Capitol punishment should be abolished

"thett3"- Thank you for accepting! Also, thank you for the clarity, and yes, it is U.S. specific. Counter- refutations: 1) • "an innocent convicted to life without parole has a significantly slighter chance of walking free than someone sentenced to die ever does." You are failing to comprehend my simple logic. With life without parole, we can at least reverse a mistake, thus not "destroying their entire life." The person will still have the ability to live their life freely after released. However, if the person is put to death, there is no going back. • "With all due respect to my opponent, her misguided assumptions that she knows more about the individual cases than The Judge, Jury, 9th circuit of appeals, Board of Paroles and Pardons, Supreme Court of the United States, Governor of the executing state, and president of the United States, all of whom could cease the execution/overturn the sentence is woefully ignorant." (First, the "with all due respect" at the beginning of this statement does not annul its rudeness. However, I forgive you because many people believe that insulting your opponent is part of debate, even if it shouldn't be. However, if I were you, I'd be careful because another user could take serious offense to this) Moving on, I believe it is quite funny how people switch around others' thoughts to make themselves look better. I am not assuming that the authorities have blundered; merely showing the facts that everyone is human, and mistakes are too easy to make. Who knows, perhaps more substantial evidence will show itself, proving the four to be innocent. • "The guilt of Troy Davis and Cameron Willingham are completely seperate debates by themselves, but since those qualified to show guilt chose guilt, then we should assume they're guilty." No, we should NOT assume that these men are guilty. Authorities may be good at their jobs, but nonetheless, everyone is human, making mistakes too easy no matter the time period and advancement in technology. It is simple NOT RIGHT to ruthlessly kill innocent people! • "Besides, to this I say: so what? Every accidental death is a mistake, but the fundamental question is whether the benefits to society outweigh. How many thousands of people die each year from Car, Plane, and Train crashes? Yet we still use those, because the societal benefits outweigh. My oponents argument is a reason to tighten the evidence requirements to sentence someone to die, not an argument against Capital Punishment." Your analogy is ridiculous. Cars, planes, and trains, do indeed provide multiple benefits for society. However, you failed to list any benefits capital punishment has to society that life without parole doesn't. In addition, you are wrong in stating that my argument is a reason to merely tighten evidence. Capital punishment should be abolished completely, eliminating chance for mistake even with "tighter evidence." 2) • "You can't put a price tag on justice." In the ideal world, justice wouldn't come with a price tag attached — seeing justice done would be important enough to pursue no matter what. We live in the real world, however, not an ideal world and in the real world justice comes with a price tag that we have to care about. The facts say that the death penalty is just too expensive for a country in such a debt. • "from California" No matter what state or overall inmates, it's the cost per inmate that counts. That won't sway no matter the state. The cost is simply too high than is necessary. We should put the money toward a more important cause such as our 15 TRILLION dollar debt that you failed to address. • My opponent tries to argue that my source (deathpenaltyinfo.org) is not reliable because it is biased. This is a "dot org" site that is merely giving information by stating the exact facts of study done wit no bias. One could get the same evidence from the Fair Administration of Justice itself. The site is a reliable dot org and therefore did not sway the evidence. It's just an informational site, so its silly to say that it even has a bias to begin with. • "guilty plea" Your evidence said people sentenced to death are more likely to plea guilty than those not sentenced to death to avoid a costly trial? This is irrelevant. TRIAL is costly no matter death penalty or not. We cannot avoid that. Everything costs something. I am only saying that the act of the death penalty is more costly overall than life without parole. • Lastly, in regards to the cost aspect, here is more evidence to back up the irrefutable claim that the death penalty is too expensive: According to Amnesty International- •A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000). (December 2003 Survey by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit) •In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment. (2004 Report from Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury Office of Research) •In Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case. (Urban Institute, The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland, March 2008) • In California the current sytem costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty. (California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice, July 2008) http://www.amnestyusa.org... 3) • "She then commits a correlation causation fallacy by saying that since unpopular nations use Capital Punishment, and abolition has become a recent trend, the US should abolish the Death Penalty. Unfortunately, this isn't an argument. Why does it matter who else uses the Death Penalty? The question is whether the US should use it, not whether other countries do." Let me explain the logic. It's like a math equation. North Korea and Iran= corruption, no free rights, no freedom of speech, oppression, DEATH PENALTY European Union= civilization, human rights, NO DEATH PENALTY United States= civilization, human rights, DEATH PENALTY It doesn't make sense, does it? Obviously, the U.S. should equal "no death penalty" if we want to be considered a fair, free, civilized nation. We should look the civilized countries as a model for proper living. It does matter very much who else has it. The U.S. is often slow in catching on with civil and modern policies. For example, slavery was abolished in civilized nations such as the UK long before it was banned in the U.S. It's the same with the death penalty. Clearly, the rest of the world has recognized that capital punishment is not civil. Having capital punishment in the U.S. only contributes to a back track in modern development throughout the nation. Refutations for your arguments: 1) Justice You state the idea of a justice pendulum, an eye for an eye. Law is not all about retaliation and retribution. The idea of "an eye for an eye" was a concept used in ancient times. There is a reason that it is outdated. A murderer is a life too. The victim's life has already been ruined illegally, does that make it necessary to ruin another life? No. Ghandi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." We should not let our law system be the culprit of making everyone "blind." 2) Saves lives In terms of public security, maximum security prisons will have the same effect while eliminating chance of mistake, costing less and remaining a civil nation. You bring up the idea of the death penalty as a deterrent for homicides and murders. However, I would expect murders to also be deterred by life in prison, as some view this as worse than death.