Question: Should the death penalty be allowed?

the death penalty should be allowed Extend arguments.

The death penalty should be allowed The death penalty is not "wrong". It is just.

Death Penalty should be allowed First I would like to apologies for forfeiting one of the rounds. It was out of my hands. So let me start. Let us first picture a world without death penalty. Well, I see crime rates as high as ever, murders increasing everyday and innocent people not getting their rights back. Chaos roams the streets and people committing crimes to get money and in their heads they know that the worst that can happen to them is prison. For some prison might even be a relief compared to their living standards. So abolishing death penalty only encourages people to break the law and murder more innocent people. More gangs would form and assassinations increase because of the lower punishment received. Right now, some countries that have death penalty are very fragile. The only line between chaos and peace is death penalty. Some might say the cost of killing a criminal is not worth it. Well let me tell you one thing, is the cost of safety not worth it? Would you rather have a peaceful community and pay some extra taxes or would you rather pay less tax and live in a dangerous environment. One of the issues of death penalty is making a mistake in the trails. No system of justice can produce results which are 100% certain all the time. Mistakes will be made in any system which relies upon human testimony for proof. We should be vigilant to uncover and avoid such mistakes. Our system of justice rightfully demands a higher standard for death penalty cases. However, the risk of making a mistake with the extraordinary due process applied in death penalty cases is very small, and there is no credible evidence to show that any innocent persons have been executed at least since the death penalty was reactivated in 1976. Therefore I believe that all the points provided by my opponent are weak and are not strong enough to outweigh the advantages to death penalty.

The Death Penalty The death penalty is something that should be allowed and utilized. If there is sufficient evidence to convict someone of a serious crime, they should not be able to appeal and re-appeal their case, costing millions of dollars per case, most of which, if not all, is paid by taxpayers. It is less of a financial burden to humanely kill those guilty of severe crimes, and it ensures they won't do it again. If the justice system can hold firm on ensuring that those who commit severe crimes are punished accordingly, it should serve as a deterrent to committing these crimes, as most people don't want to die.

Death Penalty The death penalty should not be allowed for various reasons: 1. What makes it moral? Why do we kill people who kill people to show killing people is wrong? It is hypocritical. 2. It violates amendment 8 of the constitution which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, for sometimes it takes a victim longer then expected and wanted to pass. This makes the punishment inhumane and unconstitutional. 3. There is no solid evidence to prove that the death penalty deteriorates crime rates. So what is the point? If anything, it is an easy way out. 4. 1/7 people executed are innocent, why take the chance? 5. The cost of the death penalty is much greater then it would cost to give prisoners/victims life imprisonment. I will await for your rebuttals and then pose a counterargument against such rebuttals.

the death penalty should be allowed C1: The Death Penalty Removes the Possibility of Rehabilitation; The Rehabilitation Model Lines up with Science and Psychology No matter what the crime, and no matter who the perpetrator, rehabilitation is an integral part of the justice system. The rehabilitation model posits that crimes are significantly determined by the environment, social structure, and psychological influences. Grave crimes require perpetrators willing to commit such crimes. There are reasons why persons are willing to rape, kill, or torture--acts most people would feel repulsed in doing. Largely, these persons are the product of factors external to their will. The criminal may have experienced abuse as a child, grown up in economic hardship, fell into the wrong company. He may be sociopathic or suffer from a variety of mental disorders or illnesses. Not every offender matches these circumstances but there is always a source of behavior and grave crimes require out of the ordinary causes which will always enlighten our understanding on why certain people feel compelled to kill. Criminal law professor Ivana Bacik, argues that offenders are in need of help to change their behavior. The best possible solution would be to remove the social structuralism that produces criminals, but for those already a product of their conditions, sentencing should be tailored to rehabilitative help. Research that Bacik participated in discovered an apparent variation in sentencing depending on disadvantage. Defendants from deprived areas are 49% more likely to be given custodial sentences, than those from less deprived areas, [4] thus implying a relationship between communal deprivation and crime. There are numerous facts that provide evidence for a causal determinism in criminal activity. Precursors of criminal behavior can be detected in children as early as elementary school [5]. Genetics, disease, physical trauma, and nutritional factors play large roles in aggressiveness and a proneness to violence [1]. Moreover, "some murderers show significant metabolic abnormalities in as many as six areas of the brain, several of which can suffer damage during gestation or birth"[3]. It is more common for prisoners than the general population to have a history of traumatic brain injury. "In two classic studies of 15 adults and 14 juveniles on death row in the mid-1980s, psychiatrist Dorothy Otnow Lewis found all 29 inmates had a history of traumatic brain injury”. Some occurrences completely change the character of the person involved [2]. Criminologist, Professor, and author, Adrian Raine argues that there’s a biological basis to violent crimes. "Simply put," he says, "if bad brains do cause bad behavior, if brain dysfunction raises the odds that somebody will become a criminal offender — a violent offender — and if the causes of the brain dysfunction come relatively early in life ... should we fully hold that adult individual responsible?" [6] This all points to the fact that rehabilitation should be extremely important in our justice system while retribution and revenge have very little place. The death penalty ignores the plight of humans suffering the conditions of the environment they were born into and the uncontrollable issues that affected the way they act. While murder is no doubt heinous, the exact physiological makeup and the history of an offender alleviates much of the condemnation for the perpetrator himself. Pro may bring up examples that he may believe refutes my argument. For example, can a well-off woman killing her husband and heirs for his estate and riches really be given the same leniancy as those born into abusive families or are suffering brain damage? I would first argue that these types of cases are a minority, as shown. But more importantly, as with other crimes, all actions have a causal basis. There's no mental illness we can apply to the lady, but she's just as much as everyone else a result of factors external to her will--upbringing, genes, physiological setup, environment, and social and everyday influences. C2: The Death Penalty is more Costly Cases involving the death penalty are more costly than others due to murder trials being much more lengthy with the death penalty, litigation costs, extra security, and housing. The average cost of a federal trial in which the death penalty is being sought is $620,932 which is about 8 times that of a federal murder case not involving the death penalty.[8] The death penalty requires more tax dollars than life without parole in every state. For example, California could save $1billion over five years if they replaced capital punishment with life without parole.[8] Though cost in dollars is of much less importance than a person’s right to life, the costliness of the death penalty brings into question just how practical it is. Significant sums of taxpayers money are going to time-wasting trials centered on the killing of persons, and we have to ask how it’s worth the costs. C3: The Death Penalty is Unjust In 1972, the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty violated the 8th amendment by carrying out cruel and unusual punishment [9]. In 1976, state governments pressured it back into use, but the reasoning still holds and the facts remain. The state has no legitimate authority to execute its citizens, no matter what the nature of their act. The death penalty is state-sanctioned murder. In certain situations, it is justifiable to kill, but never in the case of the sentencing someone to death. With the death penalty, there is always a choice--the criminal is safely in the hands of the state--the state has no necessary motive to kill, such as self-defence or preemptive strike. They can easily let the criminal live while also protecting society from him through life without parole, yet they choose to take away his ultimate position, his ultimate right. Moreover, the death penalty is not merely cruel because it executes people; the anticipatory suffering of the criminal is agonizing and tortuous. Albert Camus and Fyodor Dostoevsky both argued that the anticipatory suffering of the criminal probably outweighs that of the victim so that the death penalty’s claim to retributive justice does not hold [10]. Criminals sentenced to death in the United States have to wait an average of 12 years, sometimes up to 30. Death row inmates typically wait years for their deaths almost entirely in their cells in solitary confinement. Healthy inmates often become mentally ill and those already sick experience severe deterioration in their condition [11]. This is easily cruel and unusual punishment and is, thus, unconstitutional via the 8th amendment. The state has a duty to act in the least harmful way possible--yet it gratuitously takes the life of those under its jurisdiction. A society that deliberately kills human-beings without need unequivocally does not respect life. Sources[1] http://orthomolecular.org...[2] http://www.law.uh.edu...[3] http://www.sciencedaily.com...[4] http://www.lawlibrary.ie...[5] http://www.psychologytoday.com...[6] http://www.npr.org...[7] http://www.uscourts.gov...[8] http://www.deathpenalty.org...[9] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[10] http://www.bbc.co.uk...[11] http://www.alternet.org...

