Resolved: The USA Should Abolish the Death Penalty

First, I will refute kohai's arguments. If I have characters remaining, I will defend my own.=The Resolution=Kohai has defined (and I agree with), abolish to mean to do away with. So if I can show that in general, we ought not abolish the death penalty, you vote Con. If I give even a single example where the DP is the ideal form of punishment, you also vote Con because that shows we should not completely do away with it. Now, onto refutation!C1. InhumanityKohai begins by trying to show the current methods of execution to be cruel. While I will refute this, and show how I outwiegh, this is also non-topical. Why? Simply because Kohai did NOT set the framework of this debate to be over the status quo. Rather it is over the DP in general. Now, since this has been established I would like to indroduce a new method, as advocated by U.K. politician Michael Portillo.[1] Nitrogen asphyxiation. This is a completely painless, and seemingly botch-proof method. Here's a description of it: "When humans breathe in pure nitrogen, they exhale carbon dioxide without resupplying oxygen. Nitrogen is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas that constitutes approximately 78 percent of the Earth's atmosphere. As such, the subject would detect no abnormal sensation. This leads to asphyxiation without the painful and traumatic feeling of suffocation."So painless is this death, that often times individuals die from this...without even noticing that they are dying.This is a better and more humane method of execution, and it's up to kohai to find the flaw in it. Otherwise, his entire first contention is gone. ECKohai's attempted to show the EC as painful. Firstly, the EC is a method of execution that has fallen out of favor, for the very reasons he has elaborated on. Secondly, are we really to concern ourselves with this? Yes, if we must take a life I would prefer to do it in the least painful way possible, but given the momumental benefits brought forth by the DP as elaborated in my case, the prisoners suffering has to be the least of our worries. The DP keeps killers from striking again, and as such the only possible way Kohai could outweigh this is to show moe innocents killed via execution than via re-offense, which he has not done (more on that later.) Honestly, I find it quite ironic that many DP opposers focus so much on the pain of the offender, yet so little focus is given to what truly matters, innocent life. Please judges, do the humane thing and realize that while we should try to minimize suffering, said suffering must be our last priority.LIKohai says that the anesthetic drug wears off in 7-10 minutes. I see no reason to dispute that. However that does not constitute inhumanity from Lethal Injection. Indeed, death usually occurs for those given lethal drugs within 7 minutes.[2] For the cases in which it DOESNT kill them that fast, it is a botched execution which I will discuss later. However Kohai has not proven LI, when used properly, to be inhumane. Also when the constitutionality of this method came into question, it was upheld[3]. Surely the Supreme Court and the attorneys involved in the case know volumes more about LI than Kohai or I ever will.BotchedKohai has given some examples of botched executions. First off, he has argued no impact. Yes it is unfortunate that this has to happen, but to claim that this constitutes the DP to be cruel and unusual is to claim that life w/o parole is cruel and unusual because of things that are not supposed to happen such as prison rape, sadistic guards, ect. Kohai is trying to get us to do away with the ultimate penalty based on a rare exception to the rule, which is foolish. Furthermore, I have given a better method of execution that will by-pass this entire contention.C2. InnocenceKohai shows us that "21" innocents have been executed in the past 18 years. Umm, no. Not a single one of those people have been pardoned by a court after death. Kohai wants us to take death penalty information center's opinion over the guilty verdict of the court supported by the judge, governer of the state, district court, board of paroles and pardons, and the Supreme Court itself. I will take the veridict from people who actually know about the case over some writings on the internet ANY day. I brought this up with him during cross examination in the comments section, and he continually dodged the question. As such, we can presume that this is extremely harmful to his contention and until he gives an actual, court reecognized, example of an innocent this point simply falls.=Defense=C1SPAkohai says that since thieves re-offend at a higher rate than murderers, we should execute all thieves. I understand that this is a debate, and that it's his job to poke holes in my logic, but I truly do hope that Kohai has the moral insight to distinguish theft from murder. Theft is not as destructive to society, and to the family of the victim as murder, and thus does not deserve the same punishment. Conversly, how are we to take murder as a crime seriously, if the punishment is not equally as serious?He also says "killing the speeders will surely save more lives!" .....ok. Let's think about that for a second. Killing a speeder results in a death unjust by any standards, and it would also end more innocent lives than it would save because speeding does not warrant an execution.SPBKohai gives an example that 87% of criminologists believe the DP does not deter. Yet 13% of them DO. Obviously, this shows that there is room for debate on deterrence. As such, if there is a chance the DP deters than we have a moral obligation to perform it. If we execute and the DP does not deter, we have a bunch of dead murderers. If we fail to execute, and the DP DOES deter, we have the blood of innocents on our hands. Surely the just action would be to risk the former, and not the latter. Furthermore, I have given statistical evidence, studies, and logical analysis. Kohais appeal to authority cannot outwiegh this.He claims " According to this, states without the DP decreased in homicide, while states with the DP increased in homicide."Looking at his source, that is quite simply false. In both types of states, homicide has decreased. I believe that Kohai was trying to imply that states w/o the DP have lower murder rates. unfortunately, this is not comparing apples to apples, to use the common phrase. When assessing the use of the DP as a deterrent, it can only be observed by an individual state comparison. If we really want to compare two different things, I will point out the fact that Saudi Arabia, which has a swift and certain DP has a much lower crime rate than the US.Also TURN: Kohai's graph shows a significant decrease in homicide since 1994 in DP states. Since the passing of the DP act of 1994, implementation of the DP has been much swifter and simpler.Lastly he says that the "simple fact" is that killers do not think of the consequences. I would like the judges to consider the phrase pre-meditated murder when considering this objection. Logic tells us that if there was no penalty for murder, murder rates would be higher. So it would stand to reason that the harsher a penalty for a certain crime is, the less likely it is to be committed.C2.This was essentially dropped, and thus I extend it. Kohai contends that SPA is a slippery slope fallacy. It isn't exactly a fallacy if the slope exists. I have given evidence for this, which he has dropped. He also argues that sometimes there is no reason to keep someone in prison at times.TURN: This proves that the mentality for abolition of life w/o parole exists. The McDuff evidence tells us that parole boards often make mistakes and killers strike again. I will link an entire list of 50+ paroled murderers who struck again. [4]. I strongly urge a Con vote.Sources:1. http://bitURL.net... 2. http://bitURL.net... 3. http://bitURL.net... 4. http://bitURL.net...