"Society should use the death penalty as a form of criminal punishment"

The costs of the death penalty and the absence of positive benefits make execution an unjustifiable form of criminal punishment. I am advocating for life-without-parole as an alternative to the death penalty. 1. Rebuttal to :: The Death Penalty will prevent murders from murdering again In previous round I argued that the death penalty does not deter future murders and provided an assortment of studies that supported my claim. My opponent does not dispute my claim, but instead responds that the death penalty exists to prevent convicted murders from having the opportunity to murder again. My opponent argues that 1 in 200 people break out of prison and thus murderers could theoretically escape and commit more murders. He also states that 66% of prisoners who are released from prison after serving their term go on to commit serious crimes within 3 years. I respond to both of these issues. First, my opponent states that one-half of one percent of prisoners escape, i.e. 1 in 200 hundred. This number is apparently correct, but it is misleading for our purposes. The vast majority of these escapees are minimum security prisoners that are defined as “walk-aways” from community corrections facilities that have minimal supervision.[1] These prisoners are not murderers escaping from maximum security facilities. Instead, they are typically non-violent offenders. If we look at the facilities where murderers are most likely to be housed – federal prison, maximum security prison, and super maximum security prison – it is clear that escapes are extremely rare. Only one federal prisoner, out of 115,000, escaped in the four years prior to the source my opponent cited, and that prisoner was recaptured.[1] And, no prisoner has ever escaped from a super maximum security prison.[2] Escapes from maximum security prisoners have occurred, but these escapes are also highly rare, and it is even more rare for these prisoners to commit murders after escaping. Therefore, the risk that a murderer will escape from prison and then go on to commit more murders is unlikely. Second, my opponent states that 66% of prisoners who are released from prison go on to commit serious crimes within 3 years. This may be true, but it is not relevant to our issue. I am arguing that lifetime imprisonment without parole should be an alternative to the death penalty. Lifetime prisoners without parole will not be released from prison, and therefore my opponent’s statistic is not relevant with regard to these prisoners. If a prisoner is not released from prison, he can’t possibly go on to commit serious crimes out in society. 2. Rebuttal to :: The Death Penalty by guillotine will be cheaper than life without parole I previously stated that the death penalty is extraordinarily expensive. For example, it has cost California approximately $4,000,000,000 since 1978. And, it costs an additional $100,000 per inmate, per year to house a death row inmate, as opposed to housing a standard life-without-parole prisoner. [3][4]. My opponent argues that execution by guillotine will help reduce the costs of the death penalty, however this is not true. The majority of the costs associated with the death penalty do not come from the manner of execution, but instead these costs come from two places: (1) specialized housing for death row inmates; and (2) immense judicial and procedural costs associated with death row inmates. First, death row inmates are housed in special facilities that are separate from the general population. These special facilities incur greater costs because prisoners must be housed in separate individual cells, prisoners must be supervised and guarded by additional staff, and these facilities must be maintained by additional staff. These specialized housing costs for death row inmates will continue to exist even if the manner of execution is changed – i.e. by guillotine. Second, death row inmates cost taxpayers an immense amount of money because of the procedural and judiciary costs associated with the process of death row and execution. These greater costs do not exist in the judicial process for life-without-parole cases. As stated in my previous round, death row cases have extraordinarily high taxpayer costs associated with pre-trial and trial phases, automatic appeals and state habeas corpus petitions, and federal habeas corpus petitions. These various procedural steps are in place to help prevent innocent people from being executed, but instead they end up costing billions of dollars to taxpayers. Changing the manner of execution will have no effect on these costs. Thus, the manner of execution is not a significant cause of the immense costs associated with the death penalty and changing the method of execution will have little to no effect on reducing those costs. 3. Rebuttal to :: Accidental conviction is not a problem with execution, but instead is widespread In my prior arguments, I argued that the risk of erroneous conviction and execution were too great to allow for the death penalty. I noted that as many as 20,000 U.S. prisoners are suspected to be innocent, a significant amount of which could be on death row. [5] My opponent argues that erroneous conviction is a problem that is widespread within the criminal justice system and is not specific to execution. I agree that the problem is widespread, but it is only in capital punishment cases that an erroneous conviction could lead to an innocent person losing their life. When weighing the costs of potential erroneous conviction, we must also weigh the punishment that would be imposed. Clearly the costs of erroneous conviction are lower if the punishment is only 10 years in prisoner, or 20 years, or even life imprisonment, when compared to execution. We may be able to morally justify some risk of error when the penalties are lesser because these people will still have their lives, but we cannot justify it when the penalty is death. Thus, the cost of error is much larger in death penalty cases than in any other type of cases, and this error cannot be justified in the absence of any positive benefit by the death penalty. 4. Rebuttal to :: Unfair punishment of poor people is not a problem with execution, but instead is widespread This issue relates to the previous one. My opponent is correct that this problem affects poor people in every type of case. But, again I reiterate my point that the cost of losing is much greater in capital punishment cases, where the wealthy will live and the poor may not. Without a positive benefit to the death penalty, there is simply no way to justify this recognized and unfair punishment and execution of poor people. CONCLUSION There is simply no positive benefit to the death penalty. It takes the life an individual and provides no demonstrable benefit to society. The costs associated with the death penalty, both economic and moral, are too great to justify its use. Just like the death penalty, life without parole will keep murderers from reentering into society and inflicting harm onto innocent people. Maximum security prisoners rarely escape, and when they do, they rarely commit murders. The death penalty burdens taxpayers with extraordinary economic costs that could be eliminated if convicts were instead sentences to life-without-parole. The death penalty also burdens society with immense moral costs due to its high risk that innocent people may be erroneously convicted and executed. This moral cost and risk extends even further to poor individuals, who lack the financial resources to defend themselves against this absolute and final sentence. Without any clear positive benefits and with so many negative costs associated with the death penalty, society cannot justify using execution as a form of criminal punishment. SOURCES Sources 1 through 5 in comments.