The death penalty should be legal in all US states.

Pro has expressed interest in debating me specifically on this topic, and challenged me to the topic. As long as the noob is aware of my record, and still wants to debate, I see no problem with it. I look forward to discussing the topic. I would like to propose some rules though to make the debate fair and ensure quality content. Firstly, voters only vote convincing arguments point, and conduct point only for forfeitures. This ensures that votes will be quality and determine a fair outcome of the debate. Second, that no new arguments are proposed in the last round, because I won't be able to respond to them. This debate will be on the current death penalty, meaning that I will be arguing that the death penalty, as it exists now should be abolished. Not as it will exist ten or twenty years from now, only the current system.My framework is simple. Capital punishment is unjust system, thus should be abolished. The Right to LifeA government is created by the people in order to protect the people's unalienable rights. If a government fails to secure these for all citizens, then it is an unjust government. This is especially true for the United States as it was founded solely on this principle, outlined in Declaration of Independence. It reads,“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”This concept is further demonstrated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a document created by the United Nations General Assembly. In Article 3, it state, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." [1]Capital Punishment violates the right to life. This is a truism, and true regardless of what crimes the citizen does. As long as the criminal is a citizen, they are promised the right to life by the government. Violating this is unjust. As this is the United State’s sole, and fundamental purpose of existing, it is paramount that the death penalty is abolished. CostIn society, people will commit crimes. Some of the crimes are the most severe and therefore require the most severe punishment. In Con’s world this would be the death penalty, in my world it would be life imprisonment. Since the death penalty costs more than life imprisonment, abolishing the death penalty would warrant a net economic benefit. Seattle University found that each death penalty case in Washington cost $1 million more than than life imprisonment cases [2]. The average cost of defending a trial in a federal death case is $620,932, about 8 times that of a federal murder case in which the death penalty is not sought [3]. Judge Arthur Alarcon and Professor Paula Mitchell calculated that if California commuted all those remaining on death row to life without parole, it would result in an immediate savings of 170 million per year, with a savings of 5 billion over the next 20 years. Considering that California has a debt of 778 billion dollars [4], abolishing the death penalty would have a significant economic benefit. The study estimates that the average cost to Maryland taxpayers for reaching a single death sentence is $3 million - $1.9 million more than the cost of a non-death penalty case. (This includes investigation, trial, appeals, and incarceration costs.) The study examined 162 capital cases that between 1978 and 1999 and found that those cases will cost $186 million more than what those cases would have cost had the death penalty not existed as a punishment. At every phase of a case, capital murder cases cost more than life imprisonment cases [5].Abolishing the death penalty would bring significant economic benefit, thus we should abolish the death penalty. PrejudiceThe death penalty unfairly targets and discriminates based on ethnicity and class. In Louisiana, the odds of a death sentence were 97% higher for those whose victim was white than for those whose victim was black [6]. In Oklahoma and Missouri, black Americans are overrepresented on death row by nearly a factor of four [7]. The death penalty is a broken system, it punishes not based on the crime, but on your ethnicity, your wealth, and the quality of your lawyer. “Nationally, during the 23-year study period, the overall rate of prejudicial error in the American capital punishment system was 68%. In other words, courts found serious, reversible error in nearly 7 of every 10 of the thousands of capital sentences that were fully reviewed during the period.” [8]“26 Death Row inmates…have received a new trial or sentencing because their attorneys' incompetence rendered the verdict or sentence unfair, court records show…33 defendants sentenced to death were represented at trial by an attorney who had been, or was later, disbarred or suspended--disciplinary sanctions reserved for conduct so incompetent, unethical or even criminal that the state believes an attorney's license should be taken away.” [9]Criminals are not sentenced by the heinous of their crime, but rather by the quality of their representation. "Poor people are also far more likely to be death sentenced than those who can afford the high costs of private investigators, psychiatrists, and expert criminal lawyers." [10]This demonstrates more than everything that the death penalty is an unjust system. InnocentsSince we can never know with 100% certainty whether someone is actually guilty, mistakes are bound to happen. This is an inevitable fact, and a discomforting one. Yet any other mistaken punishment, it can be reversed. But when the punishment is an irreversible such as death, mistakes simply can’t happen. “You can release an innocent man from prison, but you can’t release him from the grave.” -Freddie Lee Pitts, a man exonerated from death row for a crime he did not commit. Between 1973 and 2015, 148 innocent citizens were exonerated and released from death-row [11]. 4.1% of those executed are innocent [12]. The fact that there is a possibility at all that an innocent person could be executed is reason enough to abolish the death penalty as an unjust system.RebuttalsAll of my opponent's arguments are bare assertions; they give us no reasoning to support the claims. Thus, none of Pro's arguments thus far have any weight, and can be completely thrown out.[1] http://www.un.org...[2] http://www.seattletimes.com...[3] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...\[4] http://www.statebudgetsolutions.org...[5] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[6] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[7] http://www.theatlantic.com...[8] http://www2.law.columbia.edu...[9] http://www.chicagotribune.com...[10] https://www.aclu.org...[11] https://www.aclu.org...[12] http://www.theguardian.com...