Capital Punishment Ought to be Eliminated

Opponents Fallacies:Argument from Ignorance: - Claims that an ongoing debate is to be held to conclude what the current justice system is (retributive or restorative) and then make an argument. He justifies this as "not self-evident". I noted that there is in fact rehabilitative efforts in the judicial system, for instance prisoners get their GED. I showed not the way the judicial system operates but what it ought to be due to the flaw of lex talionis. - Claims that "ineffectiveness of CP as a tool for negotiations is a subject of constant debate". It is not, I noted two sources that showed that statistically it is less successful in getting a plea deal than that of LWOP. The abstract was pretty clear: the legal experts themselves have indirectly shown that using CP as a threat to make the process easier is untrue. And spending your life in prison is scary enough as is, thus CP does not have a deterrence effect.Source: [1][2]Causation Fallacy:- Claims in Ehrlich paper the CP CAUSES less murders and the other two papers claim it CAUSES a reduction in deaths. It does not, because correlation is not causation. The paper failed to eliminate other factors as a cause to deterrence in crime, such as socioeconomic levels, or abortions, or weapons access, etc... Furthermore, those studies claim that the state can predict who will and will not commit a crime if the rate of deaths by a person were to continue. But human behaviour is far too complex for that to possibly be correct and is putting the cart before the horse. Finally, the papers in which claim a deterrence effect were made in 1975! Finally, I shall ask my opponent, why is it then that 80% of criminologists believe that CP has no deterrence? And that 50% of law enforcement officials believe the same thing? [2] There is in fact a strong correlation between CP states and more capital crimes versus that of non-CP states and less crime. In fact, internationally, we see the same thing. The argument stands, and CP falls in deterrence. There simply is none. Source: [2] Non-sequitor: - Claims that because Watts claimed he would kill again if released from jail, he therefore enjoyed prison life. This does not make any sense, if anything it should be the opposite. As because Watts was unable to fulfil the desire to kill in prison, he would NOT have been happy to be there. Furthermore, enjoying prison life or not and wanting to kill again or not simply do not follow. You may or may not enjoy prison, and still want to kill. Thus this argument is a fallacy. Tu quoque Fallacy:- Claims I am acting inconsistently when arguing for the riddance of CP, because in practice the people smoking marijuana and their penalties are not proportionate, and it ought to be (according to my opponent). It is my position that it ought to be removed. Marijuana legalization is irrelevant here.Rebuttals:- The source used is indeed from an activist organization called deathpenaltyinfo.org which employs the critical method of researching in the social sciences, not the positivist approach. No such claims of neutrality are ever claimed on the website, and therefore this argument is invalid, it is still a valid source. Just because it has a differing method does not make it invalid by default. It does have peer-reviewed journal articles on the site. -(Escape or released prisoners are threats) Well, it wouldn't matter in this case. Prisoners is just as likely to escape if given CP or not when they're alive. LWOP does not allow one out at any given point and time. This argument furthers mine because when prisoners are given the CP and if my opponent claims they have a deterrence effect wouldn't prisoners want to escape more than when they're given LWOP? - Hitler committed suicide for fear of imprisonment. He couldn't have possibly have known CP would be used in Nuremburg, and furthermore, killing Pol Pot would make him a communist martyr. His arguments here only further my point that CP is unwanted He also never refutes the hasty conclusion it's self by giving a larger research with a bigger sample being used. He dropped this point. - Empirically, yes CP does actually harm the victims and the person carrying out the executions. Even worse lets take a situation in which an innocent man is killed. What happens to the Judge? The jury? The DA? Nothing. It legitimizes the idea that these people are above the law when they kill someone who was wrongly convicted, weakening the rule of law. Jurors in these cases are called “death juries” because if they all support CP. In other words, the jury is already set up in a bias way (again weakens due process of law) and furthers my point that when an innocent dies, it is in fact the fault of the people in the system.Source: [3]- my opponent claims with forensic evidence, that the truly innocent and truly guilty will be dealt with. This is false, sometimes CSI's make mistakes or falsifies evidence. For example: [4] As a result in the article, over 34,000 cases are compromised due to poor forensics. Thank goodness Massachusetts doesn't have CP; how many would have unjustly died? This has also happened in San Francisco, North Carolina, and even the FBI (reported by Dr. Frederic Whitehurst) - My opponents concedes that CP IS more expensive- Lethal injection:[5]Note: thought to be the LEAST painful method of killing someone. -I agree that the person trying to take said properties should be punished in accordance with the law, however, when property is damaged or taken by another person, the accused isn't forced to surrender his property to the victim as repayment, he is forced to repair said damages or go to jail. This is my position as well. I'm not saying that crime shouldn't be punished, but that the punishments are unfair here, the state has no right to take away your property. -Anti-Social personality disorder: it is used as a defence, as a plea of insanity, and it can be treatedsource: [6] -Systemic murder: again, if the person is innocent, then it violates the rule of law, and makes the point that our officials who are suppose to represent us are above the law. If the person was innocent, then it was unlawful to kill that person, yet you will never see a judge or jury or DA tried for murder. -Finally, it's called witness protection, and juries are anonymous. Their info is always kept secret.-The states political agenda is relevant, it means that the state can kill whomever it pleases in direct violation of laws and regulations, (Texas managed to upset Canada by killing him) again showing that these people are above the law, which they should not be. States rights are trumped by the Federal government. (All agreements for state soverignty is non-enforced) - Finally, it is not proportionate. You would have to believe for the raping of someone, killing of someone, or even committing only an act of treason, that the person should undergo risk of being strangled, crushed, suffocated, shot, decapitated, burried alive, burned, and tortured by the state as a result. All of which happened with hangings, gas chambers, electirc chairs, and lethal injections. See here: https://www.commondreams.org...;Driving the Point Home:- To justify CP you have to believe that 1) in some instances killing people is okay, and 2) that the State will get all cases 100% correct.(Since 1970, 145 people were released due to innocence) It cannot guarentee 100% accuracy, but at least under LWOP, that person has many more years to prove their innocence. Unlike that of CP. It traumatizes the people watching, and the victims, and furthermore, indirectly makes judges, DA's and jurors above the law when killing someone innocent. The US is the only developed country in the world still using this barbaric practice. Expensive, tyrannical, barbaric, fundamentally flawed, and even illegal with nothing to show for it in terms of results, CP should be abolished, I have met my BOPOver to my opponent!Sources: http://www.debate.org...