Capital Punishment in the United States is Flawed and Should End

_I will refute my opponent's case paragraph by paragraph_ 1. Murderers have not accepted that all people should act this way; in fact many times murderers have their own hidden motives to commit a felony unless they have a mental handicap which alters their view on the world and thus they believe killing is justified. However, if we were to use the principal of Universality, the idea is that a law is established. Not everyone agrees with laws and probably not all murderers agree with the death penalty. Thus my opponent can't make the broad claim that all murderers want society to be raging chaos, because their other motives. 2. As proven before if a killer kills according to how my opponent defined Universality then we are arguing for a law being established. That means the murderers have shown that they want a law to be established that murders murderers. However, even if we enact the death penalty we are not saying all people are going to start killing left and right. We are saying you have committed a crime, and thus we will punish you by the same crime that you wished to commit (in reference to murderers). 3. My opponent offers the alternative of life without parole, however this is flawed for two reasons. A. it's morally wrong even more than capital punishment, because we essentially take people and let them rot forever in a cell. This destroys one's own mental state even more, because imagine knowing that your entire life from now on is basically going to be pointless and meaningless. Imagine the 21 year old who gets this sentence, from their on his/her entire life is going to be doing absolutely nothing useful. This punishment is much more corrupt and it leads to a much higher loss of mental state and thus the Death penalty in regards to this is also more humane. B. Keeping people in prison for long periods of time causes prisons to become over-crowded which costs money for the state as best shown in California having to close some of their prisons. Am I saying we should kill everybody so we'll save money? No. But to send everybody who commits a felony to just live in prison is not even in our best interest. The rule of law is upheld anyway with the Death Penalty because the government is punishing crimes with their own set penalties. 4. I apologize for my lack of explanation, I meant in regards to murderers the death penalty is an eye for an eye. However, our society deems one of the highest punishments to be that of death. So when it comes to rapists and kidnappers we deem them deserving of such a higher punishment; because they also low the standard of life by making other people suffer. 5. My opponent should understand that the United States has Democracy ideals and it also is applicable to the theory of the social contract which is why both of them can be argued here. I understand you are arguing about your ideal, but because we speak in reference to the country both these principles are applicable here. The point of the social contract is that people have given up their rights to self-enforce so that they have a higher authority to appeal to. Thus if a government decides to enact the social contract by utilizing their right to self-enforce they have the right to do so. 6. Killing in return does not restore the value of life, I agree with that. One can't make up the loss of a loved one. The point of the punishment system is to deter criminals which I shall address later on. Further more it also gives some form of closure to the suffering party, because they know that the offender of a crime will be punished. A lot of the times the death of a loved on if not properly punished, could lead to even more deaths as the victims believe they have not received an adequate amount of retribution. 7. My opponent goes on a long paragraph about how evidence is flawed and now he decides that he changes his mind. Yes I agree with you that in death cases the damage of falsified evidence can be massive. However, first of all remember that if false evidence could easily be admitted both sides could do it. Second of all we believe in Innocent till Proven Guilty, we do not just hang everyone at the first sign of a fingerprint. Further more just because people dislike the court system doesn't mean that they refuse to abide by it. If people truly had a problem with a court system you would have anarchy or massive riots such as the times in the slavery era of the U.S.; obviously people are able to abide by the court system. 8. Yes the appeal system does exist, and I stated before that it was designed for people who actually have a chance at a lower punishment ex: innocent people. Further more I didn't say anything about attorneys, I said that a counsel of judges can't be expected to be of such a high standard. I absolutely agree with you that a LAWYER must be competent in these cases; however in terms of the counsel if they meet the criteria of the state then they have the right to serve. You can't deny them this right, because you believe their stupid. For every person their are at least 5 people who would call them stupid. Nobody is perfect, because humans are flawed. Get over that fact, if their approved by the state, again if you don't have anarchy or them being shot in their sleep, that means they have been accepted. 9. You kept saying how easy it was to falsify evidence. If you have enough evidence to convict than obviously the defendant is guilty. It's not like evidence is buyable off Craig's List. If they can get enough then obviously their is a deserving of punishment. Further more most people in a DEATH PENALTY trial would obviously pay more attention to evidence in the case. I will refute the rest in the next paragraph. 10. First of all, if it was easy to claim false evidence EVERYBODY would do it. If enough evidence has been present to convict a felon then they deserve their punishment. And actually if the defense is able to fabricate evidence it does disprove your point; Essentially both sides have the same corrupt advantage so you can't blame a flaw because of that. If in a race both people have a head start, they are still at the same level. Your case revolves around the idea that people are constantly shoved the death penalty based on petty evidence. To assume that all humans are so stupid as to not be able to realize falsified evidence is ridiculous. Further more if it was this easy both sides could do it. Also, both sides can point out that the other side is lying. If the Defendant or the prosecutor can not find a way to gather enough evidence then obviously they have a rational disadvantage. 11. If you read my argument you would see that every felon most likely HAS SOME FORM OF MENTAL INSTABILITY TO COMMIT A FELONY IN THE FIRST PLACE. We have a justification defense, because we have all heard of the very rare extreme cases that result in a warrant for a lower punishment. Most Felonies however, deserve a punishment because of that crime. If we screened every juror do you know the excess of money that would take? Further more we believe in trial by peers. Thus everybody has the right to be on a jury, not just the high income flashy ivy league degree people. EVERYONE; and America is based on majority rule that is how most of our system works. So if you believe the Americans voting on what they think is right is tyranny of the majority, you neglect minority rights. However, America was founded on the ideal of rule by the people; so chances are not everyone will always agree with the majority, but that is the trial of peers. 12. All your sites prove two things. First of all crime rates have gone down in all states, regardless. Second if a state enacted the death penalty; they must have had so much crime that they needed some reform of their punishment system. So is it not fair to say it is expected for it to have more crime, and yet we see it has decreased over time. Thus as of now my side stands strong.