Death Penalty

My opponent makes an interesting point, connecting societies "value of human life" and the "preservation of this life" to "our shared human fear of death." This fear of death is not groundless. Death is irreversible. By putting this power in societies hands, mistakes will happen, though most are not as extreme as the Nazis in Germany. For example, Mahmoud Hussein Mattain of the UK was hanged in Cardiff Prison on 8 September 1952. He was exonerated 36 years after his death.[1] The UK has since outlawed the death penalty. The United States, another world power, has not outlawed the death penalty. Since 1973, 144 people on death row have been exonerated. As a percentage of all death sentences, that's 1.6%.[2] I would like to bring the attention back to a point I made in my opening, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [3], if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely, at least 4.1% would be exonerated. That means roughly 2.5% of death sentences in the United States are for an innocent person. Our current technology could never guarantee that the accused was 100% guilty. This uncertainty validates our fear of death and the killing of another human being. Furthermore, support for the death penalty presents a complication. Specifically with the involvement of medical personnel for a lethal injection. Though doctors and nurses are presumably the most qualified to administer drugs to an inmate, medical ethics preclude doctors from participating in executions. The American Medical Association issued a statement prohibiting physician involvement in capital punishment, saying it is contrary to the Hippocratic Oath and would erode the public's trust in medical professionals.[4] The American Nurses Association and the American Society of Anesthesiologists have both adopted similar positions.[5] The result is that lethal injections are too often carried out by inexperienced technicians and orderlies, increasing the possibility of mistakes that can cause painful or drawn out executions. Solitary confinement forces the prisoner to think about their actions for a lifetime. They do not get the "luxury" of dying a quick death. Their life is now restricted to one room, with virtually no contact with outsiders. Justice is not necessarily eye for an eye. Although, as my opponent has pointed out, solitary confinement isn"t the most humane of all punishments, neither is the death penalty, but only one of them is reversible. Punishments are not meant to angelic. If we must choose between two evils, at least solitary confinement allows the justice system to correct injustices. Maybe solitary confinement would be a more "suitable and condign punishment" for Manson (which in 2012 he was sentenced to for 15 months).[6] I would like to acknowledge a valid question my opponent introduced: how does this [the death penalty] differ from West"s interventionist foreign policy? I cannot argue with this. This hypocritical stance taken by the West, especially by the United States, is wrong. The killing of Osama Bin Laden, though constitutional, was based in fear. This action taken by the United States military was allowed through the Authorization For Use Of Military Force Against Terrorists, which was passed on September 14, 2001, just three days after the horrific falling of the World Trade Center.[7] The United States needs to take action to correct these fear-based killings. Coincidentally, my opponent"s most convincing argument culminates into Nazi-sounding propaganda. "The death penalty on a mass scale makes for a more efficient society. Imagine a society without recidivist criminals, without those who impede the social framework and without those of little use to us." In the beginning of my opponent"s arguments, they mention that their stance may be mistaken for advocating Nazism, but their concluding statements sound like something right out of Hitler"s mouth. Getting rid of those with "little use for us" and getting rid of those "who impede the social framework" is somehow seen as a "utopia." This stance is oddly reminiscent of the fictional film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, in which the government attempts to create a machine capable of killing criminals before they even commit their crime. I argue that any mass killing of this degree is certainly not found in my utopia. Sources: [1] https://www.gov.uk... [2] http://www.newsweek.com... [3] http://www.pnas.org... [4] https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com... [5] http://nursingworld.org... [6] http://www.magicbulletrecords.com... [7] https://www.gpo.gov...