Death penalty is never justified, under any circumstance

So, the last round. I’ll first go over why my argument already addressed the concerns raised by Con and then summarize what went down in the debate and why my argument stands.Before I begin, as I understand it- the critical difference between me and Con on the issue is our perspective towards the murderer and its impact on society. For him, the murderer was born exogenous to the societal dynamics, the only impact his birth has is when he decides to murder people. For me, the murderer was born *because* of societal dynamics. The murderer developed his murder instincts *because* of something , something that we might or might not know at the present time. Killing him gets us rid of him, but it isn’t the solution- for the situations/ dynamics that gave birth to the murderer might infest again and lead to the birth of another murderer.Its merely a question of time. We can kill the person, sure, but killing him is merely a short term bandaid solution to a problem that we haven’t quite addressed, sometimes a problem we haven’t even detected. THAT is what my solution aims at addressing. You don’t just kill- you try to understand and solve, not because you feel a shread of sympathy for the murderer, but because you owe that to the society.Now onto my opponents case- in R1, he mentions the Night Stalker case. He goes on to argue that Richard was a Satanist, and that he found redemption through killing. I agree. I further agree with the causal link he estabilished about his unhappy childhood and the views that he developed later in his life. My problem is when we argue that rather than killing the dynamics that cemented those beliefs, we should kill him. In an interview, he said- and I quote, ‘…hypocrites one and all. … those who kill for policy, clandestinely or openly, as do the governments of the world, which kill in the name of God and country or for whatever reason they deem appropriate. I don't need to hear all of society's rationalizations, I've heard them all before and the fact remains that what is, is." He was a product of his circumstances, circumstances that would not be unique to him. We owe it to the society to try and find out where we went wrong, and killing him robs us of a chance to do that. Looking at a murderer and going- ‘He’s crazy, we can’t help him. So we kill him.’ is a disdain to us, and to what we stand for. And a waste of the opportunity we have to address the dynamics of crime. We try getting through him, we try finding out how to stop him, we try finding where exactly the chemicals in his brain malfunctioned and we try developing a prevention to the malady, that’s what we owe to the society. And that’s what’ll actually help.b) Here Con describes another scenerio, a scenerio describing a person killing a million people and escaping from the jail and killing another million. This again emphasizes on the difference in our approach. The question I’m interested in is *why*. Why does that person want to kill a million people? Because its not just him that’s the threat- the threat we have is the very reason he decided to kill the million. If we address THAT, we address the very root of the crime. We kill him, we just kill a killer, again, a band-aid solution. We can lock him up and stop him from commiting more crimes, addressing the major concern con has. The problem of escaping from the prison isn’t something that big, given the wide range of physical and medical capital we have. We could very well stop any physical activity and work on his mental state using drugs/ physical restrains/ etc. In this scenario, I believe a much more important issue is to stop the escape of the prisoner, given that the threat of escape is still present in a death penalty- between the sentence and the execution- which can take an average of 15 years. [1] { Note that this is not a new argument, its merely a logical inference, if the state fails to constrict the prisoner, he can escape while waiting for death penalty too, a proper security is a prerequisite for a healthy working DP system}.The soldiers killing is something I feel is quite outside the purview of the debate, merely because I have moral reservations with killing people for following state orders. I can’t think of many people who’d agree/ find those deaths warranted. But yeah, that’s a whole other can of worms, touching upon state, and the impact of killing soldiers on the health of the state- which I do not think is favorable in the long run, the justification of war and all that, given that I AM a pacifist. (bu word limit, eh)R2) The extracting information here refers to understanding the reason he became what he was, and trying to understand the underlying cause of it- be it mental, societal or a mix of the two. Addressing the problem and trying to find a solution requires his presence, given that he’d be the guinea pig for the same, of sorts. Killing him hampers us from engaging in the long term study that'd help us solve him, in a sense. R3 and R4) Pro contends that death penalty leads to the *death*of the accused, and that’s net benefit for the society given the chart- but, as already addressed in R1, its actually not as the threat of escape from prison is similar in DP AND restorative punishment, keeping a person in prison is a prerequisite for both the punishments. Thus, my initial chart stands, which implies Restorative punishment have a net benefit to the society.R5) This stands, it was a mere reservation I have with DP, not really something that is relevant in this argument- given we are arguing for an extreme case.R6) Again, on the 3 million killed after prisoner escapes argument- the situation stands even in a death penalty case, given the waiting time between sentence and execution. If a state cannot keep strong security, no punishment is enough/ safe and the people are never safe. A strong security is a prerequisite for any comparison. Comparison between a good death penalty and a bad restorative punishment isn’t really a fair comparison- contingency that the prisoner escapes *only* in the second case makes any valid comparison null.R7) I'm sorry this wasm't clear. Basically, restorative punishment helps bring closure to a familyby faciliating positive interactions between the victim/ victim family and the guilty. This is within the framework of therapy and scientific/ medical help helping the guilty address the root of his criminal instinct. Note taht we are not arguing for *freedom* of the guilty, we are arguing for restoration of sanity of the guilty, which is a help to society in any case. Respecting the no new arguments in last round clause, I wont drop in studies reaffirming better psychological/ physical/ mental health of victims in a restorative punishment system, but anyone can PM me if they're interested.Summarizing, we began the debate by making two contentions- the deterrence and the moral argument. The latter had three sub premises, focusing on how it is futile (since it brings no solace to the victims), it devalues life and the slippery slope (which I later dropped, because that was more of a geography specific problem). Con didn’t really address the deterrence impact, other than saying that it *would* lead to the death of the criminal. Which brought us to a cost- benefit analysis, which was the major theme in the third round. It was more of a static vs dynamic analysis, where I argued that even though death penalty DID lead to killing the guilty, that was more of a instant reaction to a problem rather than a solution. Killing him did not help us address the dynamics of his birth, which still prevailed undeterred and unresolved in the social consciousness. Restorative punishment actually addressed this problem, leading to resolution of the crime, rather than a slapdash answer to it. This helped us deter future crime, WHILE simultaneously removing him from the public- leading to a benefit OVER and above death penalty. Thus benefit to the society in a restorative punishment is greater than that of a death penalty, making the use of DP unjustified (going by the definition outlined in R1). My case strengthened this argument by testing it against the most severe case Con could think of, and I addressed why RP would be better than DP even in a 3 million killed case, most of which was explained in R1. I pointed out how we could still keep him away from the public WHILE simultaneously stopping such murderers from arising in the future. Also pointed out the kink in his logical argument, where he compared an ideal DP with a bad RP case, infusing the latter with a additional contingency not present in the first one- making the cost benefit analysis useless. Thus the initial Cost benefit chart stands, reaffirming my case even in Con’s scenario.The resolution is affirmed.[1] http://journalistsresource.org...