Death Penalty

First, lets go over the 4 question asked by Penn and Teller. 1) Morals are subjective and vary from person to person, as such, they cannot be the basis for the legal system. While society my form a contract of morals and turn it into law, that has more to do with what should be a law, and what should not, rather than anything to do with a punishment system. 2) Not inherently, there are times where it may be ideal, and times where it may not. If a man rapes a women, simply raping him back (about 3 months in prison) and letting him go free after that would not be what is best for society, as the chances of him repeating his offense are relatively high. 3) Is not relavent. If the government is wrong in killing innocent people, it is also wrong in locking innocent people up forever. This is an issue with the imperfections with humans as judges, not with the punishment assigned. As pointed out in Con's own sources, many have died in prision that were falsely accused, even though they weren't executed. [1] 4) If it is deemed that what is best for soceity is for those individuals to NEVER be a part of society (any society) ever again, thus striping them of almost all human rights, then killing them to save money is acceptable. We've already said that we want them to vanish and never come back. My opponent says, "State sanctioned murder of one who does not pose an immediate threat is a moral proposition; not a practical or factual one. " To this I would disagree. One does not need to present an immediate threat, but merely a known threat, and one that cannot be removed through other means (rehab and such). If a court determines that a person will always be a threat to the lives of people in soceity and so the person should be locked away forever, death is the most secure form of lockup a person can be placed in forever. It really has no barring on the morals of it. "he explained there are various other options to remove threats. " I also explained that these other options are not a sure fire method, and if there ever was a 100% guarenteed method, I would support it. But alas, there is no method. Execution is the only 100% accurate way of removing someone from society. "Additionally, not all families of victims either want the DP or feel better after the DP has been carried out, proving that this is merely my opponent's opinion of what would constitute as just compensation. " And many families do support the death penalty and state that it provides closure. We also find that many families, after loosing loved ones tend to be emotional, and so not ideal for providing just judgement, where a judge, who is far from perfect, but closer than an emotional family member, can do a better job. Simply because a victim wants a particular punishment does not mean that is the ideal form. We should also note, that the DP does not claim to be a form of compensation and that was never my argument. "As such, there is no sufficient "compensation," including the DP. " Which is why the justice system, and the DP are not forms of compensation. "Pro contends that because inmates have the potential to escape, killing them provides a better sense of security to society. However Pro by his own admission presents a completely random statistic about the likelihood of someone escaping from prison. " I will do this in a more open algebric equation. The chances of escape is X% per year. If a person on death row gets 15 years before being executed, and a person with life imprisonment is in prision for 25 years before dying, then their chances of escape are. .. DP = 1-(1-X%)^15 LI = 1-(1-X%)^25 The only mathematical way for the LI person to not have a greater chance of escaping is if the chance of escaping is absolutely 0%, even if the number is 1 in 100 million per year, Life Imprisonment will always have a greater risk of escape (with everything else being equal). "Pro also contends that the DP can and should cost less than keeping someone in jail. .. If Pro suggests that defendants facing death row should not have access to these appeals and due process, then he is inhibiting and weakening the justice system. " Con seems to have missed my argument on this. This is actually supporting my argument. There is no reason that a person with life imprisionment should be receiving a lower quality of justice than one on death row. If the crimes are equal, then they should both be receiveing the same amount of appeals, and lawyers, and everything else. There is no reason that the DP should cost more. By saying that LI should have a lower quality of justice, they are being denied justice altogether. "If taking an innocent life is the worst possible crime you can commit regardless of the assailant's motive. .. " This is a strawman argument. At no point is this argument made, nor would I ever make such an argument. To claim that taking an innocent life regardless of motive, would imply that accidently killing someone in a car crash = murder. As it doesn't, nor do I consider it to. This argument is meaningless, the motive, along with risk of repeat offenses are key in determining how to best handle any criminal. "Many cases throughout history have been won on appeals. Pro's suggestion that the cost for trials be equal for different defendants is unrealistic as individual cases require different resources. " This was not my argument at all. Only that two people with identical cases, but one is going for the DP and one is going for LI (rest being equal, in movtive, method, risk of repeat, etc), one form should not received less than the other. We should not simply say "We're not going to execute you, only put you in prision for the rest of your life, so you get a less qualified lawyer and fewer appeals, sorry. " If there are differences in the cases, of course, those differences may constitute different costs, however, a punishment of DP or LI should not, logically, have any ramification on the cost. "While it's true that the DP would stop killers from ever killing again, it would also stop thieves from stealing again yet most only advocate the DP for the most serious crimes, i. e. , murder. Pro must explain why the eye for an eye mentality ought to apply to murder but not any other crime. For example, a rapist's punishment is not rape. " This is simple, the reason for executing someone is not based upon "an eye for an eye," but rather based upon the risks of someone comitting future offenses and the effect of those potential offenses upon society. A murder effects society much more severly than a theft, and so the punishment should be geared, first at can we rehabilitate them, so that the risk of repeat is lower, if not nullified all together, then, can we convince them that their punishment is worse than any benefit they get from the crime, to deter them. I have based my argument upon the notion that the DP should be an option, not just for a particular crime (like for murder), but for individuals who cannot be accurate rehibilitated and are deemed by an objective (by that I mean attempting to be as objective as possible, no hidden agendas) justice system to have sufficient risk of repeat serious crimes agains society. To this, I think it is only fair to provide some examples (I should have 2nd round, sorry). Osama Bin Ladin and Sadam Hussein. Both had a serious intent on killing innocent civilians and both had almost no chance of ever being rehibilitated. Added that the risk of their escapes (namely being "rescued" by their supporters) was significant. There are cases where the DP is ideal, as rehab is not plausible and LI is risky, unless Con can show that rehab would work, or LI is completely safe. Thank you [1] . http://www.the-slammer.org...