The death penalty should be abolished.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for not being able to post last round. I was rather busy. ==========INNOCENCE========== My opponent states " Anyone who has been convicted of murder - due to the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" - will have been deemed to have hard, undeniable evidence against them." However in cases where innocent people die it is often because a verdict was given without strong evidence.[3] Excerpt from source: " Kendall Ryland added, "[It] made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation.... They executed this guy and they've just got no idea - at least not scientifically - if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set."" Hard undeniable evidence would be where there is a video that was clearly not forged – as in the case of 3 men 1 hammer incident – or where a significant number of witnesses attest to it or any other such case where it one would have to assume that a studio worked on forged a video over a period of months or years or that a group of unrelated people decided to falsely attest or another unreasonable explanation and not one like the excerpt above. As pro suggested this can be solved through better prosecutors, not through banishing the death penalty. In this case there would be no reason for an appeal to prove innocence. =============Justice================ My opponent states that "Justice for the victim requires only that the perpetrator be found and be removed from society until/unless the criminal tendencies within him have been removed." Justice involves punishing the perpetrator. That only prevents the crime from happening again and prevents other people from becoming victims. If the perpetrator is not punished then no justice has been done for the victim. I agree that vengeance is different from justice. I agree that people could let their emotions cloud their judgment and give punishments exceeding the crime. The punishment that is given to the perpetrator must fit the crime and the only punishment to fit the crime of murder is death. My opponent states " they are checked by psychiatric and psychology experts, and examined by a parole board to determine this very fact. They will usually even then not be let out completely - parole will come with limits: a geographical or temporal curfew, constant check-ins with parole officers and electronic tagging, to name just a few." Despite the checks and restrictions crime is often repeated. ===============MARTYRS====================== My opponent states "Any religious extremist, who has committed a crime related to their extremism, will be seen as a martyr. " No moderate would ever become a terrorist because other extremists are executed. If someone thinks of dying bombing himself or terrorizing a instant path to paradise then he is already and extremist or on his way to becoming an extremist and will become one whether or not other extremists are executed. People who know that terrorizing is not an instant path to paradise will not become convinced by executions. Executions will not affect other people opinions. Supporters' cannot convince moderates to become extremists just by glorifying someone who was executed. The majority of such criminals – as few as they are – are muslim extremists. The few others do not pose a significant problem. I also wish to state even if they could use the death penalty to state their case, supporters' could just as easily use the life without parole. ================DETTERENCE================ I wish to add one more argument first. Research suggests that the death penalty deters people from committing murders. [2] In the years with high numbers of executions the murder rate decreased. As the number of executions decreased murders increased and later decreased again as the the number of executions increased. [1]http://www.citizensinc.org... [2]http://www.prodeathpenalty.com... [3]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...