AAN Tournament : This house endorses Death Penalty

CON has come up with really good and convincing rebuttals but has taken quite an idealistic approach and has in the process committed multiple fallacies in his case. Cross examining his assertions and strengthening my own would be the main focus of my forthcoming rebuttals in this conclusive round of this debate.Rebuttals:C1: > Deterrence"The murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty, and the gap has grown since 1990"CON has gone further and said “desired effect is irrelevant when it conflicts with the actual effect” but, the argument through which he has derived this, said ‘actual effect’ is fallacious. CON has presumed a relation between two statistics who’s correlation, might as have well been coincidental. Thus, this isn't a very sound argument becausea) It is a false cause fallacy.b) CON presents statistics based on just one facet i.e., murder rate, in a few states, while I have presented an intensive research study with multiple aspects taken into consideration after analyzing 3,054 counties (repeatedly) for over two decades [1]. “If Pro truly believed that the highest form of punishment….he would support death by stoning or other horrible punishments.”And I have also stated and proved that death penalty has produced a significant deterrent effect on crimes, research strongly supports death penalty being a significant deterrent than any other form of punishment. Whether other forms of punishment have been studied as intensively is unknown and also irrelevant because, with the current facts in hand, death penalty exerts the greatest deterring effect.“I find it hard to realistically imagine a situation where a would-be criminal would think "Hey, I shouldn't do this. I might get the death penalty “Just because it is counter-intuitive based on CON’s perspective it doesn’t necessarily mean it is ineffective.“Pro's figures of 3-18 murders being prevented per inmate put to death are questionable. The link Pro provides as the source for this claim also says that the studies have been the subject of sharp criticism”The link provides a report, as judges may note, made by the ‘New York Times’. It isn’t any one-sided biased website, it is a report by a legit newspaper agency and of course it would include reactions of those who oppose the move. But all the criticisms enlisted there are just vague claims, without any rational evidence. Since CON too hasn’t taken any significant effort to substantiate the claims in the said criticisms the underlying fact still remains that, nothing has been properly shown or proved by anyone, of the strongly researched fact being otherwise.C> Justified CircumstancesDeath penalty is all about delivering proper justice and preventing heinous criminals as mentioned, from committing further crimes by escaping prison or inside it. The right to life is among the many rights a normal citizen has. I reiterate, just as sentencing people to prison takes away their right to movement, affiliation, etc, the death penalty is another sentence that takes away their right to life. When people commit certain acts of malevolence like, multiple murders, rape, torture, etc, they simple forgo their right to live. Again, this is not devaluing a life but rather uplifting the value of the innocent life that had been abused or taken away by the said criminal.C> Prevention of Further Crime“Pro is taking the problem of prisoner escapes and prison fights and coming to the conclusion that the best solution is to kill the dangerous prisoners. The conclusion… is that we need to fix the way prisons are managed.”And I have also shown that even highly secured prisons have had escapees [2]. So what is CON suggesting, build a prison on the moon with robot guards in place? And even if so, how are we to be certain that the prisoners won’t try to even escape that prison? CON has essentially taken an idealistic stance here that borders pure fantasy. The U.S itself has about 4575 prisons. Death penalty is administered to criminals only after their guilt has been intensely verified and proved and their track record suggests that the said criminal would try to seriously hurt or kill again [3]. It’s more than logical that a better solution to, upgrading and renovating all the prisons in the country to the point of pure idealism where these said criminals are incapable of committing any misdeeds, is to enforce the death penalty. I reiterate my questions from R2, What if a killer spared from a death penalty serving life sentence decides to seriously hurt or kill again?, What would we say to his possible future victims if we allow him to live? The possibility of a criminal escaping prison, or hurting people whilst inside prison, is unavoidable. Death penalty is the only answer that can forestall such mishaps from happening.C> The ‘Wrongful Convictions’ Argument“the difference between...time in prison and...execution is that after the wrongful