The US should abolish capital punishment

Counter-Rebuttal 1: Deterrent effect I have already proved this, but I will respond to my opponent’s points. a. Studies My opponent has tried to invalidate my studies, however, this is entirely wrong. My opponent has already conceded that there is some correlation between the death penalty and murder rates, yet he asks me to establish causation. However, I have brought up a new study which he has yet to refute effectively that shows specifically that regardless of my opponent’s arguments there is a decrease in “homicides of passion” with the death penalty still enacted. How does his argument fail? Simply put, his own argument involves the study not taking into account rational action theory. This is untrue if we were to look at the argument in itself. “Furthermore, even an offender who does not premeditate a murder, like a crime-of-passion murder, has an instant to weigh the pros and cons of that murder. ” . http://www.jstor.org... This is directly attacking my opponent’s premise. Yes, my opponent may be right that crimes of passion are more widespread, but the fact that this is addressed in the study nullifies this point. After reading my opponent’s study, there was no statistic that shows why the rational action theory does not work anyways. However, my opponent may ask for why this occurs, so allow me to explain informal deterrence. “Without taking into account the other contingencies surrounding the behavior, fear of punishment by itself will be unrelated or weakly related to criminal acts. Since these other measures include punishing reactions (actual or perceived), they have sometimes been referred to as "informal deterrence. " However, they are more than measures of informal deterrence; they are measures of an overall balance of perceived costs and rewards. ” . http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu... Informal deterrence stems from things such as shame and other non-tangible feelings that convince people to not do things. Even if my opponent were to say that rational decision making is cut off during crimes of passion, know that informal deterrence still plays a large role, because shame and guilt as well as other feelings deter crime as well, explaining my studies, and the fact that my opponent’s studies have not brought this up at all. I have reached my BOP for this argument as I have shown that rational action theory works, just not necessarily always through formal deterrence as the studies cited by my opponent do not take into account. b. Where the death penalty applies Even if you don’t buy my blog, let us look toward the fact that second degree murder is necessarily going to result in the death penalty as a possible sentence. Even if my opponent were to claim this, there are still thing to factor in such as what weapon was used and other facts of a case that may result in simply manslaughter, which is most certainly not going to result in the death penalty being administered. Counter-Rebuttal 2: Recidivism The very basis that people that are released kill again still justifies my point that there are no alternatives, regardless I will refute the points made. Nevertheless, my opponent must have forgotten the fat that in the list I have shown there were a lot of people who did escape and murder again. I will compile a list here from my previous Wesely citation. Edward Kennedy, Viva Nash, Winford Stokes, Randolph Dial, James Prestridge are only a few people. Yes, people can escape while on death row but I gave you a counter plan to bolster security while prisoners housed death row inmates which has not been addressed by my opponent. The symptoms are a problem because they are severe. My opponent has cited the fact that therapy has worked in the past for drug problems, but he has not directly linked them to schizophrenia and other severe mental ailments which result in people who manipulate others and those who are practically un-curable. Conventional medicine simply does not have the power to allow those with no feelings or remorse for crimes to act in a humane way who have murdered and killed people already. Violent crime may have gone down with the statistic my opponent has shown, but this is because the therapy was directly administered to those with drug problems, again, not those with severe mental problems which would obviously take longer and not yield the same results. Counter-Rebuttal 3: Innocent executions Since we have clashing statistics, for the benefit of the doubt we will look toward my opponent’s statistic. Sure, the exonerations are not as high as in 2012, but that is not the point I have made. Let us look toward the specifics and see why this ultimately fails. I have already shown you that the death penalty sentence has gone down exponentially, however, over the past few years the exonerations have grown using the graph that my opponent used. Thus, proportionately speaking, the exonerations have gone up proportional to the death penalty. Side-note The judges may choose to ignore this, but keep in mind the rules at the start say only no new arguments may be presented, not new evidence. I believe I am justified in responding to my opponent saying that I did not reach my BOP by doing so, but if that violates the rules than feel free to not count the rebuttal involving informal deterrence. Conclusion I have fulfilled my BOP and I have shown that there is a net benefit to the people by keeping the death penalty. My opponent has consistently fallen with his points starting with the rebuttal of my first contention as well as the fact that every single one of his points do not matter if I prove the fact that under the utilitarian framework, more lives are saved. I have shown lives saved through the deterrent effect and I have shown that my opponent’s points do not stand where lives are concerned.