The United States should retain Capital Punishment for murder.

REBUTTALC1SPAFirstly, I apologize for the broken link. It was working when I included it as a source but I can see now that it no longer works. Here is a link that shows that conviction rates for felonies are in the low 30s percentage wise. However, what Pro has done in his closing argument is show through two sources that conviction rates in two counties is over 90%. Those are certainly outliers and not representative of the thousands of counties in the United States. Regarding racial tensions as well as crimes committed during imprisonment, Pro gives no reasons or sources as to why this would only happen specifically with murderers who are not on death row. Crimes happen both on death row as well as in the general population between both murderers as well as other criminals. In the Allen example, he could have asked someone else to kill for him even while on death row. Death row signifies the place, often a section of a prison, that houses individuals awaiting execution. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution ("being on death row"), even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. So he may not have been separeted from other inmates even while on death row. So my original arguments stands that DP is not necessarily any better than life without parole and is not necessary and does not prevent recidivism any better the Life Without Parole. SPBPro argues that the usage of the DP in Texas in specific years corelated with lower murder rates. I will use Pro's argument (modified) from the previous round to refute this: Umm no that isn't comparing apples to apples so to speak. Years in which the was used DP often have other factors relating to the crime rate (such as higher poverty rates ect.) C2SPAPro only gives one example of a law that was changed to release an inmate sentenced to LWP. Pro says that the parole board makes mistakes. Is that a reason to sentence someone to death? That the parole board makes mistakes? If the parole board makes mistakes, they should take a look at why they are making mistakes and either greatly reduce or stop them. Pro's "turn"Pro says that Amnesty International is against juvenile life without parole but the turn fails on three accounts. Firstly, Amnesty never says that sentencing a juvenile to LWP is a human rights violation so this would be out of their jurisdiction of human rights violations. Secondly, Pro's alternative to a juvenile killer is to give him the DP which is wrong for all the reasons that I mentioned in this debate. Thirdly, DP for kids is not currently not allowed in the United States. So, this is outside the scope of Pro's resolution which says that DP must be "retained" for capital crimes not introduced for juvenile crimes. No matter which way you look at it, Pro's "turn" has turned 180 degrees back to Pro. The "turn" fails. SPBI stand by my definition of the death penalty as a state sanctioned homicide. By the definition of the word "homicide", I am right.[3][4]It is also a reckless disregard of human life to kill in order to set an example for someone else. Con offers no reasonable argument to the contrary.RESPONSE TO REBUTTAL1) Human RightsPro dismisses Amnesty International as just another organization. However, Amnesty International is the organization for protection of human rights. It can be seen on their homepage: "Amnesty International is a global movement of people fighting injustice and promoting human rights."[5] and "Amnesty International is a global movement of more than 3 million supporters, members and activists in more than 150 countries and territories who campaign to end grave abuses of human rights."[6] Pro's argument that this is an appeal to authority is weak.Pro fails to see the difference between loss of liberty and loss of life. They are two completely different things. The logic that "if DP is a human rights violation, then imprisonment is violation of liberty" is erroneous. Putting a human in prison is not the same as killing them. 2) MedievalI already argued impact in round 3. Pro gives no reason why we should not believe the pollings of Amnesty International which is a respected international human rights organization. He points to an obscure source called "Gallup polls" and says that their numbers are to be believed. Extend my argument that abolition of medieval tortures like death penalty, drowning, hanging and iron maiden are a sign of civilization moving away from barbaric medieval processes. 3) CostFirstly, Pro's own source betrayed him and stated that the DP costs more. Secondly, Pro's argument cherry picks the states that conducts cheap executions like Texas and excludes states like California because he believes that they are not "true" death penalty states. Such cherry picking would obviously yield a result in Pro's favor. However, considering all the states and not just the ones that Pro would like to consider, it can be shown that the DP costs more. States do not have an unlimited budget. They must find a cost-effective way to dispense justice and the DP is against that.4) InnocenceThis site shows nine unique examples of people who are now dead having been DP'd but could possibly be innocent [7]. Also when Pro says that innocent lives are saved, he has no definitive evidence. It is all hypothetical assuming that a prisoner who was DP'd could have killed more people had he been released.5) Other optionsPro claims that me blaming the prison authorities for escapes is offensive. Who else then is responsible for preventing prisoners from escaping? The purpose of our prison system is to keep prisoners from escaping. We don't need to kill them in order to do that. I have conclusively proven through my arguments here and in the previous rounds that there are other options than DP such as LWP.6) Doesn't help familyPro claims that the victims families "gain the satisfaction off seeing justice served and knowing that the criminal will never harm another human being again." They would gain the same thing from a prisoner being sentenced to LWP. However, with DP, they feel the weight of a death on their hands. They gain nothing. The justice system can punish humans but there needs to be a limit to what they can and can't do. It is a blatant human rights violation if they are allowed to kill humans.7) Cruel and UnusualPro does not refute any of my arguments from this section. I will simply repeat what I said before. LWP is not the same as sitting on death row and is not cruel and unusual punishment becuase there is a difference between awaiting impending death in the near future than dying after living a natural life. So Pro's analogy was refuted to which he did not respond.Pro again appeals to the supreme courts authority, but like I said before: Just because the supreme court says it doesn't mean that that's the way it should be. We are not debating what is, but what should be. If we simply went by what the Supreme Court says then what is the point of having a debate? But we did have a debate and I proved that the death penalty must be abolished for all the reasons stated above while refuting my opponent's arguments.Thett3, it was great debating with you. It was long and intense and enjoyable. Judges: Vote Con Sources[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk...[2] http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us...[3] http://en.wikipedia.org...[4] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com...[5] http://www.amnestyusa.org...[6] http://www.amnesty.org...[7] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...