Death Penalty

I meant to say "defense" not "rebuttal" but you get the idea.Rebuttal 1: No deterrence I’ll split this argument into three parts since that seems to be what my opponent has done. a. Deterrence My opponent has claimed to show evidence to the opposite of what I have, however, let us look towards the claim that has been shown. "Richard Berk noted that the execution figures by state by year for the 1977 to 1997 period were highly skewed. Berk specifically noted that most statesâ€"accounting for 859 of the 1,000 observationsâ€"had zero executions in a given year, and only a few states had more than a handful in a few years, with most of these being from Texas. He used a straightforward procedure to assess the implications of this skewed measure: using Mocan and Gittingsâ€™s original data set, he removed the Texas data and ran the model exactly as the original authors did, albeit only for the other forty-nine states. The deterrent effect of executions disappeared. Berk concluded that 'it would be bad statistics and bad social policy to generalize from the 11 observations to the remaining 989.'" This is what my opponent has shown. However, notice the bolded text which claims a specific time period in which the numbers were skewed, and then realize when my study was published. This was 2001 from Emory University. Thus, my study was not skewed in any conceivable way. My opponent has still not shown why my study was worse. Also, this is confirmed by Dr. Zimmerman who reports his findings in 2004. If you would like, I can easily show you another study which concludes much of the same in 2006 as well: “(2006) Gary S. Becker, Nobel Laureate, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a University Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of Chicago, in response to the Donahue/Wolfers Study, states that "capital punishment has an important deterrent effect even with the way the present system actually operates," and that "[i]t is very disturbing to take someone's life, even a murderer's life, but sometimes highly unpleasant actions are necessary to deter even worse behavior that takes the lives of innocent victims."15” https://www.unc.edu... Not only this but let us look at the argument about the mass of criminologists disagreeing. This is unrelated to the argument as regardless of how many people disagree or agree, they are still opinions. Not only this, but this is a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad numeram Regardless of the popular opinion being from experts, we must also note the fact that experts can be uninformed, and wrong. http://www.logicalfallacies.info... b. Hypocritical The death penalty is not murder. It is an insurance policy to assure us that the murderer or offender is not going to be committing crimes any longer. Not only this but regardless of the moral argument my opponent has stated, we need to realize that the deterrent effect is worth whatever moral qualms we face. I will agree that this is a gray area for morality, but my opponent has already agreed to my framework being the following. “Before we begin, let us realize that this debate should be weighed by lives and economics. Furthermore, if I convince you that the death penalty saves lives and is economically sound, I win the debate. With this in mind, I will begin.” This was one of the first things I have stated, which could be considered the terms if you will. My opponent’s response is as follows: “I agree with the terms he set up. Here's my rebuttal of his arguments.” My opponent has agreed to look at economics and a number of lives saved, which my opponent has not addressed in this argument. Thus, it is dropped. c. Defense argument My opponent has stated that since rape and aggravated assault are not crimes that people get the death penalty for. Fine, however, let us look at different proof that the death penalty deters crime. Let us look at the fact that in 1976 the death penalty was reinstated by the Supreme Court. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... If we were to look at national trends in murder from 1976 to present day, we would see that the murder rate climbed slightly after enactment of the death penalty, and then went down. This shows that the murder rate going down after the death penalty was enacted as just by the Supreme Court. My opponent is free to use the “defensive argument” I used, but keep in mind the fact that regardless of the amount of death penalties given out, it still acts as a deterrent which can be shown through the decreasing murder rate nationally. http://www.infoplease.com... Rebuttal 2: Alternatives I will post the article now since I goofed up. It is from a different source but says the same thing. https://death.rdsecure.org... Notice it is mentioned that the number is conservatively measured. Also, I never meant to imply that those who are psychopaths should be executed, simply that mental health treatment will not work. Not only this, but it is still a possibility that they could escape from prison, and that letting them go into parole will also not stop them from committing crimes. Next, my opponent cites the following: "In Texas, one death penalty case costs the state about 2.3 million dollars. This is three times higher than what it would cost to imprison one inmate in the highest security prison cell available for 40 years." Ok, a few things wrong with this statistic. 1. You assume that the person on death row will last longer than 40 years in prison. 2. We need to weigh the safety of people over cost. 3. This statistic is specific to Texas, not the entire US. Enough said about this. The cost is mentioned next. However, there is one response necessary for this. Regardless of the cost of the prisoners stay, there is an entire contention on plea bargains which I have which shows the fact that there are ways to reduce this cost. Not only this, we can still reduce this cost as it is not set in stone on the amount of money we spend on prisoners, and we can simply reduce this. Contention 3: Plea bargains My opponent has conceded that plea bargains reduce the cost. However, my opponent has also brought up the cost. However, we need to weigh lives over the cost of imprisonment as it is an important deterrent to criminal activity which I have proven. Contention 4: Reforms necessary My opponent brings up costs again, however, I have already proven that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime, which is weighed more over the cost. Also, I have provided you with the following point: “The point is, any problem my opponent provides can be easily shown to be fixed through the implementation of reform that would ultimately be solvent.” Cost is not an issue because we can lower the cost of the judicial system by simplifying the process in which the death penalty is considered and used. If necessary, we could find some smart reform in the judicial process as well and increase expenditures in only some areas, if only to preserve costs, to make sure the process if fair. Since we are not debating the current system as there is no resolution stating it as such, we need to see why this point stands.