The death penalty should not remain legal in the United States.

Let's do the thing! ---Pro Case--- I. Racism: while this argument seems statistically compelling, my opponent offers no analysis to connect these statistics with the death penalty over any other mechanism of criminal justice. At that point, my opponent is advocating that we also stop enforcing ALL justice, since racism to some extent is inherent in all human institutions, including the justice system. I also recommend taking a look at the dates on these studies. While racism hasn't disappeared in the last ten years, it is progressively being diminished via efforts of the state. There are systemic fixes that will address these statistics. However, this is not an independent reason to eliminate an effective and necessary piece of the social contract. II. Deterrence: I will openly concede that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent for crime. But, that isn't the purpose of the death penalty as outlined in my case, or by penological experts at this time. III. Financial: yes, a death penalty system is expensive and time consuming. It must be, considering that taking a person's life should be something that a society should give due consideration. However, the cost alone is, again, not a sufficient reason to ban the use of capital punishment in society. Not only does the death penalty still maintain a 60%+ approval in many states despite their knowledge of the costs, but it is a retributive measure that keeps the social contract in balance, which is the cornerstone of U. S. functionality. IV. Public Opinion: since all data about death penalty are very apt to contain margins of error, arguments for or against support are a wash at best. Basically, support for the death penalty is either about even or a bit above majority in any given source. Clearly, however, since 37 states still mandate its usage, legislative mechanisms have seen the need for it to be employed. This is a direct show for their support via representative democratic practices. Ia. Cruel and Unusual: nope. It just doesn't. Supreme Court decisions confirm this. Also, the various forms are only to give the convicted a choice in the manner of death, so that has no link to that amendment. IIa. Life: also nope. While I will affirm natural rights, capital punishment is very much NOT the same as "eye for an eye," in letter or spirit. The legal procedures involved negate this, as does all social contract theory that the U. S. employs in its founding documents and ideology. See forfeiture theory. IIIa. Innocence: first of all, that margin of error is inherent in all human institutions. Since we've imprisoned people that were innocent, that should also not be a punishment option, since imprisonment is often perceived as far worse punishment than the death penalty. Second of all, that margin of error is shrinking vastly with new forensics technology as well as the evolving procedures of death penalty indictments. This is not enough to outweigh the impacts provided in my case. IVa. Actual Punishment: this is highly contradictory in two ways: 1. He can't argue "cruel and unusual punishment" if he's also going to argue that the death penalty isn't an "actual punishment. " Clearly, if life imprisonment is worse than the death penalty for the criminal, then he can't claim life imprisonment as an alternative. This is CRUCIAL, because most of his statistics use life imprisonment as the only suitable alternative for heinous crimes. 2. He can't argue that the margin of error is a bad thing, either. As I stated previously, we can still convict innocent people and send them to prison. If sending them to prison is worse than putting them to death, then the margin of error is ample reason for us to stop sending convicted criminals to prison, as well. ---My Case--- I. The United States conception of justice calls for retributive punishment, and the death penalty satisfies this conception when the crime is dire enough. The entire system of justice in the U. S. is based directly on social contract theory. Locke maintains that, though we may seek our own justice in the state of nature, the reason that we form societies and appoint governments is to guarantee equitable and effective protection of our natural rights. However, this system cannot properly function if the most heinous of crimes are not satisfactorily punished. According to social contract theory, once a person has chosen to rob another of his or her natural rights, that person has forfeited his or her protected place in society. He or she, in fact, has entered into a state of war with said society, and deserves a proportional punishment. Otherwise, how would the state preserve itself and maintain citizen confidence in its ability to protect those living under its jurisdiction? While options such as life imprisonment exist, they will not elicit the same retributive effects as capital punishment. Current penological discourse in the U. S. is clear on this point: as social contract theory elaborated centuries ago, human beings have a natural urge for retribution when their rights have been violated. It isn't enough to simply gain one's rights back; Hammurabi's code, the first set of written laws in human history, provides the "eye for an eye" concept. While justice has progressed beyond this simplistic notion of retribution, it cannot forsake the principle. We've seen time and time again that certain crimes extend beyond our institutional ability to punish. At that point, in order to ensure the stability of the social contract, the state must show its commitment to the innocent (as Locke states, in the "state of war," the concerns of the innocent are always to be preferred). Therefore, within the U. S. , capital punishment is not only important to the stability of the justice system, but to the stability of the social contract balance within the nation. While it may not seem to statistically deter others from committing heinous crimes, it does directly deter vigilantes from taking justice into their own hands when the state fails to protect the innocent from the most dangerous of criminals. As my opponent states, though support for the death penalty has waned a bit over the last several decades, it is by no means unpopular, especially depending on the state that one is considering. 2. Outlawing the death penalty at a federal level violates states' rights unnecessarily, which diminishes the representation of citizens in given states. As I'm sure all readers are aware, the death penalty is a type of punishment that is designated by state mandate. As of 2008, approximately 37 states employ the death penalty in some form. Furthermore, data reveals that different state populations feel vastly different about employing the death penalty, which is reflected in its allowance as well as its legal provisions. Besides the fact that this further supports my first argument (which is that citizens in the U. S. see the death penalty as a necessary part of retributive justice), it indicates that eliminating capital punishment at a federal level would not only violate the principles of representative democracy on which our country functions, but state's rights. The purpose of establishing constitutional state's rights is clear: the structure of our government relies on the rule being as vested in the people as much as possible. Considering that most of the states in the nation with very few exceptions show a 60%+ approval of capital punishment, a law or constitutional amendment that outlawed a state's use of capital punishment would clearly run contrary to the will of the people in each state. This violation of the right to self-governance is unnecessary and destructive to our democracy. . http://www.clarkprosecutor.org... . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... Second Treatise of Civil Government, John Locke