The death penalty should be abolished.

Thanks for the debate and for the arguments Dtaylor. I negate: The death penalty should be abolished. Crime and Justice international magazine explains that the criminal justice system has two purposes[1]: preventing and controlling crime, and achieving justice. Therefore if I prove that the death penalty serves one or both of these roles better than the alternative, I should win the round as I maximize the justice systems performance of its intended roles.C1: Saves lives A. Deterrence The fact is that the death penalty does deter crime because people follow their incentives, as Rothbard explains[2], "While it is impossible to prove the degree of deterrence, it seems indisputable that some murders would be deterred by the death penalty." It's been observed that at least some murders would have been deterred, Luis Vera who fatally shot the tenant of an apartment he robbed in Brooklyn (where the death penalty has been abolished) later remarked[3]: "Yeah, I shot her...and I knew I wouldn't go to the chair".There have been numerous studies on the deterrent effect such as a study from Emory finding that each execution leads to 3-18 fewer murders[4]. These studies are problematic in that crime is a multilayered complex issue and the death penalty is applied very rarely, but the little literature that exists larger concludes that the death penalty deters crime. The logic points to deterrence, and with such shaky statistics that's what we need to look to. Moreover there's nothing unjust about the death penalty (or if there is, my opponent hasn't proven so) so in order to maximize it's role of preventing future crimes, the criminal justice system should err on the side of caution and keep the death penalty. If the death penalty does not deter crime and we execute some violent murderers, no harm done. All that has happened is we have a few less murderers. However if the death penalty *does* deter and we fail to execute, we fail to keep innocent people safe. B. Recidivism Quite obviously, a murderer who's been executed can never again cause a death. Sadly, the same can't be said of criminals behind bars. Clarence Ray Allen was serving a life sentence without parole for murder in California when he colluded with soon to be paroled Billy Hamilton to eliminate the witnesses against him[5]. Allen intended to gain a new trial and this time one with no witnesses. Hamilton killed three people and wounded another before an armed neighbor returned fire, driving him off. When Hamilton was arrested the next week robbing a liquor store police learned of the plot and both Hamilton and Allen were sentenced to die. The point is, imprisonment doesn't guarantee a murderer doesn't strike again. Imprisonment failed to deter Allen from causing more innocent deaths, but he certainly hasn't killed anyone since his 2006 execution. In Texas, with prisons overflowing, Kenneth McDuff, a convicted murderer who's death sentence was overturned by the supreme court, was released in 1989. He proceeded to go on a killing spree, killing at least 7 women before he was once again sentenced to die and this time finally executed[6]. C2: The death penalty is just There's no good argument against the death penalty. As John Stuart Mill argued[7]: "Does fining a criminal show want of respect for property, or imprisoning him, for personal freedom? Just as unreasonable is it to think that to take the life of a man who has taken that of another is to show want of regard for human life. We show, on the contrary, most emphatically our regard for it, by the adoption of a rule that he who violates that right in another forfeits it for himself, and that while no other crime that he can commit deprives him of his right to live, this shall." The death penalty is a just penalty because it prescribes the most serious sentence to the most serious crime. Criminal penalties should match the crime in severity, and it's due to this that it's justified to punish a murderer with death. Since the death penalty is just, it meets the second goal of the criminal justice system. Opponents caseC1. CostThis argument shouldn't be considered because you can't put a price tag on justice or human life. Moreover it's questionable how much these statistics apply across the US as a whole considering my opponents own evidence describes the Californian death penalty system as "dysfunctional". California definitely needs to do something with it's system, either reforming it to execute more people or abolishing it altogether. If they can't get their system to actually execute people (California has an execution rate of 1.7% according to my opponents own numbers) I'm not so sure it can even be considered a death penalty. It's better to take a look at the states that actually execute people, such as Texas. My opponents source 5 argues that the death penalty in Texas costs about $500,000 more than the amount needed to put someone in prison for life. First of all, even if this is the case if the death penalty actually deters crime like the evidence shows it's well worth the extra $500k. Secondly, the analysis says without a citation that the average cost for a non-death penalty murder trial is $3000. Theres no way that's true. Accurate numbers on the cost of murder trials are surpisingly hard to find, but as a typical example the Dunn murder trial cost taxpayers nearly $100,000[8]. I think the numbers on the cost of the death penalty in Texas are probably accurate and should be used to determine how much a workable death penalty system actually costs. An analysis from Iowa State University calculated the total economic cost of murder in terms of lost productivity, judicial costs, and other economic factors determined that the average murder costs society about $17.2 million[9]. So even using the extremely conservative cost estimate from my opponents source, if each execution in a workable system costs about $500,000 more than life without parole, if just one murder is deterred or one case of recidivism stopped for every 34 executions, society breaks even on the tangible costs (.5 million x 34 = 17 million) nonwithstanding the moral benefits of having another person alive which causes us to come out on top. Moreover this fails to take into account plea bargaining. The threat of death causes criminals to plead guilty much more often than they do in non death penalty jurisdictions[10] forgoing the costs of the trial all together. C2. DeterrenceThe analysis of death penalty states to non death penalty states is comparing apples to oranges. I could cite lower murder rates in European countries that have abolished life without parole (such as Norway) to prove that life without parole doesn't deter murder just as easily. The facts are laid out in my case: Studies have shown a deterrence effect, as does logic and an admission from an actual murderer. Really the issue boils down to "do criminal penalties deter crime?" and I think we can all agree the answer is a resounding yes. If the threat of punishment deters crime, it follows that harsher penalties would decrease crime more.Pro cites a survey from criminologists stating that the majority of them don't believe the death penalty deters crime, but I have to wonder their reasoning which is not given. I won't argue that this doesn't present some trouble for the deterrence argument, but I think the evidence I've given outweighs it. Remember, if we deter even one murder from 34 executions we've come out on top. The small amount of executions if this were the true rate would lead to about 1-2 murders deterred a year which would have absolutely no effect on the murder rate but would still be beneficial for society overall. I think it's a safe assumption that *some* murder is deterred by the threat of the death penalty and that the true number is likely higher than 1 or 2 a year. C3. Innocence My opponent cites 144 innocents released from death row. This proves that the current system is working in freeing the innocent, and if you look through the list of released inmates almost all (all but 3) were convicted in the 70s, 80s, and 90s and not one has been convicted since 2003. It's *because* of statistics like these that death sentences are on the decline and have been for a while, Jurors are becoming increasingly reluctant to send someone to die without extremely hard evidence. Moreover huge advances in technology are lessening the probability of convicting an innocent every day. It comes down to a cost benefit analysis--I showed at least 10 people killed by murderers because they didn't get the death penalty, which far outweighs the (possibly innocent) one person my opponent cited. C4. Lessons I'm not too sold on this argument. We shouldn't care that much about teaching criminals right from wrong when compared to the innocent lives that could be saved. Moreover I think that putting murderers in a position where they're forced to "meet their maker" will cause them to think about their actions more than 3 hot meals a day until they die of old age will, not to mention the utter depravity of the crimes most murderers are on death row for. Sources:1. http://www.cjimagazine.com...2. http://mises.org...3. http://faculty.mdc.edu...4. http://www.washingtonpost.com...5. http://www.clarkprosecutor.org...6. http://en.wikipedia.org...7. http://ethics.sandiego.edu...8. http://www.firstcoastnews.com...9. http://www.soc.iastate.edu...10. http://www.cjlf.org...