Death Penalty

Since my opponent gave his speech first, my burden is to merely disprove my opponent's arguments. My opponents case: 1. I will go over my opponent's cost argument after I go over my opponent's other arguments. 2. Innocence My opponent goes over the argument that the death penalty could possibly lead to the death of innocent people. He uses the quote from Governor George Ryan. My opponent goes on and states that innocent people have been released from death row. However, here is a statistic. According to author Thomas Eddlem, ". .. the most important error rate—the rate of mistaken executions—is zero. " This shows that no one who has been executed on death row has been proven innocent after their death. Therefore, the death penalty is in fact argument. Even if you do not buy this argument, here is another one. Those who have been let off death row have been proven innocent from the arrival of DNA testing. These innocents were convicted during times when there was no DNA testing, and its arrival in the 90's vindicated them. However, if we look forward to the future we can see that DNA testing is already in place, and this will make sure that we can convict the right person. Our reliance on circumstantial evidence will decrease, and we can be certain that we are executing the guilty. Finally, those who are in fact convicted are given due process of the law and are convicted by a jury of their peers. 3. Death Penalty does not help anything My opponent says that the death penalty states do not have lower crime rates, and that states that do not have the death penalty have low crime rates. However, this is a flawed argument. First, because my opponent is looking at the whole crime rate. However, since the death penalty punishes only crimes involving murder, then we cant expect the death penalty to deter crimes that do not involve murder. Second, because my opponent is comparing non death penalty states and death penalty states. However, these states are not all alike. For example, most of the death penalty states have large urban populations, while most of the non death penalty states do not. Therefore, we must look at a different way to see if the death penalty does in fact deter crime. This method that I will show compares homicide rates nation wide between years that had the death penalty and years that did not. This study can be found here . http://www.johansens.us.... In this study author Jay Johansen looked at the homicide rates since 1950. In this study he found that the homicide rate was lower in years when the death penalty was used, than in years when the death penalty was in fact not in use. Therefore, we can clearly see that the death penalty is a deterrent of homicides, which is the type of crime it punishes. 4. )To my opponent's fourth point I say no. This is because this threat of death is classified as coercion. Hence, people are more likely to do what you want, in this case not commit murder, because they are afraid of the possible punishment of death they will face. Sure, spending life in prison would be bad, but you are still alive. You are still able interact with human beings, and are able to even perform some activities while in prison. However, it has been statistically proven that the death penalty has deterred people from committing violent crimes. 5. ) To my opponent's fifth point I agree. Just like I agree that the person who killed another man in self defense is a murderer . However, we as a society do not punish this man for protecting himself. Just like the government should not be punished for protecting its people by using the death penalty. As well, if you look at the Social Contract theory, that the government has the complete right to murder this man by not following the law. You can label the state a murderer, but that does not mean they are wrong. 1. ) Finally, I will go back to my opponent's first point. My opponent states that death penalty cases cost more. I will show you in two ways how this argument is flawed. First, since it has been shown that the death penalty does in fact deter crime I will play off this argument. My opponent since he is advocating no death penalty at all we will see a rise in the homicide rate. This is true because it has been shown statistically that the homicide rate was higher in years without executions. This rise in the homicide rate will require the state to spend even more money on prosecution of these homicides, and the investigations of these homicides. This will cause the money the state though they would save each case without the death penalty, to in fact be used. In fact, this would cause more and more money to be spent, and the state would not save any money at all. Even if you do not buy this argument you should look at my next argument. My second argument is that this immaterial. As author Thomas Eddlem said, "Justice isn't up for sale to the lowest bidder. " Therefore, the government must do what it is obligated to its citizens first, and worry about cost second.