Resolved: The USA Should Abolish the Death Penalty

Thank you Kohai. I'm pleased to see that you've presented such a compelling case. As per the agreed rules, I will post my arguments in this round and refute Kohai's in the next.=Case=When asked his position on the Death Penalty, President Barack Obama stated that he supported it in cases where "the community is justified in expressing the full extent of it's outrage." Seeing as I agree, I negate the resolved.C1. Capital Punishment saves innocent lives.SPA: Capital Punishment keeps a killer from striking again. There have been many instances in our justice system where a murderer has reoffended, in fact a study from the U.S. Department of Justice finds that of prisoners released in 1994, 1.2% of those convicted of homicide were arrested for another homicide within three years of their release.[1]. This holds especially true for our most dangerous criminals, in 2009 8.6% of those on death row had a prior homicide conviction. Over 5% of those on death row committed their capital crime while in custody or during an escape.[2] This shows that killers can, and do reoffend even while imprisoned!There are also many specific examples, such as Kenneth Mcduff. In 1966 a Texas jury ruled for him to die in the electric chair for his brutal murder of two boys and a girl. However his sentence was commuted to Life Imprisonment when the Supreme Court struck down the Death Penalty. Mcduff was later released, and ended up killing at least 9 more people. Thankfully, he was executed by lethal injection in 1998[3]. He will never kill again. Had he been executed the first time at least 9 innocent lives would've been saved.Another example is the recently executed Lee Andrew Taylor. While serving a life sentence for his brutal beating and murder of an elderly couple Taylor fatally stabbed another inmate after a "racial tension" incident occurred[4]. Thankfully, he was executed by Texas in 2011, never to kill again.Yet another example comes from Clarence Ray Allen. Allen was serving a sentence of life without parole for murder, when he conspired with his fellow inmate Billy Hamilton to kill the witnesses for his crime. When paroled, Hamilton tracked down the witnesses and killed one of them, along with two bystanders[5]. Allen was, thankfully, sentenced to die for this new crime, and executed by the state of California in 2006.These are only some of many examples of murderers who later murdered again. In many cases, anything less than the Death Penalty simply isn't good enough. The recidivism rate for an executed murderer is 0%.SPB: Capital Punishment has a deterrent effect.Many different studies provide many different results, some examples: Studies from Emory University stating that each execution prevents between three and eighteen murders. [6] A 2006 study from the University of Houston, stating that the Illinois moratorium on the Death Penalty led to 150 additional homicides [6] A University of Colorado at Denver study showing that for each execution five muders were prevented.[7]. Raw statistics also support the deterrent effect. Take the state of Texas for example:According to JFA (Justice for All), the Texas murder rate in 1991 was 15.3 per 100,000. By 1999, it had fallen to 6.1—a drop of 60 percent. Within Texas, the most aggressive death penalty prosecutions are in Harris County (the Houston area). Since the resumption of executions in 1982, the annual number of Harris County murders has plummeted from 701 to 241—a 72 percent decrease.[8] Or nation-wide: By the beginning of the 1990s, however, states that wished to reimpose the ultimate penalty had fought their way through the endless thicket of appeals and restrictions imposed by the courts. In 1991, 14 murderers were executed while 2,500 waited on death row. By 1993 the figure had risen to 38 executions, then 55 in 1995, and 98 in 1999, a level not seen since the 1950s. At the same time, murder rates began to plummet—to 9.6 per 100,000 in 1993, 7.7 in 1996, and 6.4 in 1999, the lowest level since 1966. To put the matter simply, over the past 40 years, homicides have gone up when executions have gone down and vice versa. [9] These are just some of many examples showing the deterrent effect. As Researcher Karl Spence from of Texas A&M University states (speaking about the moratorium on Capital Punishment from 1972-1976): "While some death penalty abolitionists try to face down the results of their disastrous experiment and still argue to the contrary, the...[data] concludes that a substantial deterrent effect has been observed...In six months, more Americans are murdered than have killed by execution in this entire century...Until we begin to fight crime in earnest by using the death penalty, every person who dies at a criminal's hands is a victim of our inaction."Observation 1: While the argument that an innocent could be executed is a very compelling one, the murders committed by prior offenders and the deterrent effect of Capital Punishment outweighs this small risk.Observation 2: Any and all moral arguments are outweighed by the United State's obligation to protect innocent life.C2. The Death Penalty is a better punishment than Life without Parole.SPA: Life without parole does not always mean life.If the Death Penalty is abolished, the next thing to go will be life without parole. Already some European countries like Norway, Greece, Portugal and Spain have abolished it [10]. There is already a movement to abolish life without parole in the United States for juveniles and even for adult offenders! [11][12]. While no one can truly know if these movements will gain traction, the evidence in Europe speaks for itself, sentences for murder in Europe are much lighter than those in the United States. The law can also change, take for example the tragic case of Pamela Moss: "In 1962, James Moore raped and strangled 14-year-old Pamela Moss. Her parents decided to spare Moore the death penalty on the condition that he be sentenced to life in prison without parole. Later on, thanks to a change in sentencing laws in 1982, James Moore is eligible for parole every two years"[13]Laws change, Governors change, sentencing changes, and people forget the past. The only way to truly know if a murderer will not ever be released is to execute them. Parole boards are not perfect, look to the McDuff case I've previously mentioned.SPB: Prisoners view the Death Penalty as a harsher punishment than Life without parole. One argument against the Death Penalty is that it does not force criminals to truly pay for their crime. While at first this seems to be a compelling argument, the evidence speaks against it. Criminals have the right to waive the appeals on their death sentence, very very few do. Executions in 2011: 25 so far, 1 waived appeals. Executions in 2010: 46, 1 waiver. Executions in 2009: 52 executions, 2 waivers. Executions in 2008: 37 Executions, 3 waivers.[14]. Nearly 96% of those executed in the past four years have fought to escape their sentence. Conclusion:The death penalty undoubtebly saves innocent lives through prevention, and evidence strongly suggests deterrence. As a society, we have a moral responsibility to use the ultimate penalty for the most serious of crimes. Thus I respectfully urge you to vote Con. Sources:1. http://bitURL.net...2. http://bitURL.net...3. http://bitURL.net...4. http://bitURL.net...5. http://bitURL.net...6. http://bitURL.net...7. http://bitURL.net...8. Lowe, Wesley. "Consistent and Swift Application of the Death Penalty Reduces Murder Rates." 9. Tucker, William. "Capital Punishment Reduces Murder Rates."10. http://bitURL.net...11. http://bitURL.net...;12. http://bitURL.net...13. http://bitURL.net...14. http://bitURL.net...