The death penalty should be abolished

I have read through your presentations, and though you make some interesting points to say the least, I still have many a reason to believe that the death penalty is an appropriate consequence, shall a crime be severe enough, say murder or rape.Presentations1) Executions are carried out at great, excessive costs.Cases with a life sentence may in some instances cost less than one where the death penalty is sought, but the extra cost should not be a benefactor in this argument. In many cases, the individual/s that are put on death row are for the most part cold-blooded killers or rapists. The innocent people victimised by these criminals have sometimes lost their lives by the hands of these wrongdoers and these actions are simply unforgivable. If one takes the right to live away from another, then they have lost that right themselves, and in that manner, no amount of money is too 'great' or 'excessive' to achieve justice for an innocent human life."Deserved punishment protects society morally by restoring this just order, making the wrongdoer pay a price equivalent to the harm he has done."[1]2) There is no credible evidence that the presence of the death penalty deter acts of crime.While some criminologists may believe that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to murder, that is only an opinion based statistic, and in the same manner 12% of the nation's leading criminologists do believe in the effectiveness of the death penalty. Likewise, the same article my contender has linked also states: "Similarly, 87% of the expert criminologists believe that abolition of the death penalty would not have any significant effect on murder rates."[2]Secondly, the purpose of the death penalty isn't to 'deter' crime as such, it is to punish inexcusable crimes, and to thrive as moral, civilised society while reducing the small percentage of the population who continue to commit offences.3) Innocent people have been convicted and executedThis reasoning does make a good point, as my contender states;"In any justice system, there always exists the possibility of convicting an innocent [person] of an act of crime"Sadly, there is still flaw in our justice system, but the fact still remains that 96% of all inmates serving the death row are guilty, and though a life sentence is in some sense 'reversible' innocent people are forced to live their lives for years, decades even behind bars, against the harsh prison conditions.On another note, 96% of all who face the death penalty have either murdered, raped or heavily impacted another innocent persons life in an irreversible way. For all the families and the friends who lost loved ones to these sick individuals, it provides closure, knowing that the person who ended their lives is gone from this world. In some cases, the loved ones remain traumatised for the rest of their lives, having to sleep every night, knowing a rapist or a murderer is still out there."Although the victim and the victim's family cannot be restored to the status which preceded the murder, at least an execution brings closure to the murderer's crime (and closure to the ordeal for the victim's family) and ensures that the murderer will create no more victims."[3]Sources[1] J. Budziszewski, PhDProfessor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin"Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice,"OrthodoxyToday.orgAug./Sep. 2004[2] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[3] http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org...