The death penalty should be allowed And why is it just? If you are trying to stop killing, it makes absolutely NO sense to kill people!

Use of the Death Penalty as punishment for capital murder and sex crimes. In the case of capital murder and life destroying sexual crimes, the death penalty should be allowed, as it is a powerful deterrent and, if the criminal takes it upon themselves to take control of the life of another and ruin it/ take it, the state/federal government should reserve the power to do so as well.

The death penalty should be allowed The death penalty should not be allowed as you know the old saying, two wrongs don't make a right. The purpose of the death penalty is to stop people committing, killing is a crime.

Death penalty should be allowed Yes people don't believe it but you have to have faith but that's besides the point. I My next claim | this is what you would say. \/ There are more pros to the death penalty than cons. Yes people can get wrongly executed One of the arguments of opponents of death penalty is the inevitability of sending innocent people who are wrongly accused to death row and eventually execution. In relation to free will, some criminals are suffering from mental illness or are having clouded judgment at the time of the crime.Opponents contend that there are instances where people commit pre-meditated crimes and are aware of what they are doing. However, it does not discount the fact that crimes can also be committed out of passion or extreme anger triggered by a situation which makes an offender act on impulse. There are also those who are suffering from mental illnesses and are not taking medication which can lead to them committing offenses they have no control of. It is an added cost to the government and taxpayers" money, With the argument that life imprisonment with no parole is more expensive, opponents say that in general, the government spends more taxpayers" money in handling cases of death row inmates. This is due to the length and complexity of trials, the number or defenders to be hired and the overall process. They contend that there are two trials the state will spend for. One is for the verdict and another for the sentencing, not including the number of appeals that will be submitted while keeping the convicted prisoner inside maximum security. Death penalty is a form of revenge, While proponents say that imposing capital punishment is a form of retribution, that is, to punish who has committed a crime, opponents argue that it is revenge. For the latter, to avenge a crime committed to another individual may be understandable but killing someone for murdering another person is also unconstitutional. It is crime in itself that is only masked by the term capital punishment and in truth, only continues the series of violence. It is a platform that is anti-poor and discriminatoryand Those who are death row inmates and sentenced to death are mostly based on racial discrimination as evidenced by a high percentage of inmates being African-American and members of the minority. Moreover, accused individuals who are poor are mostly the ones who get the death penalty for the reason that they lack the finances to seek for great and powerful defense attorneys. They don"t have the money to pay for good defense. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ This is my info -Death penalty costs the government less as opposed to life imprisonment without parole.Proponents say despite expenses incurred by the government from imposing capital punishment, death penalty is still cheaper compared to the costs of life without parole. Although there is no contention that the cost of the former is high, life imprisonment is accumulatively higher given the expenses for food, health care and other costs of sustaining the lives of incarcerated individuals serving life. -It deters would-be criminals to commit felonies and Advocates of death penalty cite examples on how imposing the death sentence or abolishing it have affected crime rate. According to a study conducted in the late 1960"s, there was a 7% crime rate increase on the years when this law was abolished. On the other hand, fewer crimes were committed with the increase in number of inmates in the death row who were executed each year. Proponents say that these figures clearly indicate the efficacy of capital punishment on deterring crimes. - The absence of death penalty is synonymous to crime rate increase.As reported by time magazine, an estimated 2,000,000 people in the United States have been victims of crimes, from assault to murder. With insufficient laws to address this problem or the lack of teeth in these laws, criminals become careless and bolder to commit heinous crimes because of the leniency in punishments and loop holes in the justice system. For these reason, there is a need for death penalty. -It is constitutional and does not violate the Eight Amendment which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, fines and cruel and unusual punishments, including torture. Advocates of death penalty say that the pain associated with the execution of a death row inmate is not improbable. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the Eight Amendment challenge which stated that the drug used to render the criminal coma-like unconscious before injecting the lethal drug is not capable to do so completely. The Supreme Court was firm on its stand that any method of execution definitely will inflict some pain and states with capital punishment have already adopted more humane methods to carry out executions. -Death penalty is a just punishment for crimes committed against the rights to life, freedom and safety of victims. It is the right of an individual to live peacefully and be free from harm. Unfortunately, crimes like murder, rape and assault are committed by perpetrators who have no regard for life and property of others. Since they violate other people"s lives, it is but fair that they are brought to justice and suffer the fate they rightfully deserve. People who are for capital punishment also talk about free will wherein an individual is given the right to do things in his or her own volition and he or she is responsible for his or her own fate. All of this shows that it is constitutional, and it would make the victim get peace or have freedom. What would you want the judge to say if you or a loved one got killed, or maybe your whole family except for you that no has to suffer from what happened? Please answer.

capital punishment should not be abolished Capital punishment is the death penalty given by the government of a country, to people who have committed hideous crimes like homicide, rape, etc. Death penalty has been a way of punishing people since ages. Although there are some countries that have abolished death penalty from their law, there are still many which still practice the act of killing a person for crime. Death penalty is prevalent in the US, Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Some of the ways of executing criminals are hanging, shooting, electrocution and giving lethal injections. People have different opinions on the issue of death penalty given to a convict. While some think that death penalty is necessary for those who have committed a terrible crime, there are others who consider it as an immoral act that goes against the values of humanity. Advantages: 1.A person who has committed a crime like killing or raping another person should be given death penalty, which is as severe punishment as the act. It is said that when a criminal is given a death penalty, it dissuades others in the society from committing such serious crimes. They would refrain from such crimes due to fear of losing their lives. This would definitely help in reducing crime rate in society. 2.If a criminal is jailed, he may again commit the same crime after being released from prison. Giving him death penalty would make sure that the society is safe from being attacked by criminals. It seems to be an appropriate punishment for serial killers and for those who continue to commit crimes even after serving imprisonment. 3.Some believe that instead of announcing life imprisonment for the convicts, where they would have to live a futile life behind closed bars, it is better to kill them. It is said that imprisoning someone is more expensive than executing him. Rather than spending on a person who may again commit terrifying crime, it is better to put him to death. 4.Death penalty is equated as revenge for pain and suffering that the criminal inflicted on the victim. Some people strongly believe that a person who has taken the life of another person does not have a right to live. Sentencing such a criminal can give relief to the family members of the victim that their loved one has obtained justice. 5.It is also important for the safety of fellow prison inmates and guards, as people who commit horrifying crimes like murder are believed to have a violent personality and may, in future, attack someone during imprisonment. These reasons emphasize the importance of death penalty for the safety and betterment of human society.

Death penalty should be allowed The criminal justice system, in general, needs desperately to be rethought, it would be more accurately named the "Social Revenge System". The death penalty is currently applied inappropriately, however, it could still have a place.

The death penalty should NOT be allowed 1. Self-Responsibility upon the Individual: Whose fault is it for doing the crime? The criminal for doing the action of causing a threat towards society. He or she is the one responsible for their own actions, and should suffer the consequences. My opponent could argue about the potential mistakes about the Death Penalty, but stated under "US death row study: 4% of defendants sentenced to die are innocent", it states that only 4.1% of defendants, that are executed, are actually innocent. That is, in fact, a small percentage compared to the prison population in the US. And, I admit, that it is sad that a "mistake" happens with the killing of an innocent individual, but why was that individual in prison in the first place? Following the argument of self-responsibility, it was his or her mistake to be in prison in the first place; otherwise their death would not come.2. Deters Crime: This is a common argument used on both sides of whether or not the Death Penalty does or doesn't deter crime, but I will prove that it does deter crime within society. Supported evidence, from the article titled: "The Death Penalty Deters Crime and Saves Lives", it says: "Criminals are no different from law-abiding people. Criminals rationally maximize their own self-interest (utility) subject to constraints (prices, incomes) that they face in the marketplace and elsewhere. Individuals make their decisions based on the net costs and benefits of each alternative. Thus, deterrence theory provides a basis for analyzing how capital punishment should influence murder rates. Over the years, several studies have demonstrated a link between executions and decreases in murder rates. In fact, studies done in recent years, using sophisticated panel data methods, consistently demonstrate a strong link between executions and reduced murder incidents". To even further support the given evidence, state under another article titled: "Do more executions mean fewer murders", it states that each execution would help prevent at least 18 murders of innocent civilians. And also claims that the reason why it seems like the idea does not deter crime is because of how slow the executions take to get into effect. The article claims that if one murderer is executed instantly, it would prevent at least 1 murder of any civilian. So technically, the Death Penalty does deter crime; but the issue is how long it takes for the Death Penalty to take effect. In reality, the Death Penalty should be an instant action, instead of a long drawn out session when the final decision was made.3. Economically Beneficial: For this argument, let me please review the costs of the methods used within the Death Penalty. The cost for a Lethal Injection, stated under "Methods of Execution", is about $86.06. That is much cheaper than the most common method of the Electric Chair, which runs about $265,000. And as we know, technology is advancing within our society; and other methods for killing are being introduced. One example is that in a recent article from Ohio, a state that approves the Death Penalty, they are inventing new methods for it. The given example is the "Robotic Arm", where it decapitates the Criminal quickly and pain free. It also plays calming music so the Criminal is not suffering as much as compared with other methods. The pricing for the Robotic Arm would be expensive, but would be a one time buy. Some changes in machinery would be needed, but that is actually more economically beneficial than the other methods presented. As well as if we look at the costs, while a criminal is on Death Row, it shows that it is the result of costing more money, than actually saving money. Stated under "Costs of the Death Penalty", it states that the reason why people claim the Death Penalty is expensive is because of how long the execution takes. The prices, for trials and such, reach up to about 1 billion dollars. That is a lot, just to prove the "innocence" of a murderer!4. The Bible Agrees with the Death Penalty: Stated under both the Old Testament and New, God agrees that the Death Penalty should be used as punishment for ones crimes. From Genesis 9:6, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man". This quote is simply referring to how many people put a focus more on human rights, than God himself; or if we do not want to get into a Religious argument, the consequence for a criminals action. Self responsibilty, or an "Eye for an eye". And to even further this argument, from Revelation 13:10, "He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints". Which simply means that if we have it, we should use it to bring justice amongst society.5. The Death Penalty Brings Justice: for this argument, I wish to present the definition of "justice". Justice is defined as:"Just behavior or treatment". Basicvally, bringing a balance a good feeling towards society. The Death Penalty fulfills this burden by murdering the person, for taking another innocent civilians life. Stated under "A Just Society Requires the Death Penalty for the Taking of Another Life", it says: "When someone takes a life, the balance of justice is disturbed. Unless that balance is restored, society succumbs to a rule of violence. Only the taking of the murderer's life restores the balance and allows society to show convincingly that murder is an intolerable crime which will be punished in kind". Simple enough concept, but many argue about human rights,insteadof arguing about the fact of a criminal taking accountability for his or her own actions. 6. Promotes a Better Environment in Prisons: Imagine the feeling of being a prison guard, going through the cells and possibly being murdered. It is a scary feeling, and as a society, we need to bring safety to the guards environment. How? By the usage of the Death Penalty, which eliminates all the threats of murders within the prison. Quoted from the New York Times article "The Death Penalty can Create a Better Prison Environment", it says: "Surely the men and women who guard our prisons deserve society's respect, support and protection. The death penalty for certain crimes inside of prisons is one way of protecting them from being murdered on the job. The sooner we give them this, the sooner their ranks will grow to include more compassionate, better educated people truly able to reform the system at all levels". Are we at the point of neglecting the safety of the innocent, to the criminals because of the Death Penalty being horrid? The Death Penalty would prevent the possible murders within the prisons environment. Under the document "Mortality in Local Jails and State Prisons, 2000–2012 - Statistical Tables", it states that in 2012 we had an 8% increase in murders within prisons, and is increasing as the years pass by. And most of these murders have occured within inmates who are on Death Row, and Mentally Ill Inmates. The percentage totaling up to 67%, which is a lot for an inmate about to get the Death Penalty. So once more, instead of taking the time to commence the Death Penalty; just do it when it is sentenced.7. Prevents Overpopulation within Prisons: Statedunder the article, "The United States Has The Largest Prison Population In The World " And It"s Growing", it states that within our country 1.57 million inmates are occupying any sort of cell. The most common crime, taken in 2013, involve physical harm. Stated under "Criminal Victimization", the highest number of crimes involve mostly any physical harm to the victim. Examples being rape, assault, or even murder; and the scary part is that at least 1/3 of the inmates are involved in this sort of crime. This is a high number for prisoners and needs to be reduced, hence the reasoning of why the Death Penalty should be used. The Death Penalty will lower the overpopulation of inmates, and actually have room for inmates that deserve to be in prison for drug abuse, and or other charges. As well as protect the more "innocent" of the inmates from the aggression of these violent criminals actions or influence. And also bring along more protection for the public. with the Death Penalty, we can lower the numbers of prison population!Given the arguments, we can see that the Death Penalty has its benefits towards our society.Sources: htp://www.biblebelievers.com...http://www.theguardian.com...http://www.washingtonpost.com...http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org...http://www.nytimes.com.../www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/mljsp0012st.pdfhttp://www.bjs.gov...http://thinkprogress.org...http://www.heritage.org...http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu...http://www.vice.com...http://www.theonion.com...http://www.seattletimes.com...

should death penitently stay The death penalty should be allowed because those who kill innocent people should pay for it with their own lives. The death penalty should be allowed as an acceptable punishment for those who kill innocent people. Taxpayers should not have to pay for a killer to spend the rest of their lives not working, watching cable tv, and working out. The killer took an innocent life and should not be given any of the privileges and luxuries that they took away from the victim.

the death penalty should be allowed I believe the death penalty is not the best way to solve all crimes but in some cases like mass murdering or kidnapping or something else. I do think that killing someone is not the first solution but if they get to live they should at least have some harsher punishments besides just jail because its not that bad. But the main reason i think the death penalty should be allowed is because if someone decided to do something as evil as a mass murdering they shouldn't just go to jail for a life time and get it over with it because its just not fair the American jail is not as hard as should be on certain prisoners for what they have done. I think that if you have the guts to go up and have the nerve to kill someone then you definitely don't deserve to still be living and breathing on this earth its just not right you need to learn from your mistakes and it will also teach others to learn from what you have done and be warned that if you decide to take this path in your life there will be serious consequences like the death penalty or harsher and stricter jails. People need to take the blame for what they have clearly done and its not right to kill and innocent person and still live and eat and live your life when them and their families have to suffer for what you have done. It also gives closure to the victims families who have suffered so deeply because of your cruel actions, and also i don't know if you've noticed but your justice system has more sympathy for our criminals than our victims. Another good reason to have the death penalty is because when a prisoner's parole or escape can give the criminals another opportunity to kill another person again. Also have you noticed with all these prisoners here and known of them getting killed its taking up space and that's not realty safe. And finally something we all have to pay attention almost everyday is our taxes did you know that we are paying to keep our criminals stuck in that jail place when it could be going to something a lot more useful that could actually help and benefit us. Overall i do agree with the death penalty but if there we some law that were to be passed that made the jails a bit more stricter and made them suffer more them i would also agree with that as well . Some people may call that mean or getting eye to eye which is also not the best way to solve things and i agree and here your point but its also not fair haven't you ever lost a loved one and if so just imagine the reason they died is because guy was just feeling angry and decided to kill someone that night and its also not only that is just that someone who had the mentality to do something like that clearly needs to get their facts straight and on the right track.

The Death Penalty Capital punishment is a necessary evil. It is part of retribution so that society has an ordered sense of justice. It is used as a last resort. It is a form of deterrence. It's important to distinguish between the threat of punishment and the actual effectuation of the punishment. No one would receive capital punishment except through a long process of deliberation and a lengthy number of appeals in the justice system. For example, if a person who was convicted of a serious crime, such as first-degree (premeditated and/or with malice) homicide, received a very poor defense from a public defender because he or she could not afford a decent lawyer, she or he could obtain redress and possibly overturn the original conviction due to incompetent counsel. When it is determined that many wrongful convictions have occurred which have placed innocent people on "Death Row," the governor can and should declare a moratorium on the death penalty until all current death row inmates awaiting execution would have further opportunity to review their cases and figure out ways to speed up DNA crime analysis to confirm or disconfirm guilt. The death penalty should never be used except in cases of premeditated, conscious murder and never self-defense leading to accidental homicide. One of the primary reasons for the death penalty is a just society where one person who takes another person's life has serious consequences. Blood for blood, so to speak. In Genesis chapter 9, after Noah has been discharged from the ark, God issues instructions for civil and just societies to be conducted. There are punishments for taking the life of humans and animals: "For your own lifeblood I will surely require a reckoning: from every animal I will require it and from human beings, each one for the blood of another, I will require a reckoning for human life. Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his image God made humankind." 1 The taking of another person's life is not to be flippant or a trivial thing; justice whereby the perpetrator receives a similar punishment to the crime committed ensures that life and spilling blood are serious matters. My opponent writes about some interesting reasons for opposing the death penalty including the "risk of killing the innocent." That is not a great reason; many people who sit in a prison cell for years, cut off from their families and the rest of society may have been innocent of the charges that were brought against them. Is it better that they sit, wasting away in a prison cell, or that they die innocent? Either way, it is about a miscarriage of justice which we need to reform. Another similar reason she cites is "racial discrimination." But the same response I just gave applies to this argument as well. Racial discrimination is wrong whether a particular state has enacted the death penalty or not. She argues that human rights would be violated by the death penalty. Again, human rights would also be violated by awful, overcrowded prison conditions which many states have an issue with. I would like to see the evidence that the "mentally ill" are being targeted by the death penalty. Now, if we are talking about mental illness as in ADHD, then I could see a possibility of that. Basically, since the perpetrator has taken away and/or violated the human rights of another person selfishly, they lose their human rights and it is a lesson to society to take human life as a precious thing. In short, there are no really compelling reasons to abolish the death penalty. The death penalty makes a point about justice and morality that actions have consequences.

Death penalty should be allowed Rebuttals to opponent's arguments:It seems my opponent advocates the "eye for an eye" morality. What makes this morality superior? While they stated the golden rule, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense here. You wouldn't want to be killed if you murdered someone, right? So why should the murderer be killed when you, yourself, wouldn't want to be killed? Unless you're suicidal, you wouldn't want to be killed, so the golden rule would actually be reason against the death penalty. Now, as I said, what my opponent actually seems to advocate is the eye for an eye morality. To quote Gandhi "An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind". We would be no better than the murderer by killing them. My main arguments:1) The death penalty is more expensive than life in prison sentences. No matter what state you look at, lawsuits where the death penalty is the goal, are a lot more expensive, as much asmillions of dollars more expensive in some cases[1]. Over all, capital punishment is much more expensive than life imrisonment without the possibility of parole[2] 2) The death penalty is making us less safe. "The exorbitant costs of capital punishment are actually making America less safe because badly needed financial and legal resources are being diverted from effective crime fighting strategies. Before the Los Angeles riots, for example, California had little money for innovations like community policing, but was managing to spend an extra $90 million per year on capital punishment. Texas, with over 300 people on death row, is spending an estimated $2.3 million per case, but its murder rate remains one of the highest in the country. " [2] So, since resources and money is being spent on the death penalty instead of in other areas, it is actually making America less safe, not more safe.3) There are people who are innocent who get the death penaltyI consider it much worse to end the life of someone who is innocent of the crime. We don't have a perfect justice system, so we shouldn't be using extreme punishments such as ending the life of someone. It's estimated that 4.1% of those sentenced to the death penalty are innocent[3], but only 1.9% are ever discovered to be innocent after that they are convicted. How is the death penalty justifiable at all, when there is a chance for innocent people being killed? At least with life in prison without the chance of parole, there is a longer amount of time for us to discover new evidence that would make the person innocent. Once a person is dead, it wouldn't matter if new evidence arose that proved their innocent: you can't undo the death of that person. Sources:[1] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [2] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... [3] http://www.pnas.org...

Death penalty should be allowed https://www.biblebelievers.com... http://time.com... Yes I would would want to get the death penalty because I would deserve it and I wouldn't live with myself These are reasons that the death penalty should be allowed 1).The death penalty was first instituted by God Himself in Genesis 9:6: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." Man didn't invent the death penalty, so man has no right to abandon it. We live in an age when everyone is far too concerned with "human rights", and God has been practically ignored, as if He had no rights at all. Killers are to be killed, and God's will has not been fulfilled until our governing bodies have executed wrath upon those who have killed others. 2).God has actually promised to bless us if we follow His plan of using the death penalty? Notice Deuteronomy 19:11-13. The death Penalty also brings closure for the people who got seriously injured or loved ones who got killed, their families will get closure. "Many in the survivor community feel like the death penalty offers a sense of justice being done. And that's what his sentence felt like to me. I hope it also brings closure to those who lost loved ones that day. There are, of course, many in the survivor community who feel that he should spend his life in prison and sit in a cell and think about what he did. I don't speak for everybody". Anyways, it also stops from the person from committing another murder/crime. And they deserve what they get and it pleases the Lord. Thanks for debating me:)

the death penalty should be allowed I think the death penalty should stay for the criminals that deserve it because first of all our tax money is paying to keep them in prison even after they did a horrendous crime and besides jail is not torture enough it barely even close enough homeless people come to jail all the time to get food and water and heating and another reason why there should definitely be a death penalty is because someone who is responsible on taking away lives from other people for no reason is just straight up cruel and evil and we should take charge and do something about it because innocent people don't deserve to die its not fair and these people need to learn and understand that what they did was not only wrong but monstrous and inhuman and it will also teach a lesson to others as well.

Death Penalty should be allowed It's good to see my opponent returned in time for the last round. With no further ado, I will start rebuttals. Pro writes "Let us first picture a world without death penalty. Well, I see crime rates as high as ever, murders increasing everyday and innocent people not getting their rights back. Chaos roams the streets and people committing crimes to get money and in their heads they know that the worst that can happen to them is prison. For some prison might even be a relief compared to their living standards. "Just because you see it doesn't make it so. We have places without the death penalty, and they haven't descended into madness. Most rational people wouldn't want to commit crimes anyway, and the lunatics who do commit crimes usually end up imprisoned. I suggest rather than the death penalty, we increase the undesirability of jail. Everyone who is jailed should be forced to do hard labor at below minimum wage, the proceeds of which go to their victim(s) or the prison. This is far more profitable than killing them, as now they are working for their keep and then some. Pro writes "So abolishing death penalty only encourages people to break the law and murder more innocent people. More gangs would form and assassinations increase because of the lower punishment received. Right now, some countries that have death penalty are very fragile. The only line between chaos and peace is death penalty. "No it doesn't. You still get punished, and it's still not pleasant. No one likes losing their freedoms. For some, being locked in a tightly controlled prison for the rest of their lives is much worse than dying. If you're in a gang, you could face death regularly in gang wars, but being trapped until you die could be much much worse. 139 countries have abolished the death penalty, and they are not desolate wastelands, so it stands to reason that the death penalty is not the most effective method of keeping order. Pro writes "Some might say the cost of killing a criminal is not worth it. Well let me tell you one thing, is the cost of safety not worth it? Would you rather have a peaceful community and pay some extra taxes or would you rather pay less tax and live in a dangerous environment. "From a perspective of danger, I am not likely to be endangered by someone who is an inmate for life. Pro writes "One of the issues of death penalty is making a mistake in the trails. No system of justice can produce results which are 100% certain all the time. Mistakes will be made in any system which relies upon human testimony for proof. We should be vigilant to uncover and avoid such mistakes. Our system of justice rightfully demands a higher standard for death penalty cases. However, the risk of making a mistake with the extraordinary due process applied in death penalty cases is very small, and there is no credible evidence to show that any innocent persons have been executed at least since the death penalty was reactivated in 1976. "I think a single innocent person being executed would be enough to deter me from the death penalty. If the government has the death penalty at it's disposal for eliminating people, it could easily use that power tyrannically. Pro himself conceded that no justice system is perfect, so why add to it a feature that lets you eliminate someone permanently? You could make a mistake.

The death penalty should be abolished Wonderful! I appreciate how sporting you are. I look forward to the debate. I will begin by presenting my points in favour of the death penalty. If of course, you are not comfortable taking this side of the debate, I welcome you to start another debate and take the side I have adopted. I will be more than willing to oblige. Argument 1 - It keeps society safe The death penalty is reserved, almost exclusively for crimes which the state and its laws deem to pose a major threat to a country and/or its people. These include crimes against humanity (e.g. genocide), espionage, mass murder, and drug trafficking, to name a few. All these crimes place society in danger, and the power to deal with them with the capital punishment allows the state to keep them at bay. With most of such cases, a judge evaluates the case qualitatively and considers the remorse of the criminal and/or his/her potential of reform. A criminal who shows remorse or potential for reform is often given a reduced sentence of life imprisonment. Argument 2 - It comes at a lower cost To imprison someone for life incurs an immense cost to the average taxpayer in a country. Why should the average citizen pay for the sustenance of non-reformable criminals who pose a threat to his/her fundamental rights? Why should this money not go instead to furthering the prospects of people who have the capability of contributing more to society? This money could go towards education, research and development, aid for people in poverty-stricken countries, rather than spent on maintaining criminals. Argument 3 - It acts as a deterrent You will undoubtedly find countless sources that say that it does not actually deter criminals who are already prepared to commit such crimes. The capital punishment, however, acts not primarily as a deterrent to existing criminals, but to potential criminals. A criminal contemplating capital crimes would have a much higher opportunity cost, and would think many times before placing his life in such grave danger. Death penalties, which are swift and sure, such as the mandatory death penalty, are much more likely to have a strong impact. Argument 4 - Anything less is unjust Murder refers to when someone deprives another of their fundamental right to life. A punishment less than the same would simply be inadequate in terms of justice. Argument 5 - It makes absolutely sure that the crime cannot be committed again History is replete with examples of criminal network leaders maintaining their networks from prison, mass murderers killing other prisoners while in prison, or the criminally insane, who end up killing their caregivers in a mental asylum. Only the death penalty can make absolutely certain that these criminals do not repeat their crimes. Argument 6 - It works Countries such as Singapore which have used the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking and the death penalty for several other offences, can be observed to have some of the lowest rates of crime, especially serious crime, in the world. Drug trafficking, to draw a clearer link, is almost nonexistent in the country. The steep penalty plays a part. Abuses of the death penalty are not covered by my arguments. These abuses include the death penalty for adultery or apostasy, unless sanctioned under legitimate state laws. My arguments refer only to the death penalty as sanctioned by a state. For these reasons, I maintain that the death penalty should absolutely be kept in force. Please note that you would have to provide arguments along with counters to my points. I look forward to your responses.

The death penalty should be banned from a form of punishment. It is believed that keeping harsh punishments like death penalty conduce to fear in the would-be murderer's mind pertaining to their future on being caught. If people know they will only face life-imprisonment, they will take the legal system casually and commit all the crimes they want. This increases the rate of homicides. By instilling death penalty in the legal system, people will not dare to murder that easily. Thus, death penalty is considered as an essential tool to fight premeditated murder. Since life is so precious, the punishment for taking somebody's life is paying the price with your own life. Thus, death penalty is nothing but just punishment for those who have taken another individual or individuals lives. Keeping the death penalty will scare people even more into not committing the crime.

The Death Penalty should be abolished The Death Penalty - is murder, which is morally wrong. It is not the government's place to murder people without war. - Nobody is afriad of the death penalty so it is ineffective. People are afriad of prison. You never hear, "I would but I don't want to get the death penalty." You do hear, "I would. I don't want to go to jail." - It kills people instead of allowing them to pay for their crimes. - The appeal process is too great for a death penalty person. They can get acquitted any time wrongfully. - Capital punishment is cruel and unusual, violating the constitution. Next, we will get rid of freedom of speech, religion, etc. It is destroying American values. - The death penalty is used disproportionately against the poor, who cannot afford expensive legal counsel, as well as racial, ethnic and religious minorities. - The death penalty is applied arbitrarily and inconsistently. - Wrongly convicted, innocent people have received death penalty sentences, and tragically, were killed by the state. People are released from jail constantly for crimes they did not commit. Imagine if you were suddenly murdered for a crime you did not commit. - A rehabilitated criminal can make a morally valuable contribution to society. - Financial costs to taxpayers of capital punishment is several times that of keeping someone in prison for life. - The endless appeals and required additional procedures clog our court system and make speedy trials impossible as well. - We as a society have to move away from the "eye for an eye" revenge mentality if civilization is to advance. - It sends the wrong message: why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong. Should we rape people who rape people? Speed toward who speed? Kidnap people who kidnap? It teaches no lesson. This is exactly what law is trying to get away from by allowing the government to punish instead of allowing people to get personal revenge. - Why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong. Should we rape people who rape people? No lesson is learned. - Other countries (especially in Europe) would have a more favorable image of America. And we could have more help in our military and economic ventures. - Most jury members are reluctant to convict if it means putting someone to death. Letting murderers roam free. - The prisoner's family must suffer from seeing their loved one put to death by the state, as well as going through the emotionally-draining appeals process.

Capital Punishment Should be Abolished Thanks Pro! Onto the arguments. I shall present two arguments in favour of the death penalty. Firstly, I will argue that the principles of retribution justify Capital Punishment (AKA, the death penalty), and secondly, that Capital Punishment acts as a deterrent to further crime being committed. Retribution/Lex talionis Firstly, the death penalty creates a morally more satisfactory state of affairs. This may be seen by explicating the principle that by committing a moral evil, one creates a moral debt to the victim. This is true under any moral theory aside from moral nihilism (but if nihilism is assumed, the debate is null) - even subjectivist theories - and so should be accepted in any case. Provided the act gives harm to the victim, a damage by way of harm (either harms of repression or harms of reduction, as analysed by constitutive criminology [1]) is made. In other words, when one commits a crime, one creates a moral debt. To restore equilibrium, and a fortiori a moral state of affairs, this debt needs to be paid, and thus, some form of retributive punishment needs to be administered - as Morris states, "exacting the debt" [2]. If a truly moral state of affairs is acieved, lex talionis should be polity, in which case, the retribution matches the debt. A death should result in death. Thus, the death penalty is justified for at least those crimes where there has been a loss of life. As Kant pithily explains: “whatever undeserved evil you inflict upon another within the people, that you inflict upon yourself"[3]. Furthermore, Hampton elucidates: "If I have value equal to that of my assailant, then that must be made manifest after I have been victimized. By victimizing me, the wrongdoer has declared himself elevated with respect to me, acting as a superior who is permitted to use me for his purposes. A false moral claim has been made… The retributivist demands that the false claim be corrected. The lord must be humbled to show that he isn't the lord of the victim." She continues: "Retributive punishment is the defeat of the wrongdoer at the hands of the victim (either directly or indirectly through an agent of the victim's, e.g., the state) that symbolizes the correct relative value of wrongdoer and victim. It is a symbol that is conceptually required to reaffirm a victim's equal worth in the face of a challenge to it." No other form of punishment achieves this end. For a great deal of crimes, namely, those that result either in death or else are so morally atrocious that they are equivalent to the loss of life, nothing but death would be proper retribution: not even life imprisonment can compensate for loss of life. Thus, one cannot then resort to other forms of punishment such as incarceration as retribution. Only the death penalty can suffice. Why should we accept the above? It is evident firstly as I mentioned above: almost every moral theory posits that evil is a real thing, inflicted upon the victim, and by extension, should be balanced. Secondly, convention and emotional response from individuals points towards this. Calls for retribution for crimes are unbelievably widespread - murderers, pedophiles, rapists - indeed, such right realist theories are in popular opinion at the moment, with over half of the US population in support of capital punishment [5]. While this entails conventionalism at best, the sheer uniformity of opinion means that it can be accepted as a properly basic belief, with a prima facie justification for its veracity. Deterrent The second argument comes from the idea that the death penalty prevents further crime being committed in the future, since it gives a sanction to the perpetrator of the crime. When considering whether to commit a crime or not, the perpetrator makes a rational choice, as explicated by opportunity theory [6] (Cornish and Clarke): in committing a crime, the criminal makes a choice - i.e., whether or not to commit the crime - this much is certain. In any decision, however, one must, either correctly or incorrectly, weigh the benefits against the costs as to arrive at an informed decision which benefits the individual. Crime is no different, and can be seen by the scale of utilitarian crimes. Now punishment acts as a cost to criminal behaviour. Surely, for the most efficacious criminal polity, the harshest punishment acts as the strongest deterrent. If the cost of committing a crime is death as opposed to incarceration, criminals - not only those committing murder, but those committing all moral misdeeds - will decide not to commit the crime in the first place. Thus, the death penalty should be imposed simply due to how it deters other crime from being committed. It matters not whether it is in itself immoral (though I would contest - see above). What matters is its effect. Not to go all pragmatic, but this alone justifies the death penalty. The stats support this. For instance, Dezhbakhsh, Rubin and Shepherd found that in 3,000 US counties, for every 1 execution there were 18 fewer murders. [7] Another way to look at this is given by Duff (2001 and 2011), who offers a communication theory whereby punishment - especially harsh punishment - is necessary to communicate censure for wrongdoing, to the moral community. When the execution of criminals is advertised by the mass media, everyone is alerted to the abominable nature of the act such that it warrants death. This communicates to the moral community that murder, high treason, etc. is intrinsically wrong. In doing so, the moral community, striving to conform to accepted rules and norms, will indeed conform and step away from criminal acts. Think of it simply: unless the point that murder is wrong of the highest order is communicated in one form or another, one shall do it. Only the death penalty - not the measly competing punishments like life imprisonment - achieves this. Indeed, crime should be lowered the most possible. Thus the most extreme communication - death - is surely therefore the best policy to pursue. If the above is successful and properly communicated, very few deaths of immoral individuals (from the death penalty) can prevent a far higher number of innocent deaths. This is surely a morally more acceptable scenario than the alternative, and indeed can help prevent more crime from being committed in the Long-run. Conclusion I have shown not only why the death penalty is morally virtuous on its own accord, but also why even if it is not, it serves a greater cause of deterring crime. Taken cumulatively, the above constitutes a strong argument for the death penalty. Sources: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org... [2] Morris, “Persons and Punishment”, The Monist, 52: 475–501. [3] Kant, 1797, The Metaphysics of Morals, M. Gregor (trans.), New York: Cambridge University Press (1991). [4] Murphy and Hampton 1988: 125–126 [5] http://www.people-press.org... [6] https://en.m.wikipedia.org... [7] Dezhbakhsh, Rubin and Shepherd, "Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data", American Law and Economics Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 344-376

Death penalty should be allowed People who are threats to the innocent should be stopped but putting them into prison doesn't really solve what they did to the innocent not only that but it cost, 760,000 a year . They shouldn't be allowed to live if they killed someone. They should get what they deserve. It's just like the golden rule . " treat others the way you want to be treated". If you kill someone, then you should get punished for your actions.

Death Penalty should be allowed I am going to argue for this topic. I believe that death penalty should be allowed in many countries if not all of them.

We should not ban the deah penalty [1] Capital punishment is the death penalty given by the government of a country, to people who have committed hideous crimes like homicide, rape, etc. Capital punishment has been a way of punishing people since ages. Although there are some countries that have abolished death penalty from their law, there are still many which still practice the act of killing a person for crime. Capital punishment is prevalent in the US, Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Some of the ways of executing criminals are hanging, shooting, electrocution and giving lethal injections. 1) The crimes of rape, torture, treason, kidnapping, murder, larceny, and perjury pivot on a moral code that escapes apodictic proof by expert testimony or otherwise. But communities would plunge into anarchy if they could not act on moral assumptions less certain than that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Abolitionists may contend that the death penalty is inherently immoral because governments should never take human life, no matter what the provocation. But that is an article of faith, not of fact. The death penalty honors human dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or for ill; it does not treat him as an animal with no moral sense. 2) If a criminal is jailed, he may again commit the same crime after being released from prison. Giving him capital punishment would make sure that the society is safe from being attacked by criminals. It seems to be an appropriate punishment for serial killers and for those who continue to commit crimes even after serving imprisonment 3) Some believe that instead of announcing life imprisonment for the convicts, where they would have to live a futile life behind closed bars, it is better to kill them. It is said that imprisoning someone is more expensive than executing him. Rather than spending on a person who may again commit terrifying crime, it is better to put him to death. 4) Capital punishment is equated as revenge for pain and suffering that the criminal inflicted on the victim. Some people strongly believe that a person who has taken the life of another person does not have a right to live. Sentencing such a criminal can give relief to the family members of the victim that their loved one has obtained justice. 5)It is also important for the safety of fellow prison inmates and guards, as people who commit horrifying crimes like murder are believed to have a violent personality and may, in future, attack someone during imprisonment. These reasons emphasize the importance of capital punishment for the betterment of human society. However, there is another section of people who believe that it is an immoral and unethical act of violence. [1] http://www.buzzle.com...

The Death Penalty should be Abolished The death penalty is necessary, because some people are so vile they can never be in contact with society without harming it in some way. Truly evil people do exist and they harm others - sometimes killing or ruining lives through their actions. This is not something that should be acceptable or allowed to continue without punishment to deter others with a like mentality.

