We should bring back gladiators for the death penalty

My opponent's argument is, quite frankly, a sadistic and sociopathic one. I really don't have any other words for it. He completely dismisses the human element of the problem. At no point does he attempt to justify, or even address how it is OK to sentence people who have committed a violent crime to an equally violent death. We're in a civilized society, one that has moved past the barbaric "Eye for an eye" rules of old. It is incredibly cruel to say that people are deserving of horrible deaths. We need to behave mercifully towards all people. My opponent makes no case for how such a horrible practice would in any way be justifiable, and quite frankly it isn't. We've been moving towards a more humane form of executions or getting rid of them. To rebuild the brutal and sadistic games of the past is a massive step against progress. One bad mistake, one act of unrestrained anger resulting in a death should not justify sending someone to die in brutal combat. This would be a system that takes people's entire lives away for one mistake with no chance of retribution. Secondly, no legal system is fool-proof. 4.1% of people sentenced to death are innocent. This means one out of every twenty five men in that arena would be innocent. To sentence such a huge amount of peopel to such a sadistic form of death would be insanely cruel. By opponent could try to argue that they would only be sentenced to such a thing if the juries were 100% sure, but such a thing isn't possible. There's never 100% certainty of guilt. No, instead this act would not only punish an insanely high margin of people to a death they had not earned, but a particularly cruel and sadistic one. Third, this system would be hugely unfair and biased. Unfortunately, with the way the justice system works, its the poor classes that are being forced into lifes of crime. Many of these people are no different from us, only in worse circumstances. Tell me, if you were in an awful life, and by robbing a bank you could improve it and help out your family, would you do it? For many of these people, they have no choice. Still, this system would hugely discriminate against these people just like you or I in these situations. Not only that, the rich who would be able to hire better lawyers and use their vast amount of wealth and influence would likely, as we see with the current system, get off a lot more. Thus, this system is hugely unfair and regressive. Fourth, it glorifies violence. For those watching these massive events, they would only glorify violence. You're making it a spectacle, giving violence an audience of an epic scale to see these brutal acts. This only encourages violent behaviour, and promotes violence as not only a solution, but something that deserves an audience. Violence is being encouraged as an acceptable solution to problems, and people are having real life, brutal violence being supported by the government and used an "entertainment" that ticket's are being sold to. Violence becomes trivial and supported as entertaiment, which would have bruatl consequences on society in general. A small issue would be the fate of the winner. One, my opponent claims that his solution is just. Current solutions don't involve child rapists being freed to join the military. What could be just about having some terrible person who could've done horrible things getting offbecause he won the fight and was the most violent? Is this just? No, of course not. It's an insult to those who were hurt by this individual. Source 1: . http://europe.newsweek.com...