death penalty

Alright, thanks to my opponent, and let's get into this. As Pro's opening round didn't really present an argument, so I'll just move into his R2. 1) Deterrent of capital crimes He starts off by arguing for retributive justice. I've already argued that Pro is supporting institutionalized vengeance, and that he'd have to apply this principle of a crime befitting an equal punishment across the board, something he's so far failed to support. But the principle itself is nonsense. What "equilibrium of justice" ends with more lives lost? That's not balance, that's just more imbalance. More death doesn't benefit anyone. Equal intensity of punishment doesn't bear any benefit either. If we truly wish to create some sort of balance, then we should force the convict to give back to society, something they cannot do if they are dead. Pro continues by arguing deterrence. He doesn't explain how the DP is a greater deterrent than life imprisonment, which ends in the same general outcome. Moreover, he doesn't explain how murders, which are often committed in the heat of the moment and without rational thought, In fact, there's very little to no effect of the threat of the DP on actual murder rates.[9] The Ted Bundy example utterly fails him. First, he tells us that Bundy waited 9 years. This case was incredibly straightforward, and yet it took 9 years to reach his execution date, and as Pro points out, he "exhausted every single legal point he and his lawyers could think of", which means they went through numerous, expensive appeals. But despite knowing that the DP was a likely outcome for him, despite clearly being afraid of it, he still engaged in the murder of so many women. In fact, this man represents the perfect example of an individual who a) wasn't deterred, b) exploited the DP system to bilk money out of the state and waste precious resources, and c) took an excessively long time to be executed anyway. All Pro can really garner from this is that he feared the DP more than life imprisonment, but Pro has to prove a broad deterrent effect exists, not just a fear. Pro is speculative on this, claiming that the fear prevents murders without any support, and ignoring any and all deterrent effect for LWOP. Lastly, Pro argues that there's some form of human dignity inherent to the DP. He spends all of a single sentence here, and doesn't explain how the death penalty and no other form of punishment is capable of accomplishing this. Any punishment treats a defendant as a free moral actor. Killing them deprives them of their free moral actor status, and thus removes any possibility for rehabilitation and redemption. 2) Closure I've covered this under the vengeance contention. The justice system does not exist as a means for doling out the pain of the victims' family. Even if they do receive some feelings of closure, the justice system is debased by becoming a vehicle for vengeance on the part of the family rather than acting as a fair, impartial means of achieving just outcomes. But there is no closure. There have been multiple studies on this, showing that there's no benefit to physical, psychological or behavioral health, and no increase in the level of satisfaction with the cirminal justice system. In fact, it's quite the opposite.[10] This holds up with other studies, which show that feelings of exacted revenge actually made individuals "feel worse, apparently because meting out a punishment caused htem to think about the offender more and dwell on the negative incident."[11]. Even if some people might feel closure, there's no reason to believe that they wouldn't feel the same closure in LWOP sentences. In fact, I would argue that faster sentencing increases closure, and the elongated trials that accompany repeated appeals drag on these cases for far longer than with LWOP. 3) Less expensive Pro doesn't source any of his arguments here, so voters should prefer mine, which clearly show that the appeals system and the process of killing someone requires higher costs than imprisoning someone over the remainder of their lives. Pro does provide one source that's just a number without any data. It's a nice bumper sticker, but not a good argument. So turn all of Pro's benefits of preventing hunger to my side. 4) Save lives So now we're back to deterrence. Pro never actually challenges the reality that LWOP ends in the eventual death of the inmate (multiple life sentences actually have more to do with preventing overturned or reduced sentences from releasing an inmate [http://bit.ly...]). As for the ability to kill while in prison or escape, both of those are possible for death row inmates, as those prisoners still languish for years or even decades. Why are LWOP prisoners more prone to either of these behaviors? Pro's example of Betty Beets is another bad one for him. The DP is not required to prevent recidivism. If she had initially received LWOP, there would have been no recidivism. The idea that a criminal is "a rotten apple among good ones... like a virus to the society" is interesting. On that basis, why shouldn't all criminals be executed? What makes murderers special? We don't want pervasive theivery or rape, either. It's because we recognize that not all criminals are going to remain terrors on society who have nothing of worth to contribute. We recognize that ending all of these lives will only exacerbate the harms on society, and produce little to no benefit in return. Allowing for rehabilitation and some form of redemption through their acts, something they're only allowed to do if they're not dead, is important. 5) Less possibility of error All Pro does here is mitigate the level of harm. I pointed out in the previous round just how common these are. Pro doesn't contest those statistics, merely asserting that no innocent persons have been executed since 1976. Of course, that's wrong " there have been at least 4, and these are the publicized cases.[http://bit.ly...] Pro doesn't respond to my point about "innocent until proven guilty" being ingrained in our sense of justice. It's upheld by our Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and yet it clearly happens. It's one thing to take away someone's freedom while their case is further assessed, it's another to end their lives and remove any possibility of redemption. Lastly, this point about preventing more murders than we lose in innocent deaths is absurd. First, Pro hasn't proven that he's preventing any loss of life. Second, even if he gave some credible evidence, his argument presumes that we know the mindsets of murderers and can predict what they will do in the absence of a death penalty. It's Minority Report without the precogs, an effort to see into possible futures and make a determination based on nothing more than weak statistical correlation. Third, there's a difference between society killing an individual and individual murder. The injustice is much greater on the former. Society has an obligation to its citizens established through the social contract, and killing them without sufficient proof destroys the trust that citizens place in their government. Meanwhile, the government is not directly responsible for every individual who goes out and murders someone. Conclusion: Note that Pro drops all of my arguments. He's unresponsive to the need for rehabilitation, drops that the DP is cruel and unusual punishment, and that it is unfairly and unjustly applied wholesale. Since decisions regarding the DP are inherently questions of justice, these are very important, because even if Pro manages to prove that there's some utilitarian benefit to its continued existence, the lack of justice makes it untenable by itself, warping our legal system at its very core. Back over to you, Pro. 9. http://bit.ly... 10. http://cbsloc.al... 11. http://cnn.it... 12. http://bit.ly...