The Death Penalty Should be Abolished

Pro now claims: "Retribution and revenge, regardless of content, has the same intent. The intent of a retributive response is to make up for the original wrongdoing (such as murder). Capital punishment is therefore a retributive response in a murder case. Revenge also has the same intent: to make up for the wrongdoing. I equate the two due to intent, not content, as my opponent tries to bring up to debunk this equation." Please see his original statement in round 2: "The premise of revenge is to inflict NEAR, IDENTICAL, or even EXCESSIVELY MORE PAIN than the criminal caused the victim, and that is just escalating the amount of immoral action (think Gandhi's eye-for-an-eye principle)." So he did make a claim that revenge or retribution aims at returning the CONTENT of the murder, namely, the same or more PAIN that the criminal caused the victim. I didn't misunderstand these words. I simply refuted them. Revenge and retribution do not normally return the same or more pain. He also said: "here is the American Society of Criminology on capital punishment: "Retribution, which argues that the state has the right to impose a level of PAIN and punishment EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN the pain suffered by the victim, is clearly a major justification for the use of the death penalty." This argument failed because the current methods to killing used by the government does not equal most of the tortures criminals find to execute their victims, and capitol punishment can be carried out quite painlessly and quickly. Because it failed, he dodged to claim he only meant intent, not content. However, not even this works, because the death penalty is also administered in cases where the criminal did not actually kill anyone, but only tortured or attempted to killed. This shows that the intent is not to have the same result as the crime committed. Pro claims prison sentences and fines are BALANCED punishments, but capital punishment is not? What does BALANCE mean? Balance refers to an equalizing of the scales. Its just another way of saying the punishment fit the crime, or in other words, the crime DESERVED this punishment. So what punishment does a serial killer and rapist deserve after 20 or more victims without remorse, and is found to be within his sound mind when he committed these acts till present? What does he deserve when its premeditated? Its hard to see how at least SOME folks won't deserve death. What would Hitler derserve? Or Jim Jones, had he lived? At least some crimes deserve capital punishment, that was my argument from the beginning. In this sense, its a balanced punishment. Pro still calls admission to a mental hospital a punishment. It isn't a punishment. Its simply a way of helping the person who is simply a victim of illness and in need of treatment. They are not criminally responsible for their actions, so this can't be an example of balanced PUNISHMENT because its not a punishment. This is no different from a person with cancer being admitted to a hospital. Now, why abandon a just punishment because its expensive when research can be done into reducing the costs? Why does it cost so much? Simply change policy. Building prisons and keeping persons there is expensive period, but does that mean we should abandon prisons? No. This is no good reason. All Pro is saying, is that life in prison is cheaper, so why not avoid the expense. Well, why not keep the cheapest soap and abolish the rest? We can get along very ok without sending men to the moon or satellites to mars and Venus. We only need to monitor our own planet, its weather and its sun. Why bother with the added expense of NASA's diverse space program? Pro's argument can be extended to many other things? $400 shoes work just as good once you care them as $800 shoes, so lets abolish $800 shoes? I reject the notion that a punishment needs to be cheap to be worth keeping. I reject the notion that a punishment needs to have any deterrence effect. Neither prison or capital punishment can stop crime, so why compare them? This debate isn't about which is better, its about if capital punishment should be abolished. This is a separate issue from if life in prison should be kept at all. So Pro is off base for comparing the two.