The United States should retain Capital Punishment for murder.

=Rebuttal=C1. Cost. --> Even if this is true, no impact. Justice should not be sold to the lowest bidder. A 20 year sentence would be cheaper than a life sentence, but it certainly isn't as just. --> He only mentions California, California does not have a true Death Penalty (referred to as "DP" from now on to save space), they have sentenced over 700 individuals to die but have only executed 13 people since 1976. [1]. --> This cost analysis ignores the use of the DP for plea bargaining, according to a report from Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, defendants plead guilty 10% more in DP states than non-DP states, saving the cost of an entire trial. [2]--> Here's a (admittably biased, but the cost calculation is still reasonable) cost analysis showing that life w/o parole is: "" $1.2 to $3.6 million" more expensive that the DP. [3]. --> The public pays for the criminal justice system, and prefers the DP over life. [4]C2. Repentence--> No impact argued, who cares? --> Feeling remorseful to a crime should not allow you to escape punishment. I wonder what my Opponent would say if I was to advocate the release of murderers because they claimed to feel guilt. --> Only one example, this point is massively outweighed. --> This contradicts your third point. If the DP is a lesser punishment, wouldn't it more more merciful for us to execute this man rather than force him to live life imprisonment? C3. Not a punishment--> His opinion only, no true evidence. --> Contradicts his second contention. --> Evidence shows this point to be untrue, 96% of prisoners sentenced to the DP fight to have it moved to life w/o parole. --> So what? Public safety is more important than punishment, and the DP is safer. --> As sad as it is that the prisoners family suffers from the DP, we must remember who got them into that position in the first place, the prisoner. We must focus on justice and public safety, not emotions. C4. Jury less likely to condemn. --> No evidence. --> Death sentences are not mandatory, the jury could sentence them to life w/o parole if they are not comfortable with the DP. Sentencing takes place AFTER guilt/innocence has been established. --> This point is outweighed by the lives saved from the DP. C5. Innocence. --> Very compelling point, however it is massively outweighed by deterrence and the lives taken by prior offendors. --> He's given no specific examples, most likely because there aren't any. And if cases of true innocence do exist, they are excedingly rare. --> The DP is a social good, which comes at a risk. Why impose a standard of perfection only on the criminal justice system? Why can we accept the thousands of people who die in car accidents for our own selfish convience, but we cannot accept the slight possibility that an innocent might be executed for a much less selfish thing like justice/public safety? C6 Life w/o Parole is the same. --> See my Contention 2. --> No justification for this claim. C7. Religion. --> No impact, we are not, and have never been, a Christian nation. --> The Bible supports the DP in the Old Testament, and while some of what Jesus said seemed to go against this, he also states "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. for assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. "-Matthew 5:17-19So, he does not come to abolish God's law, which strongly supports the DP, rather he came to fufill it. C8. Right to life. This is by far my Opponents best point, so I will do my best to take it down. --> Outwieghed by the innocent lives saved by the DP. --> The physical similarites between the DP and Murder do not make them anywhere near similar morally. The DP is reactionary, based on a crime committed. --> A murderer is killing an innocent person, with the DP we are executing a guilty person. --> He speaks that it's vengeful, essentially saying "why kill to say killing is wrong. " Using that logic, we also kidnap people to show that kidnapping is wrong, and Police should not be allowed to excede the speed limit to pull over a traffic violater. --> I agree with the English philosopher John Stuart Mill in his statement: "Does fining a criminal show want of respect for property, or imprisoning him, for personal freedom? Just as unreasonable it is to think that to take the life of a man who has taken that of another is to show want of regard for human life. We show, on the contrary. .. our regard for it, by the adoption of a rule that he who violates that right in another forfeits it for himself and that while no other crime that he can commit deprives him of his right to live, this shall. " --> The right to personal liberty is taken away with life imprisonment, how can we justify taking away this right if we can't justify the DP? --> He states that: "A decent and humane society does not deliberately kill human beings" using that logic, no (or very very few) societies are decent and humane, because most societies engage in war, which is the deliberate killing of humans. --> We are protecting the right to life by A) saving lives with the DP and B) giving the ultimate penalty to those who violate it. =Expansion of deterrence=More evidence for this point can be found through raw statistics. Lets take Texas as an example. Texas performed very few executions until the early 1990's. How did the murder rates respond? 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. [5]. In the United States as a whole, since the passing of the Death Penalty act of 1994, murder rates have declined significantly. William Tucker elaborates: "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. "[6]. Clearly, a deterrent affect has been observed by the use of the DP. All moral arguments brounght up by Opponent are massively outweighed by this, because the government has a moral obligation to protect its innocent citizens. Thank you to my Opponent, I urge a pro vote, and I look forward to our next round! Sources: 1. . http://en.wikipedia.org...2. . http://www.cjlf.org...3. . http://www.prodeathpenalty.com...4. . http://www.gallup.com...5. . Lowe, Wesley. "Consistent and Swift Application of the Death Penalty Reduces Murder Rates. " 6. Tucker, William. "Capital Punishment Reduces Murder Rates. "