To be suggested.

Thanks for the urgent response. Rebuttal: 1. Retribution My opponent claims that the purpose of the death penalty is to serve as a method of self defense. This assertion is invalid insofar as the theoretical purpose of any judicial system is to punish the criminal. Society is punishing the criminal because the criminal has violated a civilian's rights. Self defense and punishment are two very different ideals. Most importantly, my opponent fails to show how life imprisonment cannot serve as a sufficient punishment. My opponent furthers, "while the killer had no justification for his actions. The criminal killed a member of society, so society has to punish the criminal." Though I may disagree with his initial statement regarding the society acting in self-defense, I agree with this second half. A murderer must be punished, therefore I argue that a sufficient punishment for a murderer is imprisonment. My opponent assumes that we must default execution despite the reason for the murder. (I.E. What if I murder a suicide bomber to save several civilians?). My opponent calls for execution in every case of murder, because he does not specify. This lack of clarification means my opponent is advocating a position in which the death penalty is the ONLY form of punishment, due to his constant argumentation that include mutual exclusivity between imprisonment and execution within the same society. Basically, we might as well murder all thieves in order to ensure that they will never steal again. I will explain this later in my rebuttal to his third point. My opponent then offers a sanitation argument. I agree, raping the rapist would not be sanitary. That was the implication behind my point. My opponent is the one arguing retribution. Retribution is his main justification for the death penalty. I have argued in disagreement with absolute retribution. My opponent calls for an "eye for an eye", which means my opponent advocates a position in which society disciplines the accused in a punishment that is tantamount to their illegal action. As I stated earlier, at first, this rhetoric may sound appealing, especially when applied to the death penalty. BUT, whenever this principle is applied to other crimes, like rape and robbery, this "equivalence" punishment is either insanitary or unreasonable. My opponent argues that we should murder the murders, yet at the same time we shouldn't rape the rapist, this inconsistency within the application of law would not exist within a just society. ____________________________ 2. Deterrence. My opponent claims that murderers can continue to murder while in prison, sure, but the death penalty is not our only option to take care of this problem. Many states, like here in New York, have found a way to take care of this problem. The solution is called solitary confinement, a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is denied contact with any other persons, excluding members of prison staff. Even with this, my opponent fails to argue in response to my argument regarding deterrence. The death penalty does not deter crimes any more than imprisonment, my opponent NEVER argues against this point. This is extremely important because at the point in which we are implementing a punishment that doesn't offer deterrence, it is then deemed as simply torture. This means that the society would be murdering civilians for absolutely no legitimate reason. Murder without deterrence is torture, thus resulting to an inhumane punishment that a just society would never approve. Voters, I urge you to keep in mind the statistics and physchological analysis that I gave in my previous rebuttal. Thus, this point is no longer of any importance because the death penalty is not sufficient in deterrence. ___________________________ 3. Prevention My opponent simply claims that murder is what someone is due. This claim has yet to be properly confirmed because he has not offered you an analysis proving why anyone deserves death. Furthermore, within my this entire rebuttal I offer offered you at least three reasons for as to why the death penalty is an unjust punishment. Furthermore, as I stated in my last rebuttal, a just society cannot put someone to death in order to prevent them from committing future crimes. A just society would not advocate a principle of prevention. A principle of prevention could be used to justify the judicial system to do whatever it wants, just as long as future crimes are prevented. Meaning, we could kill all minorities in order to ensure some future murders would be prevented. This is clearly NOT the action a just society would take. This analysis has yet to be refuted, so voters please take this into consideration when voting. __________________________ In conclusion, my opponent is calling for retribution, deterrence and prevention, all of these have once again been proven either not upheld on his behalf or an unjust action. Therefore, you are to default CON, because I am the only side that has proven beyond doubt the ineffectiveness and injustice that occurs through the implementation of the death penalty. Thanks for your time and consideration, - Protagoras of Abdera.