Capital Punishment

A) Capital Punishment does not work as a deterrentMy first point is a counter to one which I expect Pro to make, namely that the threat of capital punishment deters criminals from committing future murders. Time and time again this has been proved incorrect, evidence of which can be seen in this graph which shows the murder rate for each state per 100,000 citizens. (1) These statistics were provided by the FBI and the US Census. The New York Times describe how "Year after year, homicide rates in states with the death penalty roughly mirrored the rates in states without capital punishment, with death penalty states 48 percent to 101 percent higher. " They also state how they looked into "contiguous and demographically similar states" such as Massachusetts (3.7 per 100,000), Rhode Island (4.2 per 100,000) and Connecticut (4.9 per 100,000) between the years of 1977 to 1997. Connecticut having a worse homicide rate than both of the others despite their use of capital punishment. (2)B) Wrongful conviction is irreversible in cases involving capital punishment Between the years of 1973-2012 there have been 140 exonerations in 26 different States. Twelve of which took place in 2003. (3) 140 men who were almost unjustly killed by the state, some of which were found completely innocent and went home the next day. The U. S. has only executed 1,099 people since the U. S. Supreme Court reauthorized the death penalty in 1976 (10), if the exonerations were added on to this figure it shows a very high of percentage of 11.3% of convictions were later found to be false. I don't think you can dispute that this is a worryingly high rate. Wrongful convictions are always going to be an unfortunate part of criminal prosecution and although they will in many cases steal years from an individuals life, that individual can still later be found innocent and walk away. This is not true in cases of capital punishment, due to the definite and severe nature of capital punishment, innocent victims will remain murdered by the state long after evidence of their wrongful conviction surfaces. Due to the fact that the courts almost never reopen cases after execution we have no idea how many possibly innocent people have been executed. However, a list of cases with strong evidence for posthumous innocence can be found here (4). One of the primary reasons for wrongful conviction is the appointment of 'public defenders' who are often inexperienced and ill-equipped for cases of the severity of one resulting in capital punishment. In this video (5) Professor of Law Brandon Garrett explains why public defenders are so inadequate and the effect this has on justice. Over ninety percent of defendants on death row cannot afford an experienced criminal defense attorney (6) and therefore it is the poor who suffer most under capital punishment, this, along with the fact that crime is always going to be a primarily economic problem means that it creates a perfect storm for wrongful conviction. Murders happen more in poorer areas, poorer people are wrongly accused, they cannot afford adequate attorneys to defend them and wrongful executions are the result. You may say that this would happen in cases of life sentences too, which you would be true in stating, but at least in those cases there would be time for new evidence, confessions or facts to come to light, this would not be true in cases of the death penalty. C) Capital punishment is unconstitutionalCruel - Causing pain or suffering. (7)As I'm sure you know the 8th amendment of the United States constitution forbids "cruel and unusual" punishment. My contention is that capital punishment as performed in the United States is indeed cruel and therefore unconstitutional. Evidence of this includes the 43 botched executions in the past thirty years (8), in some of which victims were subjected to intense pain which could easily fit the definition of cruel. Also, a study in The Lancet found that 88% of inmates receiving the lethal injection was given a lower amount of anaesthesia than someone would be given during surgery, with 43% having concentrations consistent with awareness. (9) Due to the fact that these unconstitutional executions do happen frequently and seemingly unstoppably it makes capital punishment as a whole an unconstitutional practise, it is not okay for a method to break amendments sometimes or occasionally, it should never do so. You would never hear about a prisoner getting a 'botched' sentence in prison where they stayed too long and if an investigation broke the fourth amendment prohibiting unlawful searches it would be grounds for the case to be thrown out of court. Therefore I conclude that capital punishment is unconstitutional due to its inherent and frequent cruelty. D) The ExecutionerWhat many advocates of the death penalty seem to forget is that someone needs to actually preside over the process of execution and administer the injection which will result in the death of another human being. The moral implications on this individual, as you can imagine, will be severe. Prolific executioner Jerry Givens describes how "I performed the execution. So you might suffer a little. I'm going to suffer a lot, because I performed the job. " (10) This is an incredible weight on a human being which, naturally, will affect him for the rest of his life. Another problem is that many states require a doctor or at least an anaesthesiologist to be present to avoid any mistakes, such as those which I cited previously. But due to the fact the the Hippocratic oath which medical professionals take stipulates that they "will do no harm" very few of them are willing to oversee executions. ABC News describes how "state attorneys reportedly told the judge that authorities in Missouri had sent certified letters to 298 qualified anesthesiologists who lived anywhere near the state's death chamber. They were turned down by every single one, according to a report in The New York Times. " (10) This has led many states to simply abandon guidelines which require medical professionals to be present (10) this, in turn, creates a vicious circle in which further botched executions are carried out, with the accompanying unconstitutional label, so doctors are sought, who refuse, and the state is back at square one. Either doctors will have to give up their Hippocratic oath so as to carry out humane executions which, for obvious reasons, will never happen or capital punishment should be outlawed, so the constitution is upheld. Sources (1) . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...(2) www. nytimes. com/2000/09/22/us/deadly-statistics-a-survey-of-crime-and-punishment. html(3) . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...(4) . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... (5) . http://www.innocenceproject.org...(6) . http://www.nodeathpenalty.org... (7) . https://www.google.co.uk...(8) . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... (9) . http://www.thelancet.com...(05)66377-5/abstract (10) . http://abcnews.go.com...