The US should abolish capital punishment

Deterrence Con says that the death penalty deters homicides, citing a study done by Hashem Dezhbakhsh and Paul H. Rubin, showing that for every execution, 18 homicides were deterred. This study, as well as all studies on the DP’s effect on murder rates, are neither credible, nor informative, and contain fundamental issues. The National Research Council of the National Academies did a review of three decades worth of studies claiming a deterrent effect on murder rates based on the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. And what joy, both of Con’s cited statistics are on there, Hashem Dezhbakhsh and Paul H. Rubin (2010), and Naci Mocan and Kaj Gittings (2010) [4]. The National Research Council concluded, “The committee concludes that research to date is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates. Therefore, these studies should not be used to inform deliberations requiring judgments about the effect of the death penalty on homicide. Claims that research demonstrates that capital punishment decreases or increases the homicide rate or has no effect on it should not influence policy judgments about capital punishment.” [3] This is because all of the studies on the possible effects of capital punishment on homicide rates suffer from three fundamental flaws which make them uninformative as a basis for policy consideration: (paraphrased from [3]) 1) The studies do not factor in the effects of noncapital punishments that may also be imposed. The question in the debate is whether the death penalty is more effective in deterring murders than its alternative, life imprisonment. None of the existing studies considers the other punishments that states impose, and their effect on homicide rates. 2) The studies use incomplete or implausible models of potential murderers’ perceptions of and response to the use of capital punishment. The research assumes that potential murderers respond to the objective risk of execution. But determining the exact potential risk is extremely difficult, difficult for most researchers to do, let alone potential murderers. For example, only 15% of those actually sentenced to death have actually been put to death. None of the studies used the correct measure of risk that corresponds to the objective risk of execution, and since deterrent effects are extremely sensitive to the measure of risk used, the studies do not accurately determine deterrence. It is also skeptical to whether the potential murderer can possibly estimate objective risk, and there is good reason to believe that the murderer’s perceived risk is drastically different than the objective risk. Thus, there is no basis for judging which, if any, of the studies’ estimates might be informative about the effect of the death penalty on homicide rates. 3) Estimates of the effect of capital punishment are based on statistical models that make assumptions that are not credible. The studies assume that the effect of DP on homicide rates is the same across states and the years. As a result of such assumptions, the results lack any credibility. The entire study paper can be found here http://tinyurl.com... This successfully negates Con’s entire argument. But, as I will show, the death penalty actually seems to increase crime. [5] [6] As you can see, the death penalty seems to have an opposite effect, it increases crime. If anything, Con’s entire deterrence argument is negated, and, as I have shown their seems to be an opposite correlation, the death penalty increases crime. Recidivism Con argues that the worst of criminals have high recidivism rates, and thus the death penalty would prevent recidivism. Con’s first statistic is of criminals that have been released from prison. This is irrelevant because those sentenced to capital punishment would not be released from prison. Therefore the death penalty does not prevent this. Con’s second statistic is that some criminals on death row had a prior conviction of homicide. This is irrelevant because the death penalty would not have prevented them from committing the prior homicide, only a future homicide, which life imprisonment successfully does. Therefore the death penalty does not prevent this. Con’s third statistic is that some of the criminals committed their offense while in custody or during an escape. This would only be relevant if they committed their offense while in life imprisonment or escaping life imprisonment, and if you look at the link, you will see that this is not the case. Con’s entire first paragraph can be thrown out. Con’s second paragraph, again, is statistics regarding the releasing of those who committed homicide, similar to the first statistic in paragraph one, and since in my world, those sentenced to death would transfer to life imprisonment, they would not be released. Thus the statistic is worthless. Con’s second paragraph can be thrown out. Con’s third paragraph is a repetition of the first and second, the same principle applies: the statistic does not apply to life imprisonment, and since they would never be released from life imprisonment, recidivism would not happen. All of this argument has no impact whatsoever and can be completely thrown out. C1) Right to Life Con says that I interpreted the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and then goes on to tell me how I’m not allowed to interpret the Constitution, which is awkward because I never interpreted the Constitution, nor quoted it, nor even mentioned. I quoted the Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Con failed to explain why it would be wrong to interpret the Declaration of Human Rights, he mentions it in the beginning but then forgets about it, and he also never mentions the UDHR. Thus, literally my entire argument is dropped until the last three sentences. Con says that the right to life is not unalienable, as in times of war the government can violate it, like mandatory military service in times of war. 1) Mandatory military service is not a violation of the right to life, as the government is not taking away your life, like directly killing you as is done in DP. A mandatory draft violates other rights such as the 13th Amendment, but that Amendment nor the issue of a mandatory draft is relevant to this debate. 2) The US currently is not in a war that renders the country in a state of emergency wherein the government would be justified in restricting these rights. Con’s entire rebuttal can be thrown out the window. C2) Cost Con says that that lives outweigh costs. Even if we accept lives outweigh cost, the cost argument still has impact. Saving society 5 billion dollars still saves society 5 billion dollars whether or not you decide if lives are more important or not. Abolishing the DP doesn’t suddenly stop saving society money if human lives outweigh it, the argument still has impact if lives outweigh it. Con then says that the cost of one murder to society is $17 million. I accept this statistic. But I swing the argument in my favor. The impact of the argument assumes that the DP deters murders, since I have shown that the DP actually increases the amount of murders, the DP would cost society more even more money. Thus Con’s rebuttal is emptied of all impact and swung to my side. C3) Prejudice Con concedes the fact that the death penalty is racially biased, but says that this will be found in any form of punishment. The difference between the DP and any other form of punishment is that you can not repay the mistake. If you order someone to life imprisonment, and the decision was decided on racist ground, you can always release that person, give them compensation money, etc. When the decision to execute someone was based on racist ground, you cannot make up for that mistake. Con also says that the death penalty would deter crime anyways, this outweighs prejudice. As I have shown, the DP does not have a deterrent effect, and thus is negated. C4) Innocents Con says that the high rate of exonerations reduces the amount of innocents executed, but the proof is in the pudding, this does not negate my statistic showing the 4.1% of people executed were innocent. Con then says that the rightful conviction rate of the DP is 99.72%. This statistic was created by Josh Marquis, which he came up with after studying Samuel Gross’s study of exonerations from around the country. In the end they only found 340 inmates that were exonerated and freed. Josh then does some calculations and comes up with 99.72% [1]. The thing is that Josh misread the study he cites, and Samuel Gross, the creator of the study, calls him out on it. “Marquis declared that after an exhaustive study, several students and I were able to document only 340 innocent defendants who were exonerated...in fact, we also discussed hundreds more documented cases in mass exonerations that were not part of our statistical analysis. Our purpose was not to count exonerations, but to use the few false convictions that came to light to learn something about the many we never see.” [2] Con’s statistic is negated. Con also says that the statistic excludes exonerations, and thus the actual number of executed innocents would be much less. But, obviously Con did not read the study, if you see above, Sam Gross specifically shows that the study was specifically on exonerations. Con then says that because of the deterrent effect of the death penalty, DP saves more lives than it takes (by executing innocent people), thus my argument is negated under impact calculus. But as I have shown, the DP has no deterrent effect, thus my argument still stands and the rebuttal is completely negated. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com...[3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com...[6] http://tinyurl.com...