Resolved: Capital punishment ought not be continued in the United States.

Now I will defend my points against the attacks he made against them. Against my argument that the costs of the death penalty are simply too much he brings up that this is simply not true. He brings up how studies that have been used in the past did not have complete data and/or did not compare death penalty costs with non death penalty costs. First my opponent states " the major costs associated with the death penalty are due to fact that many death row inmates live their entire lives without actually being put to death. The appeal process takes forever, and these facilities are extremely expensive to maintain. " This proves my point more that we should abolish the death penalty sense getting someone to death row is so costly because of the lengthy appeals process and just how expensive the facilities are. These arguments further prove that if we were to abolish the death penalty these facilities would no longer be needed saving us millions of dollars. The second defense I have here is the validity of my opponents source. It is a website called deathpenalty. procon. org. The sources I could look at through his links came from the year 2008. That does seem rather recent, however my MSNBC source comes from March of 2009. That is much more recent than my opponents source showing that although studies before may have not been as thorough as they should be, this does not debunk my evidence that life imprisonment is much more cost effective than the death penalty. The MSNBC source states that it is "10 times more expensive to kill them thank to keep them alive. " (MSNBC source) It would seem that the more recent source from a well known news agency would be the more valid source then a website known as deathpenalty. procon. org that asks for a donation when you log on. My opponent's argument against the idea that our judicial system isn't perfect is that since the new developments in DNA evidence, the chances of convicting innocent people is slim to none. However, my opponent must not have looked at my source from amnestyusa. org that says since 2003 alone, 10 people have been released from death row after they were found to be innocent. To say that just because DNA testing is around we are going to get the right person on death row is illogical. While DNA testing has helped put criminals away, it is not perfect since we can see even in recent years innocent people are still going to death row. How can we send people to death row without knowing for a fact that the person who will be executed is in fact guilty or not. So therefore, his argument saying that all the people who were convicted before our forensic advancements falls since we can see even in the past decade when DNA technology was around innocent people were being wrongfully convicted by our own justice system. In his final argument he says that the death penalty is also used as a deterrent of sorts, however he doesn't bring up any real evidence to say one way or another. I would like to bring up evidence to refute this point. It would seem logical to think that if a man who is considering homicide knows he will be murdered for doing so would not commit the crime. "But that's not the real world. The South executes far more convicted murderers than any other region yet has a homicide rate far above the national average. Texas' murder rate is slightly above average, despite the state's peerless deployment of the death penalty. If capital punishment were an effective deterrent to homicide, shouldn't we expect the opposite result? " (. http://www.dallasnews.com...) In Texas, one of the United States top states that uses the death penalty the murder rate is still higher than average. If the death penalty is such a good deterrent then why are murders still above average in that state? It is illogical to believe that the death penalty is a deterrent when states who use it the most are seeing no affect. My opponent makes arguments which would all seem valid, however when you see them through current evidence they fall apart. The death penalty is still very costly as shown my recent studies and our money would be better put to life imprisonment. Our judicial system, even with DNA testing, is flawed and can't be trusted 100% for putting the right person away. Finally, we can see that the death penalty isn't the deterrent that we would like to believe it is. With that I open the floor back up to my opponent and look forward to the next and final round. Sources: . http://www.dallasnews.com... And above sources in Round 1