conviction sentence leading to time in prison is finished or after being proved innocent, you're free again”CON has conveniently chosen select scenarios to suit his arguments; I will now provide some counter-scenarios posed as questions to demonstrate the logical unsoundness in his argument. CON states wrongful conviction sentence leading to time in prison, is temporary and after being proved innocent you are free again but, what if you are not proved innocent?, What if some misfortune happens, before you are proved innocent, whilst still in prison?, How are the odds of you being proved innocent and freed from prison any more than the odds of you being shown not guilty and being freed from execution in the intensive trials and investigation that precedes a death penalty? I hope the point has been conveyed. If the ‘wrongful convictions’ argument doesn’t substantiate the claim of abolishing imprisonment, I don’t see any good reason on why it should for the death penalty.Thus necessarily, my point about the ‘wrongful convictions’ argument being a weak ground for abolishing death penalty, stays strong. Death Penalty Cost“innocent people still get through, as I argued in my opening argument”CON says he has established that innocent people do get executed as a cause of wrongful convictions in his opening arguments, but scrolling up I only see him post two cases of wrongful execution and that too somewhere about two decades back, if this establishes anything, it would be the fact that wrongful executions are incredibly rare and it has been a thing of the past. Besides I have already shown that it is just as possible for innocent people to get imprisoned and lose their life in prison as much as them losing it by the death penalty.“The extreme cost involved..abolish DP”I iterate again, even though death penalty is costly, justice is priceless. It would be highly unjust to punish a criminal if he isn’t guilty enough to be administered the death penalty; the process to prove his guilt is what makes death penalty costly, thus the costs are a necessary evil.Reformation“Rehabilitation not working on an individual is not an acceptable reason to kill them”Thus, through this statement, CON has basically conceded to my point of rehabilitation not working on select criminals. Now I will provide reasons on why these said criminals should be executed,i) The strong possibility of them trying to seriously hurt or kill someone is, as I've already shown, exists and is unavoidable.ii) Again, certain malicious acts of crime, if committed by individuals, consequents them to forgo the right to life. This preserves and upholds the sanctity that the society places on the lives of other innocent citizens. After this CON hasn't presented any new arguments so I myself will be ending here and try to tie up loose ends, if any, and hence close my case.__________________________________________________Addenda:PRO’s main rebuttals mostly centered on the following, I will be making a quick summary of where he has gone wrong in these arguments before I close my case.'Improving prisons' argumentThis argument is far from pragmatic. It is impossible to restrain criminals, who have used their intellect and ingenuinity to kill innocent lives, from finding a way to either do it again whilst inside prison or manage to escape and do it outside. Even high class prisons with intensive security have seen escapees. And improving all the prisons worldwide to the point nearing idealism is unrealistic. Thus, basically this argument doesn’t give enough reasons to abolish death penalty.Innocents getting executed Judges may note that CON has refrained from producing any numerical or statistical data to support this claim of his. The blatant reason for this is, events of innocents getting executed as the result of wrongful convictions in a death penalty is extremely rare. I have also demonstrated the unsoundness and failure of this argument, in supporting the abolishment of death penalty in any possible way, in my rebuttals.Rehabilitation for prisonersCON after taking an initial stance supporting rehabilitation for prisoners in his first round stating various weak examples for it, has basically conceded it in the next. Hence, I will skip addressing this.Life parole being a viable alternative to death penaltyI have clearly outlined and have stated numerous times why this isn’t beneficial. Furthermore, I have highlighted the flaws in CON’s ‘improving prisons’ argument which seemed like the only ground to support this claim, hence essentially this assertion of his falls as well.With that I wrap up my case. I humbly request the judges to drop their bias and preconceived notion and vote on this debate with an unbiased judgment. Finally, I would like to thank CON for this enlightening and exhilarating debate. Cheers!!Sources:1 : http://is.gd... (Purpose of picture is just to aid judges in finding the prescribed reference)2: http://is.gd...3 : http://is.gd...