Death penalty should be implemented in our society

Refutations: Deterrence:My opponent begins by talking about Issac Ehrlich's 1975 American Economic Review paper in which he analyzed U.S. time series data on homicides and execution from 1933-1969, finding that each execution yielded 8 fewer homicides. However, this paper has many problems with it. His result were somewhat puzzling with the fact that an 80 percent drop in the execution rate from the late 1930's until 1960 had been accompanied by falling murder rates. A subsequent re-analysis by Peter Passell and John Taylor showed that Ehrlich’s estimates were entirely driven by attributing a sharp jump in murders from 1963-69 to the post-1962 drop in executions. But Ehrlich’s own model showed no correlation between executions and murder if one simply lopped off the last seven years of his data. [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...] This is why the paper has met strong criticism from an expert panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences in 1978 and the Yale Law Journal. In actuality, Most experts and studies actually show that the death penalty has either no deterrence effect or the opposite effect.In an article in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Dr. Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University describes numerous serious errors in recent deterrence studies, including improper statistical analyses and missing data and variables that are necessary to give a full picture of the criminal justice system. Fagan writes, “There is no reliable, scientifically sound evidence that [shows that executions] can exert a deterrent effect…. These flaws and omissions in a body of scientific evidence render it unreliable as a basis for law or policy that generate life-and-death decisions. To accept it uncritically invites errors that have the most severe human costs.” [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...] Also, In testimony before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary, Fagan analyzed recent studies that claimed that capital punishment deters murders. He stated that the studies "fall apart under close scrutiny." Fagan noted that the studies are fraught with technical and conceptual errors, including inappropriate methods of statistical analysis, failures to consider all relevant factors that drive murder rates, missing data on key variables in key states, weak to non-existent tests of concurrent effects of incarceration, and other deficiencies. "A close reading of the new deterrence studies shows quite clearly that they fail to touch this scientific bar, let alone cross it," Fagan said as he told members of the committee that the recent deterrence studies fell well short of the demanding standards of social science research. [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...]According to a recent study by Professor Michael Radelet and Traci Lacock of the University of Colorado found that 88% of the nation’s leading criminologists do not believe the death penalty is an effective deterrent to crime. The criminologists surveyed included - 1) Fellows in the American Society of Criminology (ASC), (2) Winners of the ASC’s Sutherland Award, the highest award given by that organization for contributions to criminological theory, or (3) Presidents of the ASC between 1997 and the present. Those presidents before 1997 had been included in the prior survey. Respondents were asked to base their answers on existing empirical research, not their views on capital punishment. [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...]If readers just look at the pure numbers of murders in states with and without the death penalty, you can clearly see that the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent compared to states without the death penalty: Murder rates are from the FBI's "Crime in the United States" and are per 100,000 population.In short, there is no proof of deterrence.Justice: The Lancet, a British peer-reviewed medical journal, stated in an Apr. 16, 2005 editorial titled "Medical Collusion in the Death Penalty: An American Atrocity," the death penalty does not always value retribution: "What justification can there be for capital punishment at all? The two main arguments for the death penalty are deterrence and retribution. Few experts believe that the threat of capital punishment is an effective deterrent. That leaves retribution. But to justify capital punishment, the retribution must be meted out fairly, and that is clearly not the case. In only about 1% of murders do prosecutors seek the death penalty. Whether you receive the death penalty depends not on what you have done, but where you committed your crime, what colour your skin is, and how much money you have." If anything less than the death penalty was unjust, why wouldn't every murder be sentenced to death? Arguments:As I have already demonstrated, the death penalty doesn't deter crime nor does it always seek retribution. I will now move onto the cost of it and the risk of killing innocents.Cost:Most people today who know about the court system can agree that there is quite a bit a delay and cost associated with the death penalty because of more trial preparation, much longer time to get to trial, much longer jury selections and trials, much more complicated and far more frequent appeals, and continuous motions, have increased the cost of capital punishment so that it is now many times the cost of keeping a prisoner in prison for life. This is why a 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000). In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment. In Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case. In California the current system costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty. [http://www.amnestyusa.org...] There are many more cases like these and if more are needed, then I can supply more. But the reader can clearly see that the Death penalty cost more than non-death penalty cases.Killing Innocents:In 2001, the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School analyzed the cases of 86 death row exonerees. They found a number of reasons why innocent people are wrongly convicted in capital cases. The reasons included:Eyewitness error - from confusion or faulty memory. Government misconduct - by both the police and the prosecution Junk science - mishandled evidence or use of unqualified "experts" Snitch testimony - often given in exchange for a reduction in sentence False confessions - resulting from mental illness or retardation, as well as from police tortureOther - hearsay, questionable circumstantial evidence, etc.These reasons are why, since the reinstatement of the death penalty, 140 men and women have been released from Death Row nationally, some only minutes away from execution. Moreover, in the past two years evidence has come to light which indicates that four men may have been wrongfully executed in recent years for crimes they did not commit. [http://www.deathpenalty.org...] This alone should prove that the death penalty has no place in our society. For when our criminal justice system kills their own innocent citizens, it is wrong. A government does not get to murder it's citizens who did nothing wrong.In Conclusion:The Death Penalty doesn't deter crime, it doesn't always seek proportional retribution, it cost more than non-death penalty cases and it has the high risk of killing innocents; thus, it has no place in our society.