Death Penalty

I will address the points in the order my opponent has addressed them. 5. ) My opponent says he failed to argue his fifth point because I agreed. However, I only agreed to an extent of his argument. My opponent threw around the word "murderer" with a negative connotation, but in this case it is not in a negative connotation. Therefore, you can continue to extend my attack on his fifth point through for this round. 2. ) My opponent continues to state that 23 innocent people have been executed by the death penalty. However, this is completely wrong. I took a further look into the source he has cited and came to this. . http://www.ncadp.org... This only has 23 cases of possible innocence but nothing that has been legally proven. The only way we judge guilt and non guilt in this country is legally, and this has not been proven legally. Therefore, we have to assume everyone who was executed was guilty because nothing legally has been proven. Even the source my opponent cited earlier had only conjectures of innocence by the author, but again nothing proven legally. Next, my opponent moves to the point that we can never be 100% assured of guilt, and that DNA testing just decreases the odds. However, that is what I argued. I stated, my opponent agrees with this, most of the people let off death row were because of introduction of DNA evidence. Now since DNA testing is in use we will not have incidents like this, and can more sure of the guilt. This way we do not have to rely on circumstantial evidence as much. Even if you do not buy this, a person spends anywhere from 8-20 years on death row (Death Penalty Information Center), my opponent has even said this. This is enough time for an inmate to file an appeal, and for the appeal process to go through. Therefore, by this time all legal options have been exhausted. This shows that our legal system is very close to perfect and as time goes on can be more and more assured of guilt. My opponent next tries to use an example of a jury where one person is convinced of innocence and persuades the others. He goes and says that you could get 12 like minded people who could get this man killed. However, in his own example he says that the people from the jury are from different backgrounds, morals and levels of intelligence. Therefore, the odds of getting twelve like minded individuals in a case of innocence is very unlikely according to my opponent's own example. This shows that they will only think alike if there are the facts that prove the guilt. 3. ) My opponent says that still those states without the death penalty have lower homicide and crime rates. There are two things wrong with this statement. First, in his initial speech my opponent said that it was lower crime rate, and in his next speech he said it was homicide rate. Now he is saying it is homicide and crime rate. My opponent is continuing to flip flop on what his evidence covers, therefore we must discount it completely. Even if you do not buy that, you must realize that these states have different populations sizes, and other factors. My opponent has even admitted this in his last speech. Therefore, we should look at a more accurate way of comparing this using homicide rates, which I will get to later. Next, my opponent says that these states would have money, if they abolished the death penalty, to spend on law enforcement, which would prevent crime. This is a nice conjecture my opponent is making, but he fails to back it up with any sort of empirical evidence. However, I have evidence on the contrary showing that the removal of the death penalty increases the homicide rate. I have had this evidence in my case since my first speech but my opponent has failed to attack it at all. Therefore, you can extend my Jay Johansen evidence, which is in my first speech. This evidence uses an appropriate method, by comparing the homicide rates in years that had the death penalty vs. years that did not. He found out that the homicide rate was lower in years that had the death penalty. Therefore, my opponent's third point has been proven completely wrong. 4. ) My opponent argues my prison gang example two different ways. He says first that these prisoners have no activities or other human interaction. Next, he says that I cite Wikipedia, which shows I have no evidence. I would like to respond to this in two different ways. First, what proof does my opponent have that these prisoners in for life have no interaction with anyone else. He has no sources to back this up, therefore I will approach this logically. There is no way that these prisoners cannot have any contact with other prisoners. It would cost the state a lot of money to give each prisoner their own cell, which the state would not want to spend. Anyways, prisons already have a FEW solitary confinement cells, where the prisoners do spend time alone. However, this is not the normal state they are in. It would be stupid and illogical for the state to prevent prisoner contact, because it would cost them too much money. However, even if you do not believe my logic, look at this article which shows the daily prison life . http://encarta.msn.com.... Next, going on to the wikipedia argument my opponent now says I have no proof that prison gangs exist since I use wikipedia. Even if you do not buy Wikipedia as a source, there are thousands of other sources out there that agree that prison gangs exist. . http://www.gangsorus.com... This is one such source that does show how prison violence is getting high via prison gangs, and that these members/leaders are those who have murdered before. Therefore, we can curb prison violence via gangs with the death penalty. My opponent says that life imprisonment is like torture, but this again is a complete lie. In prison, as I have shown they are still allowed human interaction and activities, so it can't possibly be torture. 1. ) My opponent continues to cite examples of death penalty cases costing more than non death penalty cases. He says this time it costs 8 times more on national average. He continues by saying that the system costs so much more, and that money could be used for crime prevention. Addressing his crime prevention point, I have shown that the best homicide preventer is in fact the death penalty. Next, my opponent dropped the analysis I made last round of the graph. The graph can be found here . http://www.johansens.us... This graph shows that the death penalty prevented at least 15 homicides per million. I then said this was 10 trials maybe 5 unsolved homicides. However, the point from this is that the state would have to spend money on at least 10 more trials and 15 more cases. Therefore, this shows that since a death penalty trial costs 8 times more, it actually does not. This cost of the death penalty trial is usurped by the cost of 10 more homicide trials caused by not having this death penalty. My opponent dropped this argument in his previous round, so you can flow it on through. This shows that the system and the trials in the long run do not cost more. Also, that have the death penalty is cost-effective. Finally, my opponent says I use Justice in my case, and says there are different views on justice. However, my opponent failed to realize the context of the quote. The quote was "Justice isn't up for sale to the lowest bidder. " This means that even if you do buy that death penalty does cost more, that doing what is right should come before worrying about cost. As well, the courts in the United States are part of the Justice system, so as a nation we do have a conception of justice. Therefore, you can see that my opponent misinterpreted the jist of the quote.