These United States should retain the Death Penalty for murder.

Excellent. In this round I will answer my opponent's contentions, then his rebuttals. I'd like to thank him for his swift response and insightful questions.Pro 1. Capital Punishment keeps a killer from striking again.Sort-of captain obvious. Life without parole also stops a killer from striking again. 1.2% homicide reoffence rate, quoted in your first source, also means that incarceration works for 98.8% of homicide convicts. And while there may be 1.2% that don't get it the first time (and who probably should not have been let out), that's also about the rate of false conviction for innocent people to a capital crime (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...).Here's the difference: under your model, more innocents die, because you'll always have murderers running loose (discrimination, police need time to investigate cases etc) so that 1% extra won't make much of a difference. Under my model, there are comparable homicide rates at best (and at worst, I could point to the fact that the United States, even with its death penalty, has the highest homicide rate in the world, so clearly the deterrant isn't working under the status quo). However, your model also executes the innocents. While mine doesn't stop false conviction, mine does stop innocent people dying because the police screwed up. I want my opponent to tell me why it's worth sacrificing more lives to do the same job.Pro 2. Capital Punishment has a deterrent effectFirst, I was actually going to make the opposite claim. Capital punishment has a brutalisation effect on people. People think that the police are brutal because they murder people, and so they need to be brutal too. Studies show that murder rates spike after executions have happened in a state (http://en.wikipedia.org...). Since the death penalty was abolished in Canada in 1976, the homicide rate has fallen by about 40% (http://www.amnesty.org...).Second, to be honest, I think both my and your points here are always going to be nothing more than statistical over-analysis. When I go out to kill somebody, I don't open the paper first and check whether there have been any executions recently, and if I don't check the paper, I will be no more or less inclined. Murderers don't think about why they're doing things beyond a superficial level (otherwise they wouldn't be murderers). Indeed, murderers don't often think through the consequences of their actions at all. They only respond to general societal movements, such as mass brutalisation, not to the effects of individual killings. Therefore the conclusion "1 capital offense stops x murders" is silly.Third, for studies which claim a general trend, they establish correlation based on the two sets of data, but they do not establish causation. This is the case, for example, with Tucker's book. It is almost impossible to isolate all the factors that could have caused a rise in crime. A great many studies have in fact shown exactly the opposite trend. Reconciling this, scholar Joanna M Shepherd looked at trend by state rather than nationally. She found that of the 27 states that recently had executions, there was some deterrant effect but only in 6 states. In 13 states, by contrast, there was a brutilisation effect. (http://web.rollins.edu...)Fourth, please provide a direct link to your articles, I couldn't find them by searching the sites you mentioned.Pro 3. Life without parole doesn't always mean lifeJustice needs to be restorative, not retributive. While Europe (and, for that matter, my own country of New Zealand) may appear to have lighter sentances and non-tough prisons, they have really low reoffending rates. As a result, homicide rates in Europe are much lower than in the USA. So if the justice system is doing exactly what it's designed to do, what's the problem with this? Fewer murders and less prisoners sound good to you?Second, future movements are clearly irrelevant.Pro 4. Prisoners view the Death Penalty as a harsher punishment than Life without parole.This is because real criminals enter plea bargins to avoid dying, while people who enter not guilty and push for their innocence are killed by the system. As such the very people who deserve it most get it least. Besides, justice isn't about being as harsh as possible, it's about changing negative behavior.Pro 5. Capital Punishment is constitutionally sanctioned.So what if an ancient document contemplates the death penalty? All this shows is that it happened a long time ago. The declaration of independance, which tells us that people have an absolute freedom to life, tells us whether it should happen or not. The answer's no.Con 1. State should not multiply guiltNot all killing is murder - so you say that the government doesn't intend to kill murderers? Then what is a sentance!? Or are these men behind bars at war? Pro also states the same applies to traffic violaters and kidnappers. In these cases the state does create guilt, but it's fair because the crime isn't nearly as serious as murder. Removing somebody from society makes communities feel safer, killing somebody who may well be innocent in your community makes people feel scared.State killing is not self-defence. Life imprisonment also removes the criminal, but the harm is much lower. That's one reason why murder is always immoral, no exceptions. Given a life and death alternative with equal effect, the life must be preferred or else you're just as bad ethically.My opponent, and John S. Mill, are offended that killing a helpless murderer is morally equivalent to killing a helpless teenage girl. Never are we actually told why, though, so until then this point is null.Finally, liberty means "The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life." Taking people to jail is not oppressive because it is consistant with one's way of life - choosing a life of crime yields a lifetime in the penitentiary. However, killing people is not consistant with the way of life of a murderer. Rather, it is consistant with the murderer's way of death. The right to life is presupposed by the very concept of liberty.Con 2. Criminals deserve to feel punishmentGuilt is not revenge. Guilt is the antidote to hate and enables love. You cannot feel it once you're dead. That's not my opinion - it's a fact.Life without parole is not "harsher" or more sickening, but it's better because people feel the guilt we need them to feel. That's not harsh; it's fair that people take responsibility for their actions. Thus I don't believe life in prison is a "worse" punishment, but rather a more "just" punishment.Con 3. InnocentsMy opponent's presumption that this shows the system is working is flawed. Supreme court justice Antonin Scalia makes this point nicely: we can't count the innocent because not all innocent can be exonerated (http://www.nytimes.com...). After the case is done, attorneys and investigators lose interest because the guy is already dead. And yes, innocents are killed in car accidents - but why does this give the state the right to kill more innocents? By this logic you might as well give the state the right to kill everyone for no reason. Finally, my website was not dubious. It's run by scholars and academics, rather than by judges that I have shown to be biased.Con 4. DiscriminationSure, I don't have a solution. But that's not the point. In absence of a solution, we will have innocents trialled and executed. If they were trialled and could appeal after their punishment, then there's no problem. Thus ending the death penalty reduces the problem of discrimination until a better solution can be found.ConclusionFighting a flood by spraying water at it won't make it go away, just as fighting murder by murdering won't end murder. Please vote con. Good luck for the final round!