Death Penalty

I'm an avid LD debater, and this resolution is similar to an LD debate topic. I will only present my arguments in this round. I'll leave the rebuttals for next round. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I negate the resolution Resolved: The Death Penalty should remain a sentencing option in the United States. Contention 1: Innocent People have been convicted Sub point A: Professor Earl F. Martin concludes,"The final infirmity in the capital punishment system to be addressed herein that undermines that system's retributive legitimacy is the plight of the innocent accused. The danger of executing an innocent person has been a source of concern for at least a century and a half in the United States. n165 At various points in that history, critics and proponents of the death penalty have debated the possibility of this event, but for most of this time the debate remained on a hypothetical level due to a lack of reliable information on the subject. n166 However, this changed dramatically in 1987 with the publication of a law review article by Professors Bedau and Radelet that claimed, with great support, that between the years 1900 and 1986, 139 people had been wrongly convicted of a capital crime and twenty-three had been executed. n167 These findings have subsequently been updated by Bedau and Radelet n168 and others, n169 and the totality of these efforts have established with [*208] certainty that innocent people have been executed in the past and they will continue to be executed in the future. "" [1] Observation 1: In the society we live in today, the media, a powerful influential factor in a trial, may generate negative public opinion, which causes the jury to convict an innocent person without thinking the consequences through properly. If a team of lawyers is not competent an innocent defendant may be found culpable for a crime that he has not committed. Innocents who deserve freedom will actually lose their lives as long as people are fallible and the death penalty is an option. People will always be fallible; therefore our only option is to abolish the death penalty to so as not to undermine the core value of government, which is the protection of its innocent citizenry. The death penalty is unjust, and does not give people what they are due. Subpoint B: "Three decades after sentencing guidelines were approved by the Court in Gregg, the death penalty is still being unpredictably applied to a small number of defendants. There remains a lack of uniformity in the capital punishment system. Some of the most heinous murders do not result in death sentences, while less heinous crimes are punished by death. Ineffective guidelines and constraints in the capital sentencing process can result in decision-makers falling back on their prejudices about who are the worst kind of criminals or who are the more sympathetic victims. Many factors other than the gravity of the crime or the culpability of the offender appear to affect death sentences, including geography, race, gender, and access to adequate counsel. " [2] Observation 1: Furthermore, In the trial system we have today, a criminal is tried by a group of his peers, these nine laymen determine if a criminal is guilty or not guilty, and the judge sentences convicts accordingly. However, there have been many cases in which arbitrariness was used, which meaning that the judge was biased, and the sentence convicting the criminal may not have been what the criminal deserved. Contention 2: The money spent on capital punishment could be better spent Sub Point A: "On a grander moral scale, preventing murders is only one way in which the state protects the lives of its citizens. It does so also through public health policies, environmental protection, workplace safety regulation, and the like. If the dollars spent on an execution that would prevent eighteen murders could be spent to prevent an equal number of people from dying in workplace accidents or from AIDS without violating any categorical moral prohibition, why should a threshold deontologist agree that any catastrophic threshold permitting violation of such a moral prohibition has been met? Given the costliness of the administration of capital punishment, n112 it seems unlikely that a deontologist would ever properly conclude that the marginal deterrence afforded by executions so far outweighed other possible savings of lives with the same dollars so as to cross some catastrophic threshold. " [3] Observation 1: Spending money on taking lives away, is an unintelligent way to spend money when the same money can be used for policies that would actually help the public and society move forward. Using this money to support public health policies, workplace safety, environmental protection, etc. , would make the U. S. itself a better country. If weigh the situation, the deterrence that we get for using capital punishment is not equal to the amount of gains we can have if the money was better spent. Contention 3: Proportionality of the crime Sub Point A: 'But there is good reason to think that capital punishment - at least as imposed in our contemporary society - routinely and inevitably runs afoul of retributivism's bedrock proportionality constraint. n46 It is rarely the case that execution as a form of suffering can confidently be viewed as disproportionate to the harms inflicted on the victims of capital murders. n47 Rather, the strongest argument for such disproportionality lies in the reduced culpability of most convicted capital offenders; this is an argument that remains powerful even today, after the Supreme Court has recently declared that mentally retarded and juvenile offenders may no longer be executed for their crimes. n48 Though capital defendants have usually committed (or participated in) heinous murders, they very frequently are extremely intellectually limited, are suffering from some form of mental illness, are in the powerful grip of a drug or alcohol addiction, are survivors of childhood abuse, or are the victims of some sort of societal deprivation (be it poverty, racism, poor education, inadequate health care, or some noxious combination of the above). n49 In such circumstances, it is difficult [*767] to say that these defendants deserve all of the blame for their terrible acts; if their families or societies share responsibility - even in some small measure - for the tragic results, then the extreme punishment of death should be considered undeserved. " [5] Observation 1: Here we can see that most of the crimes that are being committed that receive the death penalty are being done by extremely intellectually limited, are suffering from some form of mental illness, are in the powerful grip of a drug or alcohol addiction, are survivors of childhood abuse, or are the victims of some sort of societal deprivation etc. Due to this factor, it is not fair in order to give these people a crime as cruel as the Death Penalty. The DEFINITELY receive a harsh punishment, HOWEVER, they should not receive something as cruel as the Death Penalty. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I once again want to thank my opponent for starting this debate. Next Round will be reubttals. Good Luck! VOTE CON! ! __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Sources: [1] Professor Earl F. Martin, "MASKING THE EVIL OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT," Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, Winter, 2002, Lexis [2] . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [3] Carol S. Steiker, "THE ETHICS AND EMPIRICS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: No, Capital Punishment Is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty," Stanford Law Review, December, 2005, Lexis [4] Carol S. Steiker, "THE ETHICS AND EMPIRICS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: No, Capital Punishment Is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty," Stanford Law Review, December, 2005, Lexis [5] Carol S. Steiker, "THE ETHICS AND EMPIRICS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: No, Capital Punishment Is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty," Stanford Law Review, December, 2005, Lexis