The Death Penalty should be made illegal in the USA.

Contention 1 - Innocent Executions Claim: I pointed out how people have probably been executed in the past. While I cannot prove this, the probability is high, considering the amount of cases that were closed due to lack of funding and resources. Now, it seems that this fails when compared to alternatives. Fact: You have no evidence to support this claim that innocent people have been executed in the past or that the probability is high. Merely suggesting "cases" were closed "due to lack of funding and resources" isn't evidence of anything. You have failed on this point. You also never made a comparison to any alternative other than implying so and rather vaguely. I submit that this fails on logic, on evidence, and you never made an argument beyond a premise after my first rebuttal. Contention 2 - Cost Claim: I showed how the cost is far too high for what it tries to archive - which is justice. I showed how other methods meet justice, too, but with a much lower cost. Fact: You never made a case beyond your heavy reliance on DPIC and the example of California. I would submit you didn't refute my rebuttal. The same lobby railing against capital punishment has helped impose a lot of the cost they then use to argue for abolishing ($2 billion since 1976, thanks, DPIC). You never showed any "methods," other than saying life in prison is cheaper but not that it meets justice. I was able to counter that the cost, if you will, in the case of the DC sniper who was executed in less than six years was by far cheaper. You never addressed any of my points raised about cost in terms of the state of California. Finally, this claim really is just an attempt to cheapen justice for the many thousands of victims that met cruel ends. Contention 3 - Deterrent Claim: I showed how punishments are, at least in part, for deterring the person from committing the crime again. Killing the person doesn't archive this. Yes, it stops them from killing again, but that's because they're dead, not deterred. Fact: You never demonstrated a lack of deterrence. You simply cited murder numbers alone without analyzing them or considering any other factors, which is simplistic and misleading. I was able to show that the states with and without were at the bottom, middle and top. As a percentage of the state's population most states have a very close number range. You'll throw in California as a death penalty state without addressing the fact that since 1976 they've only managed to carry out 13 death sentences and currently their population on death row is over 700. I pointed out the lengthy avenues of appeal and the fact that many press the process on behalf of the anti-death penalty groups not contesting actually innocence but delaying the execution of the sentence for as long as possible. I cited at least three studies that quantify the deterrent effect and you have never addressed them. I also said clearly that deterrence ultimately is irrelevant to the issue of justice for the victim regarding the utilitarian benefit. Contention 4 - 8th Amendment Opponent concedes. Contention 5 - Racial equality Claim: I showed how people who are not white have a higher chance of being executed for no discernible reason in the USA. While I admitted that this was not unique to capital punishment, the death penalty should not be acceptable as a punishment for it is racially bias, but at the same time, deals in absolutes. Fact: No, you cited DPIC, like the ACLU, make an erroneous statistical argument that assumes that people of a certain race or ethnicity commit murder in proportion to their race/ethnicity's percentage of the population. If blacks commit half of all the murders in the United States, of course they're going to have a higher chance of being executed. You have no evidence of any racial discrimination. Your statistical claim is bogus. I also wished to point out that people are not uncommonly killed while in prison and spending the rest of your days in prison can be quite absolute. Contention 6 - "right to live" Claim: I demonstrated simple logic in that: P1:The right to live is human right. P2: The death penalty kills people. C: Therefore, the death penalty violates human rights. Fact: His logic fall apart using on source, which went on to explain exceptions like the apprehension of a criminal or putting down a riot with the emphasis that we must try to minimize casualties as much as possible. And far from logic, this is a classic example a logical fallacy. My opponent asserts this is a violation of the rules but always points out correctly that it wasn't addressed due character limitation on my part and kept extending it. I felt these were dubious contentions and should be addressed in the spirit of a debate and will risk a penalty to address them quickly in a sentence or two given I didn't even get to making positive arguments for my position. My Conclusion My opponent has utterly failed on every single contention, providing factually incorrect claims, very few studies that were refuted, and employed the use of several logical fallacies in his defense while failing to address the specific points raised in my rebuttals, which were largely ignored altogether. I think it is obvious upon examination of the previous rounds that my opponent simply repeated the same premise. For example, my opponent on two separate occasions provided four names of people he claimed were innocent but executed. Just names. No explanation. When I took the time to examine each, put forward a rebuttal based on individual cases, my opponent having no reply simply changed his assertion to "probably" absent of evidence and persisted to make the false claim that the probability is high (again with no factual evidence). When it came to the deterrent effect, my opponent ignored my objection to it being irrelevant, the cited studies showing as many as 18 lives saved per execution, lives saved per elimination of 2.5 years on the time between sentencing and execution, the fact that many murderers like James Holmes took plea deals just to avoid the punishment, and failed to adequately address the examination of murder numbers by state. It was ignore and restate the same premise. I would argue the same on cost. My opponent's rebuttal consisted in simply pointing out that I said it was "cherry-picking" to use California, he didn't address the extreme dysfunction in the system of that state (13 executions in 37 years with the highest death row population) that appoints a legal time for life and the ideological courts like those of the Rosa Bird era that would automatically reverse all death penalty cases. It is disingenuous that anti-death penalty zealots at DPIC have imposed a $2 billion cost on the criminal justice system over that same period and then using this as a basis to attack capital punishment. My opponent unfortunately has made a conscious choice to lobby on behalf of the most evil individuals in our society that brutally destroyed human life and that is a grave injustice. Fortunately for my opponent, I didn't just drown him individual cases of manifest guilt through horrible and cruel cases in regard to very heinous offenses. Those innocent lives prematurely obliterated are neglected in these debates. Did my opponent demonstrate an innocent man being executed in the last 60 years? Did he ever prove there is a high probability? The answer is no. Did my opponent ever prove capital punishment in and of itself is inherently more costly? No. Did my opponent show it lacked a deterrent or that his "alternatives" have a deterrent? No. Didn't my opponent concede it doesn't violate the 8th amendment? Yes! Did my opponent demonstrate racial bias or show that his alleged "alternatives" are absent bias? No. Did my opponent even read the exceptions to the right to live from his own source? No. Did my opponent realize the contradiction in terms in saying the death penalty should be illegal? No. My opponent then violated the his 6th rule by stating that life without parole brings justice. Never raised this claim before and I would argue that in a lot of murder cases it doesn't. He claimed that life without parole cannot kill people even though it was pointed out people are killed in prison and die in prison. He made another new claim that life without parole is a deterrent, which he never raised before round 5. I would point out that no evidence is put forward for this punishment alone much less a comparison between the death penalty and life without parole. My opponent never made a case for an alternatives much less the life without parole alternative. I end with two strong quotes, "That inequity in the application of the death penalty requires its abolition is an argument that will be made only by people who do not like it for other reasons. The inequity argument is a pretext, not a reason. Between an inequitable death penalty and no death penalty, I would prefer an inequitable death penalty, just as I would prefer an inequitable tax system to no tax system, and inequitable policing to no policing. I say this because I think it likely that executions deter murders, and it is clear that a majority of Americans - white and black - think that justice requires executions for the most heinous crimes." --John C. McAdams, PhD, Associate Professor of Political Science at Marquette University "The death penalty serves three functions. First, for some crimes any lesser punishment is inadequate as a matter of basic justice... Second, an executed death sentence absolutely guarantees the killer will never kill again. A life sentence does not. There are many cases of people killed by murderers who were paroled, escaped, killed within prison, or who arranged murders from within the prison... Third, I believe that an effective, enforced death penalty deters some murders." --Kent Scheidegger, JD, Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation