The death penalty Deters crime and saves lives

This debate does not have the acceptance rule: C1: Deters crime Ernest Van Den Haag, PhD, late Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University, in an Oct. 17, 1983 New York Times Op-Ed article titled "For the Death Penalty," wrote the following: "Common sense, lately bolstered by statistics, tells us that the death penalty will deter murder, if anything can. People fear nothing more than death. Therefore, nothing will deter a criminal more than the fear of death. Death is final. But where there is life there is hope... Wherefore, life in prison is less feared. Murderers clearly prefer it to execution -- otherwise, they would not try to be sentenced to life in prison instead of death. (Only an infinitesimal percentage of murderers are suicidal.) Therefore, a life sentence must be less deterrent than a death sentence. And we must execute murderers as long as it is merely possible that their execution protects citizens from future murder." Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., LLM, late Justice of the US Supreme Court, in a June 29, 1972 Furman v. Georgia dissenting opinion, stated: "On the basis of the literature and studies currently available, I find myself in agreement with the conclusions drawn by the Royal Commission [Report on Capital Punishment, 1949-1953] following its exhaustive study of this issue: 'The general conclusion which we reach, after careful review of all the evidence we have been able to obtain as to the deterrent effect of capital punishment, may be stated as follows. Prima facie, the penalty of death is likely to have a stronger effect as a deterrent to normal human beings than any other form of punishment, and there is some evidence (though no convincing statistical evidence) that this is in fact so.'" Opponents argue that there is no deterrent effect by using the death penalty. According to Baily, who did a study from l967 to l968, the death penalty was a deterrent in 27 states. When there was a moratorium on Capital Punishment in the United States, the study showed murder rates increased by 100%. The study also reviewed 14 nations who abolished the death penalty. It (the study) claimed murder increased by 7% from five years before the abolition period to the five years after the abolition [1] So after the DP was abolished, crime rose. (DP=death penalty, LWOP=life without parole) So based on these studies it does deter crime. C2: Saves lives The question is whether or not execution of an innocent person is strong enough to abolish the death penalty. Remember, the death penalty saves lives. Repeat murders are eliminated and foreseeable murders are deterred. [1] So it saves lives because it stops murders, by deterring crime. Now I talked about innocent execution, so I must now digress. C3: No proof that any innocents have been executed Opponents claim lots of innocent man are wrongly executed. There has never been any proof of an innocent man being executed!! A study by Bedau-Radlet claimed there were 22 cases where the defendant have been wrongly executed. However, this study is very controversial. Studies like Markman and Cassell find that the methodology was flawed in l2 cases. There was no substantial evidence of guilt, and no evidence of innocence. Moreover, our judicial system takes extra precautions to be sure the innocent and their rights are protected. Most likely an innocent person would not be executed [1] So I am not saying that never has their been a innocent killed on death row, but those cases are rare, and most likely that wont happen because of our modern technology. So It probably has happened in the past century, but nowadays that risk is low. That is my case for now. I will expand later. I await your response.