Certain convicted sex offenders should be executed

Right away, I can spot several problems with my opponent's arguments. First, he has failed to define justice, while claiming that executing a sex offender fulfills its demands. This is highly problematic. "Justice" is not some meaningless word tossed about for dramatic effect, the idea of justice is very real and very important; it is the concept that addresses the moral aspects of the discussion. Second, he has conceded that there are numerous exceptions to the rule; that in many instances the death penalty would not be appropriate. This ultimately trivializes his entire position and the advantages he claims from it. Finally, PRO has conceded contention 1A and failed to adequately address 2C. 1.) PRO's response contains several flaws. Life imprisonment without parole also removes a criminal from society and prevents recidivism. My opponent claims that the death penalty should only be used in in instances where the victim's family consents to the execution and overwhelming evidence renders the conviction a 100% certainty. This would necessarily reduce the number of executions to such a negligible amount that his conception of "justice" would rarely, if ever, be fulfilled. Moreover, as I stated earlier, PRO has not even *defined* justice. Even if we set my restorative stance aside and take on a retributionist viewpoint, the death penalty still can't be justified for sexual offenses. A criminal only forfeits his rights to the same extent that he violates others; the death penalty could only be justified in homicide cases. 1a. - Conceded by PRO. 1b. - As I pointed out earlier, this trivializes PRO's entire position. Moreover, I repeat that it is *impossible* to be 100% sure that you are not executing an innocent man. Since 1973, 138 death row inmates have been exonerated.[1] These are the lucky ones. In that same time frame, at least 39 people have been wrongfully executed.[2] 2.) Even if the the increased cost is small, it is still a negative effect. Moreover, the impact is proportional to the number of executions. If my opponent claims that he really doesn't want that many executions after all, it would reduce the cost issue to the same extent that it would eliminate the advantages he claims for his case, thus undermining his own position. 2a. - The consensus opinion is that the death penalty puts greater emotional strain on the families of victims. Even if the family of the double diamond killer were glad that he was finally executed, that doesn't do away with the pain they went through during the prolonged prosecution. If we limit the number of executions to only the instances where the victim's family consent, that would necessarily reduce the number of sentences to such an extent that it would seriously weaken PRO's entire case. 2b. - The graph my opponent presents utterly fails to support his case. It completely ignores the fact that tremendous advances have taken place in forensics field since 1900! At the start of the graph, police didn't even use *fingerprinting* let alone DNA evidence. Moreover, for the first six decades, the murder rate is shown actually shown *decreasing* along with the number of executions. Even if we grant the statistics legitimately support PRO's case (they don't), it's important to realize that in Texas, the death penalty is applied FAR more often than any other state, which my opponent has indicated that he does not favor. Texas executes FOUR TIMES more prisoners than any other state in the Union.[3] This would seem to negate PRO's response to the cost issue in C2. Additionally, less evidence is required to secure a death sentence, and prisoners spend far less time on death row, increasing the odds that an innocent person will be wrongfully executed, thus negating PRO's response to the problem in C1b.[4] 2c. - This is not at all speculative. People respond to incentives; this is a praxeological fact. Simply because no experiments have been done (due to obvious moral constraints) does not refute the logic of my contention. PRO has not adequately addressed this point. 2d. - I fail to see how executing someone could possibly be considered too humane. If PRO believes the lethal injection to be "too good" for some criminals, he needs to propose some alternative plan to be evaluated. 3.) I do consider capital punishment immoral and I have clearly explained why. Executing someone fails to fulfill the dictates of restorative justice. I reiterate that PRO has not given his own value criterion; his assertion that executions are "not immoral" is wholly arbitrary. A hard labor scheme has all the advantages of the death penalty, without it's disadvantages, plus the additional benefit of working to compensate the victims or their families for the damages done to them. == CONCLUSION == PRO has not given any reason to prefer the death penalty over hard labor. He has not given a value criterion and has largely ignored the moral aspect of the debate. His responses to several key contentions contradict certain aspects of his own case. My points stand that the death penalty promotes racism, places an unnecessary burden on taxpayers, does nothing to deter, and would actually increase the homicide rate if we began executing criminals for sexual offenses. The resolution is negated. -- References -- 1. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... 2. http://www.law.northwestern.edu... 3. http://thedailycougar.com... 4. http://www.orlandoweekly.com...