Death Penalty

The purpose of punishment can be argued with regards to scope. Considering that discussion of the purpose is not the focus of this discussion, I will simply discuss an alternative possibility here: It can be argued that the purpose of any entity is to continue existing/growing/proliferating in an efficient a manner as possible. Entities would include societies, governments, people, etc. Under this assumption, the purpose of any particular policy or action by an entity would be directly related to the entity's purpose. So with this in mind, we could argue that the purpose of a sentence (including the punishment in that sentence) is to allow society within the US to continue existing in an efficient a manner as possible. The POTENTIAL results of a sentence/punishment could be deterrence from future crimes, and the imposition of 'responsibility' (although the implication here is that a capital crime is 'wrong' rather than 'wrong for society', which is another argument altogether'), but the PURPOSE is to protect society, in an efficient a manner as possible. The death penalty does focus on protecting society by permanently removing supposedly guilty parties from the equation, which my opponent seems to agree to in his 'The death penalty does address the first point' statement. My opponent also argues that 'Often, these are people who may have had no real desire to live in the first place'. This statement is outside of the scope of this argument, since there is no proof one way or another that criminals have less desire to live. This is solely an assumption, and a weak one at that, considering that it is unlikely (due to simple probabilities) that my opponent knows enough murderers to make such an assumption, based on intuition or otherwise. This is also true of my opponent's second point, 'Those people that are willing to commit a heinous crime are not afraid to die'. This is also an assumption, and also a weak one. If these criminals were not afraid to die, then the system would not be so costly with regards to the current appeals process in place for convicted murderers. It often takes years before these people are actually killed, due primarily to the fact that they appeal their sentences so ardently. My opponent fails to address this fact, but instead chooses to once again use faulty intuition and a lack of proof to state that murderers are not afraid to die. I agree with my opponent in that it is a shame when an innocent person is convicted and punished for a crime that person did not commit. However, 1) This is true of any punishment, not just the death penalty. If a person is incarcerated his/her entire life, dying in prison, then the effect of the life sentence is the same or similar to a death penalty (depending on one's beliefs). 2) There is no way to adequately assign a value to a human life. It is costly to society, in a sense to lose an innocent human life...BUT it could be just as (if not more) costly to risk keeping not-so-innocent humans alive. As these not-so-innocents have already shown a propensity to inflict harm and death upon innocents within the society. This puts a direct risk upon society, an entity whose main purpose is to continue existing in as protected and efficient manner as possible. Since it is difficult to accurately calculate the chances of an innocent being convicted and killed versus the chances of a non-innocent inflicting further damage on society, I will consider it a wash. In order to determine whether the death penalty is worthwhile, it needs to be compared to something, which my opponent fails to do. So assuming a life sentence is the only comparable punishment, we need to determine whether that is more efficient and less costly than the death penalty (since both have the effect of 'protecting' society). Since my opponent instigated this argument, and my position only needs to prove that the death penalty could be equally effective as comparable sentences (or better), I will leave this part up to him to prove.