AAN Tournament : This house endorses Death Penalty

Now without furthur delay I skip to mine. >It would act as a deterrent to crime Punishment is a method adopted by the society to discourage prospective and potential criminals from committing unlawful action. Whether it be the practice of stonning in Yemen or the approved exercise of eye-gouging [1] and amputation[2] in Saudi Arabia(not advocating to any of these) the desired effect is simple, dissuade civilians from committing crime. It is the highest interest of the society to prevent intended homicides and it is only logical to use the highest form of punishment for the same. While the prospect of a life sentence, as my adversary is expected to argue, is frightening, certainly death penalty is a more formidable prospect. "According to roughly a dozen recent studies, executions save lives. For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented. The effect is most pronounced, according to some studies, in Texas and other states that execute condemned inmates relatively often and relatively quickly"[3] Though the number of lives saved enlisted in various studies varies, the underlying undisputable fact is that death penalty does act as a significant deterrent to potential heinous crimes. >Circumstances where death penalty is justified and should be administered There is no presumable limit to the atrocity of crimes that can be committed. Some crimes are just so heinous that it is more than vindicatory for the criminal minds who committed the crime to deserve the death penalty. Intendedly taking away the lives of innocent people explicitly falls into this category. The Dnepropetrovsk maniacs, two nineteen year old boys held responsible for committing twenty-one murders all of which involved beating helpless victims to death with a hammer, just for the said pleasure they got from doing such. So malicious was their intent that they gloated their said homicides and made videos of the same to be released in the internet. [4] This may seem like a quite extreme case but a simple search on the internet will reveal countless such atrocities happening all over the world. A human life is sacred and there must be a deterrent mechanism incorporated that makes sure that the people who transgress this precept are aptly punished. Death penalty ensures this and acts as a symbol that stresses the value and importance placed upon maintaining the sanctity of a human life in a society. Any lesser method of condemnation would fail in enforcing this social discipline. >Prevents the accused from committing further crime Imprisonment doesn't offer a definite solution. Prisons instead of being centres for reformation have largely become cathedrals for crime. Murderers and serious career criminals have been shown to commit grievous crimes even after being imprisoned [5]. And then there is the possibility of the prisoner escaping into the society. Michael Rodriguez, sentenced to life for murder, joined six lesser criminals in overpowering prison employees in Connolly, Texas, last Dec. 13 before leaving in a maintenance truck. Police say the "Malevolent Seven" robbed an Oshman's sporting goods store on Christmas Eve, then shot Irving, Texas, police officer Aubrey Hawkins 11 times and drove over his corpse. Authorities eventually captured Rodriguez and two other fugitives in a stolen Jeep near Woodland Park, Colo. [6] After escaping a Florida prison John Fred Woolard shot and killed a park ranger. After being caught Woolard escaped again, this time from a Mississippi prison, accompanied by armed robber Roy Randall Harper. [7] Death penalty is the only way to ensure that criminals do not escape into the outside world and thus pose a threat to the society or commit further crimes in prison. Putting dangerous murderers and serial killers in prison also endangers other prisoners and gaurds who must watch them. -ORDWAY — A prison inmate accused of killing one correctional officer and seriously wounding a second said he had planned to kill a third in order to boost his body count to "at least three. "-[8] Even high security prisons have had escapees [9]. Ergo, the only way to be perfectly sure that prisoners as such don't, in the future, be the cause of harm to others, is by executing them. >'Wrongful Convictions' Argument An argument so frequently used by those against death penalty that I felt compelled to use it as one of my own contentions. It’s not surprising to see CON use it himself as his opening argument. Thus by negating this argument here in my contentions I will necessarily skip addressing it in my rebuttals. So, the basic premise in arguments as such focuses on the innocents getting killed as a consequence of wrongful convictions in a death penalty. But wrongful convictions are exceptionally rare and it is even more unlikely, when the sentence is the capital punishment; this is because the thorough procedures followed with death penalty cases offers ample protection against wrongful convictions. And also, to add to that, the conclusion that follows such an argument simply asks for too much and isn't coherent. The argument is usually as represented by this syllogism: P1: Any punishment that has a chance of taking away the lives of innocent civilians should be abolished. P2: Death penalty has the chance of taking away the lives of innocent civilians. C: Death penalty should be abolished. Premise 1 is the most problematic part in these types of arguments. It simply is not logical. People are even wrongfully convicted to serve time in prison and, provided they are innocent, have a lot of chance to commit suicide while they are there or actually even get murdered. So going by this argument the conclusion that should necessarily follow is, imprisonment should be abolished? Also premise 2 isn't very pragmatic either. Even if, such a said chance exists, it is extremely low and unlikely as I've stated earlier. Ergo, the 'Wrongful Convictions' Argument isn't really a strong point when arguing against death penalty. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Rebuttals: As I've rebutted PRO's first contention in my own I'll skip to his second one. Here he has made the following assertions: a) Death penalty is costly -Yes, but justice is priceless. There is good reason why death penalty is costly; it is because of the intensive and thorough procedures and investigation undertaken preceding a capital punishment so as to make sure the criminal going to be hanged is indeed a criminal and is guilty enough to deserve the death penalty. b) Reformation or converting criminals into productive citizens. Death penalty is administered to criminals who have committed purely malevolent and heinous crimes. There is simply no reformation or redemption for people as such so thus,even if death penalty is crossed out, we are inevitably left with the next most appropriate punishment, as PRO has suggested, life without parole. But still there is a chance of these people escaping prison or actually harming someone inside the prison. What if a killer spared from a death penalty serving life sentence decides to seriously hurt or kill again? What would we say to his possible future victims if we allow him to live? c) Administering death penalty is a form of revenge styled justice. Revenge results from one's passion and selfish motives ,on the contrary, justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, and fairness put into action, which when fulfilled creates harmony. It is necessary for the law to take away rights of people when they intrude or violate the rights of others; this establishes peace and harmony in the society. By sentencing people to prison, for example, the law takes away the right to movement, affiliation, etc. Similarly, when you commit certain acts of malevolence you give up the right to live. This does not devalue life, but rather upholds the value of the innocent life abused or taken away by the criminal. Thus, certain heinous crimes warranting a death penalty is not any form of revenge but true justice itself. PRO’s next contention is “punishments made by a governing body in a democracy can be described as the collective vigilantism of the governed” Vigilantism leads to miscarriages of justice, simply because of the fact that there is no proper trial or such to determine the guilt of a person involved; and judgment would be tainted by the vigilante’s individual biases. Whereas the law takes sufficient effort to make sure that the person going to be administered the death penalty is absolutely guilty and has a track record that suggests he would try to seriously hurt or kill again. Summary: - Enforcing death penalty would deter crimes - There are crimes that simply must be punished by the death penalty, any lesser punishment would mean failing to uphold proper justice for such crimes. - Death penalty makes sure that the accused doesn’t try to commit further crimes. - 'Wrongful Convictions' Argument is incoherent and doesn’t provide any rational reasons on why death penalty must be abolished. And with that I wrap up. I eagerly await my opponent's response in round 3 Sources: 1: . http://listverse.com... (listed as number 4) 2: . http://www.propagandistmag.com... 3: . http://www.nytimes.com... 4: . http://en.wikipedia.org... 5: . http://www.theguardian.com... 6: . http://off2dr.com... 7: . http://articles.orlandosentinel.com... 8: . http://www.denverpost.com... 9: . http://metro.co.uk...