Resolved: The US should abolish capital punishment.

Much has been said of justice in this debate, and it is a crucial element to this debate. Fortunately, a clear answer has been established--that the DP in principle is perfectly just, and that its consequence is the betterment of our society. DP Morality and Innocent Lives Let us reiterate our arguments, while dispelling the mist Pro has created. Our argument for the justice of the DP has been straightforward. We presented a framework for examining the rights of criminals, that "those who do not respect the rights of others forfeit their own rights". Pro's initial response was incoherent--that it would be "hypocritical" to do so because we'd be infringing on criminals' rights. However, we established that criminals had no rights, and Pro never attempted to demonstrate otherwise. Thus, the morality of the DP hinges upon not criminals (who have no rights), but upon innocent lives that may be taken. We thus noted that there must be an assumption that rights of innocent people would be violated in any criminal justice system. The magnitude of such violations is irrelevant, because Pro agrees in principle that they are an unavoidable part of any such system, and yet still considers violations just for the sake of the greater good, and as such, what matters is not the severity of violations of the rights of innocents, but the benefit that increased severity brings to society relative to the harms. We have shown that the benefit of the DP--deterrence, saves many more lives than any wrongful executions destroy (no more than 4% of executions of innocents vs. 3-18 lives saved per execution), and Pro has provided no concrete alternative metric for assessing justice. Thus, you must favor our interpretation. Injustices and Justice for All This brings us to the implementation of the DP. We demonstrated that many of Pro's issues with the DP were not about the DP at all; rather, they were about a failed justice system in the US. Our counterplan to the crisis of poor defenses--hiring more public defenders and investigators--should have been obviously implied, given that we spent the entire time mentioning the problem of a lack of defenders and the consequences it caused, but if this is ignored on the basis of implicitness (which would be wrong), we still win on this point. We still win because we don't need solvency to demonstrate that the merits of the DP cannot be addressed through indirect issues not attributable to the DP itself. The DP doesn't cause bias or any of the other problems Pro mentions, and for that reason, they are irrelevant to a discussion of the DP itself. Eliminating the DP would not solve for bias, nor would it reduce the extent to which it exists. We are having a discussion about the a priori merits of the DP in the US, and for this reason, you must reject Pro's assault and give the point to us. This same principle applies to Pro's recidivism argument--the DP has 0% recidivism. Pro's argument that somehow the existence of people "beyond saving" means that we can't rehabilitate others is absurd--they provide no link, and we showed that one can accept Pro's counter-plan of a rehabilatory system and still accept the DP, by executing the worst criminals and rehabilitating the rest. As well, we addressed Pro's torture point in two ways--1) It is irrelevant to what is right because criminals have no rights, and 2) torture isn't torture if it is accidental. Deterrence We are finally at the point of weighing the costs and benefits of the DP, which, as we have shown, this debate hinges upon. Let us begin with examining deterrence. Pro completely drops our point that even crimes of passion are subject to rationality. This is of massive importance, because even if there are certain people that the DP doesn't deter, it is still proven that it does, in fact, deter to a significant degree. Pro's source provides no information about what percentage of crimes are actually committed by the mentally ill or those under the influence of drugs. A little over 50% of inmates are mentally ill, and according to the BJS, about 80% of drug users in jail were also mentally ill (2). As about 30% of crimes were under the influence of drugs (2), that leaves us with: 50% mentally ill + 30% of crimes under the influence * 20% of drug users not mentally ill, to remove them from being counted a second time = ~56% of criminals are drug users or mentally ill. Pro doesn't explain how they are exempt from our evidence in support of rational choice even in irrational actors, which was not criticized and thus holds, but even if you accept Pro's logic this still leaves significant room for deterrence; indeed, given that Pro has accepted that deterrence exists and is prominent, saving on average 3-18 lives per execution in states where people are actually executed, our point holds. Pro's demonstration that the DP only deters people when there are a few executions proves only that, shockingly, the DP actually has to be used to be effective. Pro's article on in-prison homicide and assault does not demonstrate causation, and thus fails. Homicide rates are already higher in those jurisdictions. This very source mentions that the murder rate in DP jurisdictions was "25-46% higher than states without the [DP]" (3). Those rates, given the evidence of deterrence we provided, would be even higher if not for the death penalty. Furthermore, as our point that criminals have no rights holds, the problem would not be an issue even if it existed, because no violation of rights in in-prison homicides occurs.Conclusion This debate hinged on two points: justice and cost-benefit analysis. We showed that the DP is not unjust, as criminals forfeit their rights and harm to innocents is an inevitable part of any justice system. Pro never contested the former point, and provided no reason why the latter had to be minimized. We demonstrated that the DP deters between 3-18 murders in states where people are actually executed, while Pro has little evidence other than psychological stress of criminals, which is already irrelevant by our first point. Don't lose the forest for the trees; we've shown that the DP saves lives and is perfectly just. The innocent should not die to save the lives of the guilty. Thanks to our opponents for this debate. Sources:1. http://www.theatlantic.com...2. http://www.bjs.gov...3. https://www.aclu.org...