The United states should abolish the death penalty

I will begin by making my final arguments against my opponent. His 1st argument is that the death penalty is unfair too ill people and poor people, but with mentally ill people they will be checked before the trial to see if they are mentally ill, and if they are they could get out of the punishment and go to a psychiatric facility. Also for his argument that poor people can't afford a lawyer. You are assigned a lawyer if you can't pay for one to represent you by the court. That means his entire contention has fallen. Onto his 2nd argument which talks about how it is unfair to the convicts family. He is comparing the pain of the victims family to the pain of the convicts family. The victim was innocent and they were taken away from their family because of the convict. The convict is guilty and took away another persons life. They deserve whatever punishment the jury seems fit and if that's the death penalty then that is what the jury saw fit. The convicts family shouldn't be more important then the victims. His 3rd argument was that there is chances of mistakes, but I have brought up information against it. While yes the information says a mistake can happen. The chances are lowered with a jury. He also didn't bring up many contentions I showed like my contentions in my 1st speech. These contentions all still stand. So onto my 1st contention which is race. "Death penalty opponents state it is inherently unfair and racially biased. The facts, I believe, are otherwise. .. The racial breakdown for those sentenced to death since 1977 is as follows: 48.6 percent white; 40.9 percent black; 8.9 percent Hispanic; and 1.6 percent other. The race of defendants executed in the U. S. since 1976 is 56 percent white; 35 percent black; 7 percent Hispanic; 2 percent other. The reason for the discrepancy in the execution rate between blacks and whites is that juries deciding whether to impose the death penalty have concluded in more cases involving black defendants that there were extenuating circumstances militating in favor of a lesser penalty. .. The American public still supports the death penalty, notwithstanding the hammering capital punishment receives each year. .. I"m glad the American public does. " Edward Koch, LLB Former Mayor of New York City "Statistics Show Death Penalty Not Racist," newsmax. com Sep. 27, 2011 Now onto my 2nd contention which is closure for victims family. "Whatever your feelings are toward the death penalty, one thing most people will never know is the pain experienced when a family member, or in my case, family members are brutally tortured and murdered. In 1984, my mother, sister and two nephews were cold-heartedly shot to death by an 18-year-old gang member named Tiqueon Cox. .. Tiqueon was sentenced to death by a jury of his peers and has been on death row for 30 years after exhausting all of his appeals at both the state and federal level. .. Cox, while on death row, attempted a violent takeover of the Super Max Adjustment Center at San Quentin with a goal to kill as many guards as possible. I urge a no vote on Prop. 62 and yes on Prop. 66 to ensure the worst of the worst killers receive the strongest sentence. A yes on Prop. 66 brings closure to families while saving California taxpayers millions of dollars every year. " Kermit Alexander Former NFL player and President of the NFL Players Association who lost his mother, sister and two nephews when they were murdered in 1984 "Letters to the Editor, Oct. 1," sfchronicle. com Sep. 30, 2016 Onto my third and final contention which is physicians at executions. "We expect physicians to offer comfort care to the dying, even if the treatment, like morphine to dampen end-stage cancer pain, will inevitably hasten death. These physicians are not killing their patients; they are comforting them in their final moments of life. .. Death row inmates have certain parallels to dying patients. Death is coming. A physician can do nothing to change that. All that can be offered is professional care during the final moments of life. And that should be of comfort to the condemned. .. The idea that physicians may participate in executions does not mean that they must do so. But it should be an option for those who believe that they have a duty to ease suffering and that this duty includes caring for those who will die at the hands of the state. .. Physician involvement in lethal injection can make capital punishment less grotesque, more palatable, and even routine. But so long as the state uses the tools of the physician to kill its citizens, those who wish to step in to ensure that executions are, at the very least, competently handled should have the option to do so. Anything else is death penalty politics at the expense of the condemned. And no matter where you come out on capital punishment, no one should be sentenced to a botched execution. " Kenneth F. Baum, MD, JD Partner at Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum, LLP Julie Cantor, MD, JD Attorney Of Counsel at Goldman, Ismail, Tomaselli, Brennan & Baum, LLP "Doctors Can Ease Suffering, Even in Executions," nytimes. com Apr.