Death Penalty

In this round I will rebut to pro's case. In the next round, I will defend my case from pro's rebuttals and give my conclusions. (I think pro will defend his case from my rebuttals next round, and present conclusions as well. )_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Price:Though the money used for the Death Penalty may not be SUPER HIGH as my opponent states, the money used for the Death Penalty can be used for other things (like I said in my case last round). Now my opponent states that this money, if used for the Death Penalty will help detter crime. Crime is not effectively deterred with the moeny used(I will prove that detterence fails next), so there is no point in wasting it. It can be used for different programs and funds which will actually have been of use. Deterrence:The death penalty fails to deter for a couple of reasons. 1. The Idea of Deterrence rests upon a flawed premise that murederous actors think rationally: "Notwithstanding that the research rests at the point of failing to establish a relative deterrent effect from capital punishment, this result has not ended the debate in all circles. Instead, it has simply shifted the argument from one of research results to one of intuition, with death penalty proponents claiming that there are obviously some individuals who will decide not to kill another, despite contemplating to do so, because if they are caught and convicted, they may very well be executed. n110 The abolitionists respond by reminding the proponents that this intuition thus far suffers from a severe lack of proof, n111 and by pointing out its implausibility. Specifically, the abolitionists argue that this intuition is unbelievable because it would apply only to a type of person who thinks rationally and who would commit a capital crime knowing that the punishment is long-term imprisonment, but who would not commit the crime knowing that the punishment is death. " [1] 2. The Death Penalty does not deter more effectively than long term confinement: “Even though there have been research efforts that have claimed a significant deterrent effect from capital punishment, n103 the weight of the [*197] considered opinion holds that the death penalty offers no statistically significant deterrent benefit beyond that offered by long-term confinement. n104 In support of this statement is a 1996 survey of the leading criminologists in the country, where approximately 80% of the experts believed, on the basis of the literature and research in criminology, that the death penalty does not have significant deterrent effects. n105 More precisely, 92.6% of the criminologists surveyed disagreed or strongly disagreed with the proposition that the death penalty in the United States has been a stronger deterrent to homicide than the threat or use of long-term sentences. ” [2]3. The deterrence theory can justify execution of the innocent [is that what we want? ? ]: "It is an old move in the debate between consequentialists and deontologists for the latter to point out that the former would find nothing morally wrong with punishing an innocent person under circumstances in which it was clear that the benefits to society would outweigh the costs. n76 Sunstein and Vermeule's argument runs into a version of this dilemma, because nothing in their argument requires that executions be "just" or "deserved. " According to Sunstein and Vermeule, even if executions are considered the moral equivalents of murders themselves, then the government would still be obligated to conduct them if it could be shown that by doing so it prevented more murders than it committed. n77 Sunstein and Vermeule take comfort in the assertion that there could not possibly be deterrence from executions if it was likely that innocent people would be executed (because the guilty would realize they would go unpunished and not be deterred). n78 I have explained above why I think this assertion is too insouciant and why even a substantially error-prone system might plausibly offer marginal deterrence. n79 Sunstein and Vermeule, perhaps correctly, dismiss concerns about deliberate decisions to hold show trials and execute the innocent as "too lurid" and improbable to be worthy of serious discussion. n80 But they cannot so easily dismiss the less lurid but far more probable concerns about the justice of maintaining a capital punishment system in which there is a substantial risk that innocents will routinely be executed. This possibility leaves Sunstein and Vermeule in the implausible [*776] position of maintaining that the likelihood of wrongful execution of the innocent simply has no moral salience whatsoever, as long as the deterrent effect of capital punishment continues to hold. " [3]4. The Death Penalty is not a good form of crime control: "The death penalty is not a viable form of crime control. When police chiefs were asked to rank the factors that, in their judgement, reduce the rate of violent crime, they mentioned curbing drug use and putting more officers on the street, longer sentences and gun control. They ranked the death penalty as least effective.1 Politicians who preach the desirability of executions as a method of crime control deceive the public and mask their own failure to identify and confront the true causes of crime. " [4]______________________________________________________________________________________________Thanks everyone for reading. VOTE CON! ______________________________________________________________________________________________Sources: [1] Professor Earl F. Martin, “MASKING THE EVIL OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT,” Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, Winter, 2002, Lexis [2] Professor Earl F. Martin, “MASKING THE EVIL OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT,” Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, Winter, 2002, Lexis [3] Carol S. Steiker, “THE ETHICS AND EMPIRICS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: No, Capital Punishment Is Not Morally Required: Deterrence, Deontology, and the Death Penalty,” Stanford Law Review, December, 2005, Lexis [4] American Civil Liberties Union, “The Case Against the Death Penalty,” ACLU, 12/31/1997, . http://www.aclu.org...;