Resolved: The US Federal Government should abolish Capital Punishment

Definitions: Capital Punishment: Executing people who have committed heinous crimes. Abolish: Get rid of entirely I hereby affirm the resolution that the US Federal Government should abolish capital punishment for the following contentions. Contention 1: Costs A. Court Costs The US Federal Government always has had a tendency to waste money on useless programs. However, few waste as much money as capital punishment. If we look toward the Death Penalty Information Center, we can see recent studies have shown the actual price of the death penalty. For instance, a recent study done by Judge Arthur Alarcon and Professor Paula Mitchell in California in 2011, we can see that the costs of Capital Punishment can be broken down as such: $1.94 billion--Pre-Trial and Trial Costs $925 million--Automatic Appeals and State Habeas Corpus Petitions $775 million--Federal Habeas Corpus Appeals $1 billion--Costs of Incarceration . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... The authors then stated that without capital punishment, California could save 20 billion USD. We can see this similar trend with other states as well. According to the fact sheet on the Death Penalty Information Center, the Kansas Judicial Council in 2014 has found that a trial of capital punishment usually costs 400,000 USD, as opposed to a case where capital punishment is not pursued, which resulted in a cost of 100,000 USD. According to the Palm Beach Post in 2000, in Florida, it costs 51 million USD more than it would to simply put people in prison. However, we also need to look toward what is ultimately more expensive: capital punishment, or life in prison. . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... B. Capital Punishment vs. Life in Prison If we are going to be measuring cost in the debate, we need to see that clearly, life in prison is much more expensive than capital punishment in the long run. If we turn toward Death Penalty Focus located in California, taxpayers within California pay 90,000 more USD on death row inmates than the general prison population. This trend is, again, followed by the majority of states. I have already shown an example from Florida in previously, however, I will state again: According to the Palm Beach Post in 2000, in Florida, it costs 51 million USD more than it would to simply put people in prison. Also, if we look at a state with one of the highest execution rates, we can also see the same thing. According to the Dallas Morning news in 1992 as shown on the previously cited fact sheet, it costs three times as much to execute a criminal then to simply put them in a maximum security prison for forty years. Why is this pattern taking hold? Well, if we review the previously mentioned Death Penalty Focus organization in California, they state that the reason that the costs are so high is due to the “large and complex” system set up due to the fact that someone’s life is on the line in these cases. Remember, we are factoring in the cost of death row inmates in prison, court costs, and appellate courts to produce a big number. However, if we were to harness the savings from abolishing capital punishment, we would be able to fund important government programs for the everyday person, such as infrastructure, education, and paying off the national debt. With this in mind, I can only see an affirmative vote. . http://deathpenalty.org... Contention 2: Does not deter crime My opponent will inevitably bring up deterrence of heinous crimes as a result of capital punishment. If we turn toward Columbia Law School, we will see a clear explanation of this argument, and why it fails. “Still others find the evidence of deterrence very fragile and unstable, with estimates of deterrence changing wildly with even the slightest adjustments or modifications either in measurement or statistical methods. ” . https://www.law.columbia.edu... While my opponent will cite studies showing trends in crime decreasing after capital punishment is introduced, we can’t trust these statistics when there are plenty of other studies showing the converse with a slightly different model. In fact, according to Amnesty International, we can clearly see the converse in the graph they provide shown in the following link. . http://www.amnestyusa.org... . http://www.amnestyusa.org... Let’s look toward the Columbia Law School again, where we can observe another point that my opponent needs to look towards. “There is no evidence that if aware of the possibility of execution, a potential murderer would rationally decide to forgo homicide and use less lethal forms of violence. ” With the current lack of evidence, it is hard to make a generalized statement about the state of capital punishment in relation to deterrence. However, considering the differing evidence with no conclusion, it is quite possible that capital punishment has very little effect on the murder rate. Thus, with no inherent proof that deterrence exists on either side of the debate, we need to weigh something else. If the main argument for the death penalty is that it deters heinous crimes and makes sure that less people are harmed as a result, then that argument falls flat on its face since there is no way of telling which side is correct. However, I will make one observation. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, in 2014 there were a total of 35 executions, which is down from previous years. However, according to Citylab, recent FBI data shows that violent crime has decreased from previous years as well in a gradual decrease of violent crimes. . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... . http://www.citylab.com... Contention 3: Risk of harming innocent people Let’s face it, there is no such thing as a perfect government system. However, when there is an inherent risk to people we have to reconsider the system entirely and find a better solution. A. Biases in the system What most people are unaware of is the inherent bias within the capital punishment system. In fact, if we were to look toward the Death Penalty Information Center, we can see the following: “Defendants with less than $320,000 in terms of representation costs (the bottom 1/3 of federal capital trials) had a 44% chance of receiving a death sentence at trial. On the other hand, those defendants whose representation costs were higher than $320,000 (the remaining 2/3 of federal capital trials) had only a 19% chance of being sentenced to death. Thus, the study concluded that defendants with low representation costs were more than twice as likely to receive a death sentence. ” . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... (cited from an Office of Defender Services of the Administrative Office of the U. S. Courts report in 2008) This revelation makes us realize the inherent harms of having capital punishment. We inherently target those who do not have the same representation in court due to less defense costs. Those who cannot pay up are sentenced to death without a fair trial. However, the biases do not end there. The Atlantic in 2014 has shown that race is disproportionate with the amount of people on death row by nearly a factor of 4. This is a disturbing revelation, and also a reason to act. This is confirmed by Amnesty International when they show the Governmental Accountability Office in 1990 has cited “racial disparities” in the capital punishment program since it was reestablished in the 1970s. We also see more recent information from Yale University in 2007 that states that African Americans receive the death penalty at three times the rate of white defendants in cases where the defendants are white. With these inherent biases in the system, can we really assume that we are infallible when it comes to executing criminals? Statistics say otherwise, showing the possibility of executing innocent people. . http://www.amnestyusa.org... . http://www.theatlantic.com... B. Rate of innocent people killed whom are innocent Given the information above, is it any wonder that the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences released a report showing the rate of people executed innocently is 4.1% (as cited by Newsweek)? Obviously not. What is quite clear is the fact that the death penalty has brought an inherent problem to the US and needs to be stopped. We need a better system to solve the problem of heinous crimes in America. Whether it be addressing mental health or the ever-present problem of availability of weapons, we still need to recognize a botched system when we see one. . http://www.newsweek.com... As clearly shown, the system is flawed, so one must vote to affirm the resolution.