Resolved: The United States should retain Capital Punishment for murder.

Cost: My opponent claims he has shown that the death penalty is better than life w/o parole thus we should ignore the cost because it is irrelevant to justice but this is just not so. First off I want us to look at my deathpenalty.org evidence which shows that "California could save $1 billion over five years by replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment" [4 from round 2].Even though $1 billion is not a huge amount, that is only in 1 state and one must remember that that money comes out of the tax payers pockets. This is a key point to remember because people already have to pay huge taxes and that is driving away businesses which is bad for the economy.[1] By removing the death penalty, if only by using California as a reference, the tax payers could save $1 billion dollars and that would lower the amount of taxes they pay thus businesses would be helped. So here we must look at which outweighs, saving small businesses and saving the tax payers money or killing a few people. Anyone can see which it is. Saving money and helping businesses vastly outweighs revenge. As to my opponent's claim that it is safer to kill the people: 3 of the 4 cases he references where killers have killed again are because they were let out. They were paroled but in a system with life w/o parole this would not happen. My opponent has, as of yet, not addressed this and thus I extend it. As to the evidence. My opponent has never refuted my California evidence, all he said was that it was biased but if one looks at the links on deathpenalty.org, one can see that the data is from the Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice! My opponent is using his falty assumption of bias to get out of answering the evidence. The only attempt he makes to refute my evidence is to say that they did not actually undergo the death penalty since they were not killed but this is just false. It is true that not everyone on death row has been killed yet even the cases before being killed cost more than life w/o parole! Let me say that again, even before we include the cost of the injections/electricity, the cost of the DP cases are vastly greater than life w/o parole. It does not matter if not all the people have been executed yet, they will be and the ones that have are also factored into the total cost thus my opponent's claims are false. But also let me show something again: "Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution". That is a quote from my Kansas source thus my opponent's claims that they do not count the actual execution is provably false. Cross apply to Maryland. //Also, he has made no response to the source I linked showing how life w/o parole is more expensive than the Death Penalty. (and unlike the sources he's linked, unless I've missed something, mine actually shows how the cost is calculated.)// You have missed something. If you go to my link for deathpenalty.org and click the link to the pdf's you can read the entire report. I want to say the following regarding your evidence: It provides no means of checking whether the information is true. For example, it provides no links to any of the original sources unlike my evidence which does. Also, since my opponent is arguing that my cases aren't actual death penalty cases his are not either. My opponent's evidence is only about the costs on death row thus, by the logic he used only paragraphs ago, his evidence is moot whereas mine is not. The only evidence my opponent has provided about plea bargaining is that criminals don't like the death penalty. How does that prove that they will say they are guilty? In some case you will still be sentenced to execution even if you plead guilty so I fail to see how his evidence shows that they will plea guilty. My contention stands. Innocence: My opponent did not ask for a posthumous pardon! All he said was "In order for this point to be valid, my Opponent must show four cases in which an innocent was executed" and I have shown you that. The only way you can say I have not is to claim that the aforementioned men were not innocent. Also, my opponent claims that the Supreme Court would review appeals but my opponent is ignoring the fact that no court reviewed their appeals! My opponent has not proven my claims wrong. As to my 23 people. My opponent claims that they were before DNA evidence was used thus they don't count but this is false on many accounts. First off, the most recent one was the sentencing of a Mr. Ricardo Aldape Guerra who was sentenced in '94. But even so, the DNA fingerprint was used as evidence as early as '88 thus my opponent's claims are moot and he has not answered my arguments at all.[2] Next my opponent tries to weasel out of answering my arguments by saying that it is "much less likely to happen" and that is that. My opponent must rationalize/refute my evidence or my impacts outweigh. I also suggest the voters and my opponent to look at my [2 from round 2 and you will see the HUGE number of innocents who were sentenced to death. But to humor my opponent I will provide MORE people from 2004-2010; Alan Gell, Gordon Steidl, Laurence Adams, Dan Bright, Ryan Matthews, Ernest Willis, Derrick Jamison, Harold Wilson, John Ballard, Curtis McCarty, Michael McCormick, Jonathon Hoffman, Kennedy Brewer, Glen Edward Chapman, Levon "Bo" Jones, Michael Blair, Nathson Fields, Paul House, Daniel Wade Moore, Ronald Kitchen, Herman Lindsey, Michael Toney, Yancy Douglas and Paris Powell, Robert Springsteen, Anthony Graves.[3] Answer that. My impacts clearly outweigh. The people that were executed were quite clearly not given a fair trial! They were denied their basic rights and they were killed. Also, my evidence shows that the system wrongly convicted over 40 people and that is only from 1 source. What of all the others who were wrongly killed? Punishment: Due to my lack of characters I must drop this :( I am sorry. Please forgive me. Your case: C1SPA: The Taylor evidence is about a racial tension which, as I said before and was not contested, could occur between any inmate. This is not a murderer specific crime and thus it is not relevant. Also, with the higher prison security it is "much less likely to happen". My innocence argument outweighs. As to Allen, he merely conspired to stop a witness which could happen with anyone in jail. I challenge my opponent to provide me with evidence of a murder specific incidence. Also, my innocence argument outweighs again. AS to the new evidence; if one reads into it further one can see that the authorities said this "He said the attack may have been retaliation over a disciplinary issue."[4] thus this is an issue of disciplinary action and is not a murder unique thing. Again, my innocence argument outweighs. (I will hit this contention hard in the last round) C1SPB: I am using the criticisms to my advantage. Your studies are not correct methodologically and there is not enough data to show anything. My opponent has not answered my ACLU evidence. You evidence is false though. The death penalty was stopped in '72 and the murder rates rose but after it was reinstated in '76 they continued to rise thus contradicting your claims! (I would put all the numbers but I have under 500 characters) Please see graph and analyze it[5] //He asserts that States w/ the DP have a higher murder rate. This is true, however these states are motivated to have the DP because of their high crime rates.// But the crime rates have not gone down thus there is no deterrent effect! In Texas they have fallen and then stayed the same showing that even though people are put to death there is not a significant decrease in murder and in most cases it does nothing. Extend all my evidence. C2: My opponent has only shown that there is a movement for this in Penn but has not proven that this will happen. There is a prison abolistionist movement but surely we don't think that would happen. (I will hit this in R4 due to characters)