Capital Punishment Is Justice Best Served Swiftly

Cody Franklin, Resident Fascist. Pleased to meet you, Pro. I'd like to welcome my opponent to debate.org, and I hope that you guys get a kick out of the debate, despite this topic being a bit on the overused side. I'll accept Pro's definition of capital punishment, with the addendum that, for the sake of convenience, it can simply be referred to from now on as the death penalty; furthermore, we will be examining its use in the United States. As far as my opponent's contention is concerned, I'd like to make one little observation: his argument about the current method of execution being "inefficient and costly" is irrelevant, as we are here to debate the justice/morality of the death penalty, not to debate the merits of the methods employed. Now then, on to the good stuff! 1. Morality I will agree, for the sake of this debate, that humans have a "right" to life, though my personal beliefs may state otherwise. a. Pro's argument here is based purely upon the reasoning that two wrongs make a right, which we know to be a logical fallacy. While Pro may champion the death penalty as a proportional punishment, murdering a murderer makes as much sense as the government breaking into a thief's house to steal his possessions. b. The death penalty takes away the opportunity for the criminal to confront the harms of the crime committed. Instead of allowing room for contrition, repentance, and redemption, our justice system tosses such criminals to the side for the sake of convenience, branding them quickly as being beyond hope. The purpose of the justice system is not to punish, but to correct, and to rehabilitate. The death penalty in no way helps to meet this goal. While Pro may argue that some criminals simply cannot be rehabilitated, that is not an adequate justification for condemning some to death who may have had the capacity to repent of their crimes. 2. Retribution a. The punishment offers vengeance to friends and relatives of the victim. While providing for the victim's loved ones is an important function of the justice system, satisfying their lust for revenge is certainly not a priority in our courts. If my girlfriend were raped, I would probably want the man castrated, beaten, and burned alive, but the function of the courts is to be impartial, not to cater to the emotional distress of the victim (or the victim's loved ones). b. Even under a retributive paradigm, crimes are seen, according to Gordon Bazemore in "Communities, Victims, and Offender Reintegration", as an act against the state or the law, as opposed to an offense against the victim, meaning that the victim's interests are peripheral to the process, at best. 3. Deterrence a. [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...] [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...] Take a look at these statistics; the bars, decimals, and percentages clearly show that states with the death penalty have a significantly higher rate of violent crimes than states without the death penalty; simply put, capital punishment does not deter crime. b. [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...] 88% of criminologists further agree that the death penalty does not deter crime, with the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology concluding that "There is overwhelming consensus among America's top criminologists that the empirical research conducted on the deterrence question fails to support the threat or use of the death penalty." c. While Pro argues that "In crimes where the violators have a large amount of fore thought before the action, capital punishment acts as a great deterrent", there is no warrant for his argument, first of all, but also understand that, if a murderer commits a crime, especially with malice aforethought, he is well-aware of the penalties, and simply does not care. With death penalty awaiting, criminals can often adopt a "go-for-broke" mentality, knowing that their punishment will be quick and painless, without having to give decades of thought to the impacts of their crime(s). 4. Cost a. To put it plainly, ethical justifications cannot be based on economic gains. Efficiency and cost-effectiveness are not determiners of justice and morality. b. Even from the law enforcement perspective, the death penalty is used sparingly, as it is considered to be "the least efficient use of taxpayers' money" [http://deathpenaltyinfo.org...]. c. [http://deathpenaltyinfo.org...] Scroll down, if you will, to "Financial Facts". Let me just copy a couple of fun facts for you. i) "The California death penalty system costs taxpayers $114 million per year beyond the costs of keeping convicts locked up for life. Taxpayers have paid more than $250 million for each of the state's executions. (L.A. Times, March 6, 2005)." ii) "The most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of sentencing murderers to life imprisonment. The majority of those costs occur at the trial level. (Duke University, May 1993)." iii) "In Texas, a death penalty case costs an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. (Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992)." While these are merely copied facts, the point they represent is far more significant – Pro makes a huge, unwarranted claim that our expenditures for LIP (life in prison) inmates could be reduced by using the death penalty more in sentencing; clearly, the facts prove him wrong once again. 5. One Other Thing a. Though I've stated it a couple of times throughout my refutations, none of Pro's arguments actually have warrants; read through again, and you will find neither evidence nor (legitimate) logic. At this point, his case doesn't really have anything to stand on. Hopefully I can get Pro to concede defeat before the end of the debate, because I don't think that this topic really needs to go four rounds. ;) Good luck in Round 2 though, Pro!