The United States should have a death penalty.

I’ll start with my own contentions and respond to most of Roy’s arguments in the next round.Note:A “capital trial” is a trial at which the state intends to seek the death penalty. It is called a capital trial because the death penalty is also known as “capital punishment.”DP state = a death penalty stateNon-DP state = a state that does not have the death penaltyHeinous Crimes - Roy is saying that he promotes only the death of heinous criminals. However, Roy does not get to make the decision about who to charge with a capital offense. Charging decisions are made by prosecutors, not Roy. Therefore, Roy must defend how the death penalty is actually applied.C1: CostsOne of the main reasons the death penalty should be abolished is because of how expensive it is. The cost of prosecuting a capital case is significantly greater than the cost of prosecuting a non-capital case.According to Professor Thaxton in “Leveraging Death,” capital cases cost local governments $2 million more than non-capital cases. [1] (p. 541) Capital cases are more expensive because they involve - on average - “five times more pretrial motions,” five times more investigation by the defense team, 66 times longer to select and exclude jury members, 30 days more in court, “twice as many lawyers (by statute),” and “longer and more complicated appeals.” [1] (p. 544)Most of the cost of prosecuting criminal defendants is borne by local governments as opposed to the state or federal government. Currently, local governments are extremely strapped for cash: the GAO reports that to make up for budget shortfalls, state and local governments will need to cut their current expenditures by - on average - 14.2 percent to avoid bankruptcy. [5] The death penalty is such a significant part of local budgets that “[i]n 2009, at least eleven state legislatures considered bills to abolish the death penalty, citing associated costs as one of their primary concerns.” [1] Because local governments are so strapped for cash, spending on death penalty cases trades off with spending on other things (like police, education, and health care infrastructure): "State and local governments are also forced to divert funding from hospitals and health care, police and public safety, education, and roads and infrastructure to pay for capital trials." [1] (p. 541, footnote 269). These tradeoffs have two important negative effects. First, cutting funding from state and local governments is deadly to the overall well-being of the economy. One study found that the under-performing education system in the United States costs the economy $2.3 trillion per year (because it produces worse workers). [3] Second, local governments’ inability to spend more on police [due to expenditures on death penalty cases] is harmful because police are essential to deter crime. Studies estimate that each additional police officer that a city hires prevents an average of 24 serious crimes per year. [4] This cost tradeoff argument turns any of Roy’s deterrence arguments because the cost of the death penalty leads to smaller police forces, which actually decreases deterrence.In fact, spending money on police is more effective than spending money on the death penalty. Studies have found that because offenders are generally unaware of what the expected sentence is for their crimes [or whether their state even has the death penalty], increasing the certainty of punishment has a larger effect on deterrence than increasing the severity of punishment. [8] Spending money on more and better policing increases the certainty that any given offender will be caught, which has a greater deterrent effect than increasing the severity of punishment, such as by implementing the death penalty. [8] The national clearance rate for murder and manslaughter has dropped to 65%, meaning that each year 6000 killers get away with murder.[9] Local governments would do well to raise their “solve rate” for murders rather than spending so much money to put to death the murderers they do happen to catch.C2: Barrier to extraditionThe European Union and many other countries have established policies that they will not extradite criminals to the United States if there is a possibility that the criminal might face the death penalty (because those countries view the death penalty as a human rights violation). [10] This refusal to extradite impedes counter-terrorism efforts because countries refuse to extradite terrorist suspects to the United States. [2] For example, in 2005, the EU refused to extradite terrorist suspect “Mohammed A.” to the United States, citing the likelihood he would be put to death. [2] If a single large terrorist attack happens due to refusals to extradite, this would outweigh any possible deterrent effect from the DP. In fact, 87% of criminologists agree that the DP has no deterrent effect. [7]C3: InnocenceThe death penalty is unfair because our criminal justice system sometimes makes mistakes. If someone is put to death, he or she can never be exonerated. Death is final.More than 2000 people have been falsely convicted and then exonerated in the past 23 years. [11] One study - which interviewed judges, prosecutors, and police chiefs - estimated the false conviction rate at 0.5%, most of which were caused by misidentification by eyewitnesses. [13] Numerous studies have shown eyewitness testimony to be extremely unreliable. [13] While 0.5% might seem like a small number, it means that 8,000 people who are currently in jail are actually innocent. [14] Death (as a punishment) is unjust because it removes any chance of an innocent person being exonerated.RebuttalsR1) Cost savings from plea bargainingProfessor Thaxton calculated that when a murder defendant pleads guilty, the state saves $195,000 by avoiding trial and subsequent appeals. [1] However, Thaxton found that the savings from the death penalty does not offset its costs. Thaxton calculated that availability of a death sentence "deters between 1.5 and 2 murder defendants from opting for trial for every one [murder defendant who goes to] trial." [1] (pp. 546-547) This means that for every two guilty pleas that capital punishment secures, there still needs to be one capital trial. Capital trials cost - on average - $2 million more than non-capital trials. [1] This means that - even factoring in the cost savings from successful plea bargains - each capital trial costs $1.6 to $1.7 million more than a non-capital trial.Roy cites a cost study, but he himself admits that the sample size is too small to draw any real conclusions. The study looked at only 33 counties over one year (1988). In addition, his study ignores the cost of appeals, which are a significant part of why the DP is so expensive [see p.14]. Lastly, the study was missing data so to get the “2.4” number that Roy cites, it had to “assume” some data into existence. [see p.14, footnote 2].R2) The DP is justRoy’s plea bargaining argument turns this argument against him. Roy says under his plea bargaining argument that it was a good thing that the Green River killer, who murdered at least 48 people, pled guilty in order to avoid the death penalty. This proves Roy doesn’t really care whether heinous criminals are actually put to death. The fact that the death penalty is so expensive that we have to give leniency to mass murderers in order to avoid capital trials undermines the perception that the system is “just.”Sources [1] Sherod Thaxton, “Leveraging Death,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 103, No. 2, 2013 [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] http://tinyurl.com... [7] http://tinyurl.com... [8] http://tinyurl.com... [9] http://tinyurl.com... [10] http://tinyurl.com... [11] http://tinyurl.com... [12] http://tinyurl.com... [13] http://tinyurl.com... [14] http://tinyurl.com... [15] http://tinyurl.com...