Capital Punishment

The topic of this debate will center around capital punishment in the United States and whether it should remain as a punishment in the legal system. Capital punishment, or the "death penalty", is a form of punishment in which the convicted person is executed for his/her crimes. This debate will discuss its merits, with each party offering a perspective on the topic at hand. I will take the negation, against capital punishment, arguing against it on an economic level, a moral level and a societal level. My opponent, 4saken, will then proceed to argue for it. The first round will consist of opening arguments, with subsequent rounds focusing on rebuttals and "repairs" of opening arguments. The last round will be devoted to closing arguments, where no new arguments can be presented, with both sides presenting the reasons as to how/why they felt they won the round and weighing the arguments/points made throughout the round. With these standards aside, let's begin this round. Contention 1: Economy It sounds counterintuitive that the death penalty actually costs more than life in prison. But studies have shown that this is actually true. A study focusing on the death penalty in California [1] has found that the death penalty has cost over four thousand dollars since 1978. However, by commuting those on death row to life without parole, California would save 170 million dollars per year, for a total of 5 billion over twelve years. On the federal level [2], the cost of the death penalty is over six-hundred thousand dollars, eight times that of a case where the death penalty was not pursued. Similar results [3] can be found in a number of other states across the Union, including Texas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas and Tennessee, among many others. Since the death penalty is a financial deadweight, it must be disgarded. Contention 2: Society Sub-point A: Race The death penalty is unfairly placed on minorities, in particular African-Americans and Latinos. In the current death row population, African-Americans and Latinos outnumber whites, 54% to 43% [4]. According to a study done by the United States General Accounting Office, "(i)n 82% of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks." Most damning of all is that, since 1976, cases involving black defendants and white victims were nearly thirteen times higher, compared to cases involving white defendants and black victims [5]. Minorities are clearly applied the death penalty at a much higher rate than the majority of America. Because of this terrible example of racism, the death penalty should be disgarded. Sub-point B: Mental Illness and Disability Since 1983, over five-dozen mentally retarded people were executed for crime in the United States [6]. With the hundreds of people executed in the United States, dozens of them, possibly hundreds, had some form of mental illness [7]. People with mental illnesses and disabilities, who need care rather than punishment and have trouble figuring right from wrong, should not be executed for any crimes they commit. Yet, over three-dozen states still allow for mentally ill and disabled people to be executed for any crimes committed [8]. It is illogical to allow a system that punishes those with mental troubles. Contention 3: Morals The biggest arguments dealing with the death penalty center around morality and whether or not it is morally right to execute those who kill. For the negation, I argue that it is a moral injustice to have the death penalty, period, no matter the crime. We are taught at a young age that should we be bullied or misjudged or otherwise wronged, we should take retaliation against those who wrong us. Yet, when we get to an adult age and when we talk about crime, we forget this and use retaliation against those who kill. People often state in defense of the penalty that it discourages violence and that it is just because of this. Yet this is the same reasoning that Timothy McVeigh used when he bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma city, killing 168 people [9]. We, as a society, call people like McVeigh and more recently, the Tsarnaev brothers, cowards and terrible people, and yet when we do the exact same thing, with the exact same reasoning, we do not call ourselves the same. Every time we execute, in the name of justice, in the same of retaliation, we become Timothy McVeigh and the Tsarnaevs. We become just like the criminals we subdue and execute. We become like them--which is not what society should be in any way. We must stop this, and the only way to do so is to eliminate the death penalty from the United States. For these reasons, I strongly urge a vote in the negation of the resolution. I wish my opponent the best of luck and I look forward to a productive and thoughtful debate! Sources: [1] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [2] http://www.uscourts.gov... [3] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [4] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [5] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [6] http://www.deathpenalty.org... [7] http://www.amnesty.org... [8] http://news.ufl.edu... [9] http://www.trutv.com...