Death Penalty

R1) Costs Lexus first claims that the death penalty has immense costs for all states. According to a Seattle University study, a capital case in the state of Washington costed $3.07 million, while a similar case where the death penalty was not sought costed $2.01 million [1]. The Washington state budget is $81.8 billion [2], so a death penalty case costs 0.0245% of the budget in Washington. I will provide the example of Texas. Jon Sorenson and Rocky Leann Pilgrim published evidence that found that the cost of an LWOP case in Texas and a DP were the same [3]. The cost of the death penalty varies with different state jurisdictions. Cost studies tend to underestimate the cost of the LWOP. Prisoners stay in prison longer than those on the death row do, and such studies often fail to account for such facts. If a person spends fifty years in jail, it would cost the state $2.35 million using the ~$47,000 estimate [4], compared to Washington State’s average death penalty cost of $2.01 million. In Texas, the DP costs $2.3 million to execute someone, which is still $350,000 less than an average LWOP cost [5], but even those high estimates of the Texas DP cost are probably wrong [3]. This indicates that an LWOP case in Texas costs more than an average DP. Additionally, Lexus’ argument fails to account for plea bargains, that can even account for the entire cost of the DP. These plea bargains often reduce DP costs by huge amounts [6]. She cites Thaxton’s study on the costs of execution, but even Thaxton makes many key concessions. He concedes that the amount plea bargains save is unknown, so he calculates it himself, calculating the reduction as $0.4 million. He criticizes multiple studies with higher estimates. Scheidegger’s study (my source) was *not* criticized by Thaxton, and has a more reliable plea bargain reduction cost since the study reviewed 33 urban counties that are representative of the 75 largest urban counties in the US, while Thaxton focuses on solely Georgia. We have no reason to believe Georgia is representative of the United States. Deterrence makes up for the costs. Lott calculates that the DP was responsible for 12-14% of the homicide drop in the 1990s [7]. The cost of one murder to society is $17 million [8]. If the DP deters merely one murder, it makes up for its average cost of $2.5 million and saves money. Thus, the LWOP’s cost is underestimated, the DP’s cost is lessened due to plea bargains, and deterrence makes up for the costs. R2) Innocents First, DP exonerations exist to prevent much innocent death. Lexus’ number of 4.1% was the number of innocents inclusive of exonerations. 1.6% of the defendants sentenced to death were innocent and then exonerated, leaving 2.5%. Deterrence makes up for these 2.5%. A 12-14% homicide drop is *huge*, and simple calculations can show that more innocents have been saved by the DP than killed. A utilitarian interpretation of justice is best, since the DP allows for saving more lives than killing. When you have a *choice* to save many and sacrifice some, it’s best to take that option. 68% of moral philosophers agree that utilitarianism upholds morality and justice best [9]. Also, the number of those innocents killed by the DP is disputable. One essay suggests that the rightful conviction rate for the DP is 99.72%, meaning only 0.28% of those on the death row have been innocents [10]. Thus, the rate of innocent death is disputable, and deterrence makes up for innocent deaths and is just via. utilitarianism. R3) Personal harms Lexus’ entire argument is that “families touched by murder denounce the death penalty.” I don’t think this is a sufficient argument for abolition because it has one core assumption--that the purpose of the death penalty is retribution and the families touched by murder gaining revenge. As I showed in my C1, the death penalty saves lives, and families touched by murder have *no* right to decide which life shall be saved. Capital punishment being given to those who have committed a crime is *not* for the purpose of satisfying those wronged--it’s for saving lives and giving the criminal the consequence he is entitled to by making a choice. If families wronged by murder denounce the death penalty, then they are causing death--and families touched by murder have absolutely no right to cause death. As such, if the DP deters crime and is just for the purposes of giving the criminal his due, then families are irrelevant to the question, since all humans are equal before the eyes of the law, and these families don’t have greater power than the average citizen in deciding which life should be saved. I agree that vengeance has no place in our justice system. Let me clarify by defining ‘vengeance’. Vengeance is “infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person.” [11] This definition would imply that vengeance in the criminal court is the same as satisfying the needs of the person wronged by exacting revenge on the criminal. But that’s not the justice upheld--the justice upheld is ensuring there is a choice alongside the force of human autonomy, and that every choice elicits a consequence. The one making the choice knows of a consequence, and the consequence is the *due*, whether or not the criminal wants it. Thus, to uphold human dignity and respect autonomy, the death penalty should not be abolished. == Underview == So far, I have shown that the DP deters crime and is just. My arguments hinge on these two premises. Lexus’ primary contentions are innocent death, costs, and morality. I have addressed innocent death by showing deterrence makes up for the innocent deaths, and that the stats on that issue are debatable. I’ve shown that the costs are outweighed by plea bargains and deterrence--the low plea bargain count endorsed by Thaxton is flawed since it applies only to Georgia, whereas my source, Scheidegger, supports a higher plea bargain count; since there is a $17 million cost of one murder to society, if the DP deters even *one* murder, it entirely makes up for the costs. And finally, I’ve demonstrated that Lexus’ final contention strawmans the position of the DP being just--the justice of the DP is not justice to the ones wronged by the killer; rather, it is justice to the killer themselves, in fulfilling the fundamental consequence elicited by the killer’s choice and upholding human dignity. Thus, I negate. Over to Con. Note that Lexus must only rebut my own case in the next round and not defend hers. 1. http://tinyurl.com... 2. http://tinyurl.com... 3. Jon Sorensen and Rocky Leann Pilgrim. Lethal Injection: Capital Punishment in Texas During the Modern Era, p 158. 4. http://tinyurl.com... 5. http://tinyurl.com... 6. http://tinyurl.com... 7. John R. Lott. Freedomnomics, p 135. 8. http://tinyurl.com... 9. http://tinyurl.com... 10. http://tinyurl.com... 11. http://tinyurl.com...