death penalty

Hello, welcome to DDO.org. I want to thank my opponent for starting this debate and beginning the round with such a complete picture of what kind of death penalty rules she see acceptable. I will attempt to give the readers a good morally and logically contention to her concept of death penalty. Because she is the instigator and began with a clear definition of what they see as the correct execution of the death penalty, I assume the Burden Of Proof is shared (BOP). I think my alternate position will be elaborated through rebuttals of my opponents statements.Case 1 The death penalty is moral (part 1)My opponent states, "In my opinion the death penalty is immoral. Partly because you "thou shall not kill" but also because two wrongs don"t make a right, so killing someone in retaliation would be teaching society that it"s okay to kill if the person has committed a wrongful act and as long as it"s handled by the government"the Bible as God's word clearly states the Death Penalty is moral and the rightful execution in matters of the law. The Old Testament is peppered with the punishment of various crimes being death. For the sake of brevity I reference Leviticus[1],"Whoever kills an animal shall make it good, and whoever kills a person shall be put to death." Leviticus 24:21This clearly states that for the crime of killing a man is death. This was usually done by stoning in that day. This verse is from the Old Testament and for some Christians is not part of the New Covenant. The New Covenant still encompasses the 10 Commandments. My opponent says partly to do with "thou shall not kill" [2] This is better translated as "Thou shall not murder" [3], because the Hebrew word for kill in Exodus 20:13 is never used to describe killing animals, or when a soldier kills in battle. How could this Commandment be thou shall not kill if the executioner from Leviticus is killing convicted criminals? You would have to kill the executioners. That is absurd, that is because killing when in the employment of the government is not murder. So according to the bible the Death Penalty is moral.For the sake of brevity I will leave this for now and answer rebuttals. I plan to present more arguments in latter rounds for the morality of the death penalty.Case 2 (rebuttal) The system is unfair and unjustMy opponent contends that the system is unfair and unjust. What legal system in the world is either of those? The system is made by mankind, ran by mankind, institutionalized, enforced by mankind. It is going to be inherently flawed with human bias and human corruption. But it is also refined, peer reviewed, and reinterpreted by mankind. This means that is not a system set in stone and such atrocities as unequal punishment for the rich vs. poor or black vs. white can be addressed by the voice of the people and change can occur. Now I want to make something clear, this system is not a Justice System. It is a Court System.[4] The law is a body of work to establish reparation of wrongs done.[5] Clearly the fact that the system may fail at times, is not a justification to not implement the punishment at all. In fact, my opponent asserts the same thing when in closing they state, "So if the death penalty becomes more widely used the court system needs to become more reliable and less corrupt."Case 3 Exceptions to the Death PenaltyThis is where I think the readers can see my opponent takes a surprising term. I thought she was against the death penalty in all cases but they assert "However the ones who are mentally insane... should be given the death penalty". _O.0_ what! what! So my opponent is no Pro-death penalty but only for the criminals who suffer a mental illness. She continues to claim, "...psychopath and butchered several people without any sympathy or remorse, but that"s because more times than none the medical treatment isn't going to help and there is the possibility of them escaping and starting again." First clearly it is not the responsibility of the medical staff to also handle security! Security should be left to the guards and those trained in physically detaining a human. But more to the point. As society gains a better knowledge of psychopathology they gain better treatment techniques. It's been shown now that many people who exhibit psychopathy are not murderers, they are doctors and lawyers.[6] And many murderers do not test positive for psychopathy. Therefore the punishment should apply equally well to this subset you have illustrated. Shows more the violent of killing someone was not accidental or by loss of a sober mind, but was more likely to be deliberate.Case 4 (rebuttal) Guard PTSDMost states have individuals who are paid just to do executions. You claim killing of thousands will give Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to the guards. Thousands is a bit extreme. In 2013 there were 39 executions the entire year. The lowest amount in the last 5 years. All those executions were not done in presence of the same guards. Second, PTSD does not work that way. It is not everyone experiencing an event will get PTSD. Usually PTSD is from life threatening events. The guards probably get PTSD from their normal high stress working conditions.I pass the round to my opponent.[1] http://www.biblegateway.com...[2]http://www.biblegateway.com...[3]http://www.biblegateway.com...[4]http://realtruth.org...[5]http://www.oxforddictionaries.com...[6]http://www.neulaw.org...[7]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...