2] There is also a huge racial bias in the application of death penalty. Blacks and Latinos, despite being a minority, make up the majority of death roll prisoners, and cases with white victims result much more often in death sentences [3]. More guilty people would be allowed to go freeWhen judging on a case of a violent crime, judges will be more likely to vote "not guilty" if the consequence of a verdict of "guilty" was the death penalty. There is no absolute certainty and in almost all cases, judges will have doubt to a certain degree. If a verdict of guilty means the death of a human being that could be innocent then much more people will vote on not guilty just to be sure not to kill an innocent person. A long-term prison sentence on the other hand is not a final punishment and the option that the person can go free if future evidence proves him innocent is a relief to most judges who then are much more willing to vote guilty. This problem is even more evident with appointed judges. A study [4] shows that appointed judges will overturn death sentences more than twice as often as elected judges. Death penalty does not reduce crime ratesDespite the immediate notion of higher punishment leading to lower crime rates due to deterrence, reality shows that this is not true. The murder rates are even consistently higher in the states with death penalty than in the states without death penalty [5]. Even neighboring states with very similar demographics show this difference in murder rates. The reason why deterrence does not work for violent crimes is that most of those crimes are not committed after careful evaluation of costs and benefits. Most of those crimes are committed by people in extreme situations. If most of the major crimes are punished by death penalty, this could even have the effect of increasing the rate of combined crimes. After a rape, the rapist will then more often proceed to kill the victim to cover up the rape. Since both rape and murder are punished by death, the murder is effectively free after the rape. Killing the victim is then the most rational option since there is no additional punishment and it reduces the odds of punishment. Death penalty is condemned by the international communityIn 2007 and again in 2008, the United Nations passed non-binding resolutions against death penalty that were accepted by a huge majority. "A range of amendments proposed by a small minority of pro-death penalty countries were overwhelmingly defeated. " [6]This shows that only a small minority of countries are pro-death penalty. Looking at who those countries are, reveals that proponents of death penalty are siding with Islamic countries enforcing Sharia law and with oppressive regimes and their dictators. Besides being a foreign relations nightmare when you sentence foreigners to death, it also gives those countries a legal basis for sentencing your citizens to death based on their laws [7]. And Sharia law for example has a very different definition of crimes worthy of death. Extended death row period is neededPro states: "The criminal convicted of the crime will face lethal injection the day of, or after, their hearing". This time period is much to short for an appeal to a higher court and therefore violates the most basic legal standards we have. Even if the proposition is restated to mean execution immediately after any final appeal, it will still be too early and will cause many more executions of innocent people. The reason for the long and costly death row period currently mandated in most states with death penalty is to minimize the number of innocent people being executed. Re: Money saved in deathFirst of all, I consider it unfair conduct to establish a debate rule that prevents me from discussing the costs of executions and then in turn to discuss the savings of executions. Anyway, all of Pros statistics are based on the current situation in the US. However, the rejection of Pros proposal is not an affirmation of the current situation. There are other options as well: Prison labor could be applied much more widely and also what prisoners are supplied with could be cut down to a bare minimum. This could lead to prisons being able to run in a self-sustained way or at least with only a fraction of the current costs. Statistics of public spending often have numbers in the billions but those numbers are misleading because money circulates. Most of the public money that is spent on prisons will in fact create jobs and contracts for local companies which in turn will also create jobs and ultimately return the money in form of taxes. In the end, saving money should never be a reason to kill people especially not when they could be innocent. Re: No more re-offendersDeath penalty is not the only way to reduce the number of re-offenders, lifetime imprisonment is another option. Hence this is not an argument for death penalty at all. Re: Crime-free FutureYes, that is a nice dream. However due to the reasons, I have given above it will not happen, neither with nor without death penalty. And as studies show, death penalty is even connected with higher crime rates. [1]: . http://www.scientificamerican.com...[2]: . https://en.wikipedia.org...[3]: . http://www.theguardian.com...[4]: . http://www.reuters.com...[5]: . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[6]: . https://en.wikipedia.org...[7]: . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...