The United States should retain Capital Punishment for murder.

As per rules I will not offer any rebuttal in this round. Some of my contentions may seem like rebuttals, but that was unavoidable. I apologize that this is last minute, but I've been busy these past few days and was gone all day today as well. I will try to reply sooner in the future. C1) Death penalty more expensive: [1]While it may not seem so at first, the death penalty is much more expensive than life imprisonment. This is due to the fact that the constitution requires a long and complex judicial process for cases of capital punishment. -By replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment, California could save $1 billion over five years. -Californian taxpayers have to pay 90,000 more on those waiting to be executed per year than on normal prisoners. C2) Repentance of the crime. Sometimes the ones who do the worst crimes can in the end do great works after repenting of these crimes. Such as the case of Stanley "Tookie" Williams[2] who was convicted of four murders. After five years of incarceration he became a Christian. He wrote many books and founded programs to promote peace and fight gang violence. With life imprisonment those convicted have a much better chance of repenting, and after repentance have a much longer time too do good works, instead of until executed, such as with the Williams case. C3) Not as much a punishment, or not punishment at all. With the death penalty the convicted don't suffer as much punishment as they do with life imprisonment. They don't have much time to reflect on what they did and thus won't feel as guilty. In fact capital punishment hurts the family of the prisoner more than it hurts the prisoner. In some cases victims don't even mind death. They may think that they are dying for their cause, or may be crazy enough to not care. C4) Makes members of the jury less inclined too condemn the guilty. If the jury knows there is someone's death on the line they may be loathe to condemn the criminal. The reasons for which could be that either they don't support the death penalty, or the possibility that an innocent man might be put to death makes them more hesitant when making the decision. Thus making it more likely that guilty men may not be tried innocent. C5) Possibility of the innocent being executed. There is always the chance that the person being convicted is innocent. Even when there is what seems strong evidence, it may only mean that the convicted man had something too do with the crime, not the murder. There are of course many other possible explanations why someone tried guilty might be innocent. Those sentenced to life imprisonment have the chance to be proven innocent before they die. C6) Life imprisonment is just as effective removing from society someone who would cause more harm. C7) Religious/Christian perspective: 1. Jesus taught much on forgiveness. Too kill someone because they killed someone is not very forgiving. 2. Serving out their time in jail, the prisoner has the chance too repent and become a Christian. Christians should support life imprisonment and try to get murderers too repent. With the death penalty they have no such chance. C8) Violates the right to life. My last contention but one of the most important, the right to life, and the irony of the death penalty. Now of course the one being condemned has violated anothers right to life, but does that mean he loses his right to life as well? When one man takes away someone else right, it does not mean that man taking away the right should also have his rights taken away. It is the same concept as an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. For one thing it teaches revenge and is wrong. -A decent and humane society does not deliberately kill human beings. -How can we teach something is wrong by doing the exact same thing that we are teaching is wrong? This is what makes the death penalty so ironic. [1] . http://www.deathpenalty.org...[2] . http://usliberals.about.com...