The Death Penalty should be banned in most cases in the United States

Lets get down to rebuttals and rebuilding contentions. Rebuttal (This is an all one one rebuttal)My adversary says this was not properly defined. I never even tried to play semantics with this at all. In "most" cases is a pretty common sense resolution, clearly meaning the majority of cases. As I previously stated the option should not be completely removed anywhere, but left open for certain cases. The main issue with this is the argument I brought up about innocent people being executed. The death penalty may be a viable option for serial killers and other such cases where the killer can be proven beyond doubt. If there is enough empirical or direct evidence to support that a killer did in fact commit that crime, the option should be on the table. What I mean by banned in a majority of cases is that the option should be made unavailable in cases such as an act of passion, or where someone does not have enough evidence to properly justify the penalty it self. As i stated in my prior round, there have been 21 cases where people were wrongly executed in the past decade. Over 17 of those is where information was presented at a later date that shed new light on the case [1]. Cases such as this need to be abolished and removed, if the death penalty is going to be an option it should only be an option for cases that can be determined without a doubt. Even arguing this for a federal ban perspective, the right to life trumps the right to justify someones else's death by committing another act of murder in return. In addition to this my adversary claims it is a false analogy to compare this to the code of Hammurabi. This is a fallacy on his part. He claims because someone commits multiple murders, it in fact is breaking this code. As if one life is not enough to justify the lives of others. This code in principle is about reaping what you sow. If you steal from someone, they had the right to steal back from you. The law itself paved the way for modern law and regulations, this is not a debatable fact ; it is empirical evidence.The phrase itself "an eye or an eye" is a paraphrase of 282 laws that were inscribed on an upright pillar in ancient Mesopotamia. Here is a list of the laws [2]. Hammurabi saw the need to unite people under a set of universal or governmental laws. This was the first set ever in history. The entire code was about due process or suffering a proper consequence for crimes. Granted some of the codes were a little extreme, such as a woman whom was caught cheating could be tied up and drowned in a river alive. The code itself influenced today's legal system for obvious reasons. If you commit a crime now days, usually the amount of time or punishment you receive fits the crime somewhat. If you rob someone you receive time in prison, etc. There is a repercussion for every crime you can commit, and all this stems from finding a punishment that equates to the crime. The Code of Hammurabi was what started all this and influenced today's modern legal system. The issue we are discussing is whether death violates the Constitution and humans rights as a sufficient response to a crime. If someone commits a murder without cause, do we as citizens of the United States have the right to end their life for committing that crime. I think the obvious answer should be no in a vast majority of cases. There are plenty of alternatives that bear the same outcome as the death penalty. Life imprisonment is one option. My adversary commits an adhom and a fallacy in his response to this. He is arguing that sending criminals to prison solves nothing because they kill other inmates. If inmates on death row kill each other, it would just speed up the process that he is supporting and cut federal spending for food. So even trying to bring up this point makes no logical sense. If anything my adversary is supporting this option already by defending the death penalty. The only difference is my option gives people a chance to see a fair trial, and prevents people from being killed after they could possibly be proven innocent at a later date. My adversary claims this" I won this debate, because my opponent stated, from the first paragraph of my opponent's Round 1 argument, that the death penalty should be implemented on those who have committed murder with intention, then proceeds, throughout the rest of his argument, to tear the very same argument down. Therefore my opponent did not hold a position in this debate, therefore my opponent's argument, in its entirety, is invalid. "I have no idea what my adversary is claiming here, but I have defended the resolution with both statistics, facts, and empirical evidence. Something that he has failed to do at all. The resolution as I have already states is clearly"The death penalty should be abolished or not allowed in most cases" It does not get much clearer than this. Almost similar to an abortion stance ; ie abortion should be banned in cases other than rape or where the mother could die. This is the same exact approach. The death penalty should be banned except in cases where it is justified beyond doubt with empirical and direct evidence. I have no idea why my adversary is trying to play semantics with this instead of debating his actual stance. He did not even bother to show the amount of crime the death penalty actual deters. He has provided almost nothing in defense of his position. A Proper Deterrent.This was not even touched by adversary, therefore it stands. Among the nations top leading criminologist and through multiple statistics and surveys we can clearly see that this is not a proper deterrent. We can also see that when someone is going to commit a crime of this magnitude the last thing on their mind is being punished for it. This is cited and sourced in round 1. This argument was not touched. States with higher murder rates are those without the death penalty. Again this remains untouched. He claims there is no evidence to support this, and just leaves it at that. I have no idea whether he chose not to read my argument or even skim through my sources, but there is a gigantic graph that supports this along with a state by state comparison that is also cited in round 1. When we are comparing states with and without the death penalty, it is quite obvious via my sources to see that states without it have a significantly lower murder rate. This is not just in sheer numbers either, but by percentage of the population. A bigger states vs a smaller state would not be a factor in this. The most logical process if you support the death penalty would be this"States that have the death penalty would have a lower crime rate, because the death penalty would deter the amount of murders occurring"This should be the logic used, but we can clearly see that is false. The states that have it are producing higher numbers than states without showing that the death penalty is a VERY ineffective deterrent. Right to lifeMy adversary claims that I ignored his argument. I did not ignore his argument, and had my adversary read the rules in round 1 he would have clearly seen this round is rebuttals. He also questions my source regarding stand your ground laws. I used Wikipedia because stand your ground laws are common knowledge. In all honesty I do not even need a source to verify this, but he wishes to see one so here are just a few [3][4][5]. As far as the constitution bearing the right to end a life, this is a matter of perspective. The fifth amendment as my adversary mentioned states that " no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law" [6]We are also promised in the declaration of independence that" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" [7]So we have one thing telling us that life is something that is endowed to us and that shall not be taken, and something else saying it can be taken by due process. So the question is which is a more viable and reasonable option?How do we define due process? The issue with due process is that the death penalty cuts this short. It is taking evidence that is available at the time and making a finalizing decision. If evidence is brought up at a later date that alters this, due process was not given violating the constitution. Jed S Rakoff District judge from New York words this elequently" To this Court, the unacceptably high rate at which innocent persons are convicted of capital crimes, when coupled with the frequently prolonged delays before such errors are detected (and then often only fortuitously or by application of newly-developed techniques), compels the conclusion that execution under the Federal Death Penalty Act, by cutting off the opportunity for exoneration, denies due process and, indeed, is tantamount to foreseeable, state-sponsored murder of innocent human beings."[8]Also we are prohibited from taking out cruel and unusual punishment on people[9]. While you can play semantics with this but the death penalty is cruel punishment. [6]ClosingMy adversary has offered nothing to defend his claim. I have offered sources, statistics, and surveys to support the fact the death penalty is ineffective, inhumane, and executes innoncent people. The resolution is affirmed. [1] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[2] http://eawc.evansville.edu...[3] http://www.leg.state.fl.us...[4] http://criminal.findlaw.com...[5] http://www.collinsdictionary.com...[6] http://www.law.cornell.edu...[7] http://www.archives.gov...[8] http://deathpenalty.procon.org...