Capital Punishment Ought to be Eliminated

Welcome to the club rookie! Framework: Observation 1: The primary purpose of punishment is NOT for retribution, otherwise chaos would ensue in a lawless society; it is to deter crime by preventing and punishing undesirable acts we as a society agree on. Part of prevention is rehabilitation to ensure a reduction in the likelihood of another crime occurring. While rehabilitation may restore the criminal in question, it is heavily established in the feild of criminology that capital punishment (CP) does not have a deterrence effect.[1] So in my oppoents plea with regards to Carl Eugene Watts, I say Life Without Parole (LWOP). Observation 2: Death penalty is ineffective as a tool for gaining pleas. Espescially if the person is innocent they have nothing to confess to. Furthermore, it systemically weakens the due process of law.[2] Also of note: the Law Review a legal peer-reviwed journal dealing with criminal scholar matters noted that LWOP as a threat against murderers was statistically more successful in reaching a plea deal instead of the CP. [2] Observation 3: To make only 1 case in which capital punishment is needed as a negation is also a hasty conclusion. Just because one instance in which capital punishment is desirable has occurred due to tempers flaring in the legal system (which happens all the time = appeal to emotion), the impact of capital punishment must be considered before conclusion, especially through precedence. Observation 4: The legal system ought not to be retributive, but unstead rehabilitative. My Case: C1: Capital Punishment Doesn't Deter CrimeThe statistics show that the majority of criminals are mentally ill when going to prison for capital offenses. They cannot possibly understand what they were doing in the heat of the moment, as the urge to kill is far superior than the consequences of said killing. In fact, almost all criminologists agree that CP does not deter crime. [3] Even worse, due to state by state comparisons [3], criminologists often suggest that CP mayhave a strong co-relation to increases in violence [4] as the state justifies the use of killing, the people will as well. It is, afterall, their court .. C2: CP is Harmful to the VictimsFirst, the death of the perpetrator will not: unrape the victim, unmurder the victim, make the accused somehow no longer treasonous, etc... It does nothing to take away the harm caused by the accused, and in fact creates more harm as a result. This is through copious amounts of appeals in the legal system, reliving the event by watching the killer die, and not getting enough support from the community because the focus is more centered on the trial. [5]C3: Death of Innocent People(s)CP has been known to take the lives of those who actually did not committ a crime. A severe disadvantage as the accused's death brings upon guilt to the judge, jury, and attorneys for killing an innocent person. At least with LWOP the person has an opportunity to repent and rehabilitate themselves. No guilt for a terrible trial, as an appeal or resoritive justice may be applied. A person may get their name cleared. C4: ExpensiveDue to the sheer level of appeals, the CP route is far more expensive than that of LWOP. C5: CP Has a Lower Standard to DeathAccording to a report by the medical journal The Lancet CP has a lower standard of killing. In fact, putting down a dog has higher medical standards than killing a human, which is placed in horiffic pain. C6: Unjust Removal of Private PropertyIf in theory, you own yourself (because otherwise your a slave which is illegal now) then who is the state to kill you? It was not responsbile for your creation unlike that of other properties, making your life truly unique, however, the systemic removal of that property -- your life -- ought to be out of the jurisdiction of the state because the presedence it sets is incredibly dangerous; it is a step towards tyranny. C7: The State May Run Into Legal TroubleThe state of New York and Massassatcheusis found that the death penalty is conflicting with the protection of the people from creul and unusual punishment. Furthermore, as one laywer noted the following: "For 15 years, Stanley Faulder’s Canadian family had no idea that he had been sentenced to death in the state of Texas. According to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, an international treaty that the United States has ratified, Texas authorities should have informed Faulder at the time of his 1977 arrest that he had the right to seek assistance from the Canadian consulate, and should have notified the Canadian government of Faulder’s situation if he had requested that they do so. Sandra Babcock, an attorney with the Texas Resource Center who took Faulder’s case in 1992, filed a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Faulder’s rights had been violated under the Vienna Convention. Although U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright intervened on Faulder’s behalf, and although the Supreme Court initially granted Faulder an indefinite stay, the Court then dissolved the stay and Faulder was executed in 1999. [...] 1999 the Inter-American Court on Human Rights ruled that a state is in violation of international law if it executes a person whose rights have not been upheld under the Vienna Convention." [6] In summary, the fact that CP exists and the violations of international law States violate in an effort to kill a person, may indicate a terrible political agenda; that the state may systemically kill political prisoners at it's convienence while ignoring international law, and constitutional law. Rebuttals:Watts may not enjoy prison, they are known to be violent physically, mentally, and sexually. Furthermore, Watts had an I.Q of 75, indicating he was mentally retarded. He was sent to a mental home in 1969 as a result of a sexual assault, where the psych ward deemed him retarded. Should the state execute the mentally inefficent? NO. He also had anti-social personality disorder. (I personally also suffer from this) Enabling the deaths of the mentally ill is a state sanctioned eugenics movement, and is also incredibly dangerous, as it unfairly kills those with mental deficcencies which shoul be in the care of their proper medical personell. My opponent makes an appeal to the people (a fallacy) to justify the systemic murders brought fourth by the state on the basis of enjoying prison. However, prison is NOT fun to be in. http://www.youtube.com... watch?v=AE-t0gDM2Wk (see video) Violence in prisons is rampant, and furthermore those who do not want to go to prison are already intimidated by the thought of going never mind actually being killed for it as well. Which in prison there is no guarentee you'll even live to see the end of your sentence. Finally, my opponent makes a slippery slope by saying that someone could escape then try to kill lawyers, or judges. The reality is even if it WAS likely that they have taken a calculated risk to getting into this feild. They knew the risks and do it anyways. This is why officers are present in courts. They are well guarded. Justice is blind alright, with the death of innocent people it must be. The resolution falls, CP is NOT justified. It ought to be abolished. Over to you my friend! http://www.indiaresists.com...http://x77.xanga.com...http://hill-kleerup.org...[1]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[2]http://journals2.scholarsportal.info.proxy.library.brocku.ca...;[3]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[4]http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...;[5]http://www.aclu-il.org...;[6]http://www.mvfhr.org...;