The death penalty should NOT be allowed Contention #1 Justice and Public Support The death penalty demands that justice should be attributed to the victims of the family. In the United States of America, the Death Penalty is only reserved for the most serious crimes, and somebody he commits such a heinous act, is subject to this punishment. Most Americans recognize this principle as just, as 60% of Americans still believe that the DP is appropriate for homicide. (1)Regarding the ethics, let me explain a bit further. When a criminal, commits homicide, he violates an major right that was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, which is the term ""Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". (2) When you violate the right to live, what moral right does the criminal have to live? Even though the victim and the victim's family cannot be restored to the status which preceded the murder, the Death penalty brings justice to the family. Contention #2 Deterrence The Deterrence Theory The death penalty in fact, does deter crime. According to sources provided by Isaac Ehrlich, currently a University of Buffalo Distinguished Professor of Economics, he figured that according to the deterrence theory, criminals are no different from law-abiding people. Criminals "rationally maximize their own self-interest subject to constraints that they face in the marketplace and elsewhere. In other words, criminals will likely not commit the crime, if they feel the costs outweigh the benefits. (3) This theory serves as a deterence to crime, as a socioeconomic factor such as "fear" will keep criminals from committing addtional crimes. Several economists agree to this, regardign Issac Ehrlich studies, Professor Stephen K. Layson of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro reconfirmed his findings. Finally, according to "Joanna M. Shepherd", she concluding 3 factors after her studies. (4) First, each execution, on average, is associated with three fewer murders. The deterred murders included both crimes of passion and murders by intimates.Second, executions deter the murder of whites and African-Americans. Each execution prevents the murder of one white person, 1.5 African-Americans, and 0.5 persons of other races. Third, shorter waits on death row are associated with increased deterrence. For each additional 2.75-year reduction in the death row wait until execution, one murder is deterred. It is quite clear, that according to studies done by economists, and professors, The Detterence theory indeed does apply to also criminals, thus deters crime. RecidivismOne thing that the death penalty fulfills, is that it prevent recidivism from occuring. According to report published by th Bureau of Justice, it stats that out of 300,000 prisoners who were released in 1994, 67.5% of those criminals re-offended. (5) Out of those, 1.2% of those convicted of homicide were arrested for another homicide within three years of release.(5) These stats are quite high, as reoffending rates for homicide who re-offend between 6 months jump up to 12.5%. The only way to prevent these offenses from being commited again, is the death penalty. Even in jail itself, there is no gurantee that the criminal will not murder someone else. In another report by the Bureau of Justice, 2.1% of all deaths in prison, resulted from homicide. (6) This way, it is guranteed the death penalty would have saved lives.Trends of different states and other correlations. You can see here, in this particular graph, the Captial Punishments states are quite lower, compared to the Non-capital punishment states. Here is another interesting fact, when the death penalty was suspended nationwide from 1968 to 1976, the murder rate skyrocketed. By the time the the crime rate began to drop in the United States, those states with the DP actually witnessed a 39% larger drop in murder rates by 1998. (7) http://www.wesleylowe.com...; src="../../../photos/albums/1/2/1530/33374-1530-decvg-a.jpg" alt="http://www.wesleylowe.com...; />And finally, another report done by the Bureau of Criminal Justice, shows that that when the execution rates were high, there generally were fewer murders. You can also see, during the 1960's and 1980's, when the death penalty was not used, murders skyrocked. (8)Sources:1:http://www.gallup.com......2:https://en.wikipedia.org......3: Isaac Ehrlich, "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death," American Economic Review, Vol. 65, No. 3 (1975), pp. 397-417, and Isaac Ehrlich, "Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Additional Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 85 (August, 1977), pp. 741-788.4: Joanna M. Shepherd, "Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment," Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 33 (June 2004), pp. 283-321.5: http://www.bjs.gov......6: http://www.bjs.gov......7: http://www.synapse9.com......;8: http://www.wesleylowe.com......

Capital Punishment Should Be Allowed Deference"Capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else" [1]. "And surely the death penalty is the only penalty that could deter prisoners already serving a life sentence and tempted to kill a guard, or offenders about to be arrested and facing a life sentence" [1]. "Perhaps they will not be deterred. But they would certainly not be deterred by anything else" [1]. Concluding, capital punishment deters crime. 2. Retribution "We threaten punishments in order to deter crime. We impose them not only to make the threats credible but also as retribution (justice) for the crimes that were not deterred" [2]. The punishment should fit the crime and destroying one life the only justice would be to take the life of the criminal. Concluding, capital punishment serves proper justice. Sources[1] . http://goo.gl...[2] . http://goo.gl...

Capital Punishment Should Be Allowed If someone commits a murder, then yes, they do deserve to be punished. But think of it this way, death it the easy way out. Would you rather have a life sentence in prison, or die? What about the family of the victim? Many people assume that families of murder victims want the death penalty to be imposed, but it isn't necessarily so. Some are against it on moral ground. Then there is the worst thing about the death penalty: Errors The system can make tragic mistakes. There have been many unfortunate people that have been killed, and later on been proved innocent. We'll never know for sure how many people have been executed for crimes they didn't commit.

death penalty should the death penalty be allowed?

The Death Penalty Should the death penalty be aloud in the United States? the answer is yes

the death penalty should be allowed Extend arguments. I hope that Pro returns to the site, and that my harsh critisisms did not deter her from the debate.

Capital Punishment Should Be Allowed 1. Worse sentence"Few convicted murderers sentenced to life in prison declare years later that they wish they had been sentenced instead to death and executed. Few if any death row prisoners refuse clemency if it is offered to them." [1]. They fear death more than life in prision. 2. Mistakes"there is no credible evidence to show that any innocent persons have been executed at least since the death penalty was reactivated in 1976" [2]. There are some doubt in cases like in Willingham's case, but he was not aquitted. The death penalty deters criminals meaning it saves lives. When we fail to execute a murderer we are effectively valuing the murder's life higher than that of the person who might spare though the deterrent effect of their execution. If even one innocent person is saved through the deterrent effect of executing a murder, who has given up their right to life when they take a life, the execution of that murderer is justified.Sources[1] http://goo.gl...[2] http://goo.gl...

Death Penalty The execution method may result in pain, either by accident or as an inescapable consequence of death, does not establish the sort of 'objectively intolerable risk of harm' [quoting the opinion of the Court from Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U. S. 825, 842, 846 (1994)] that qualifies as cruel and unusual. Kentucky has adopted a method of execution believed to be the most humane available, one it shares with 35 other States. Kentucky's decision to adhere to its protocol cannot be viewed as probative of the wanton infliction of pain under the Eighth Amendment. Throughout our history, whenever a method of execution has been challenged in this Court as cruel and unusual, the Court has rejected the challenge. Our society has nonetheless steadily moved to more humane methods of carrying out capital punishment. Society is justly ordered when each person receives what is due to him. Crime disturbs this just order, for the criminal takes from people their lives, peace, liberties, and worldly goods in order to give himself undeserved benefits. Deserved punishment protects society morally by restoring this just order, making the wrongdoer pay a price equivalent to the harm he has done. This is retribution, not to be confused with revenge, which is guided by a different motive. In retribution the spur is the virtue of indignation, which answers injury with injury for public good. Retribution is the primary purpose of just punishment as such. there are some defendants who have earned the ultimate punishment our society has to offer by committing murder with aggravating circumstances present. I believe life is sacred. It cheapens the life of an innocent murder victim to say that society has no right to keep the murderer from ever killing again. In my view, society has not only the right, but the duty to act in self defense to protect the innocent. As of 2008 per Amnesty International, 58 countries, representing about one-third of all countries worldwide, retain the death penalty for ordinary capital crimes, including the United States, plus the following countries: Afghanistan, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Botswana, Chad, China, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nigeria, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad And Tobago, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States Of America, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zimbabwe. The United States is the only westernized democracy, and one of the few democracies worldwide, to not have abolished the death penalty. The death penalty gives closure to the victim's families who have suffered so much. Some family members of crime victims may take years or decades to recover from the shock and loss of a loved one. Some may never recover. One of the things that helps hasten this recovery is to achieve some kind of closure. Life in prison just means the criminal is still around to haunt the victim. A death sentence brings finality to a horrible chapter in the lives of these family members. It gives prosecutors another bargaining chip in the plea bargain process, which is essential in cutting costs in an overcrowded court system. The number of criminal cases that are plea bargained (meaning the accused admits guilt in return for a lesser sentence or some other concession) can be as high as 80 or 90 percent of cases. With the time, cost, and personnel requirements of a criminal case, there really isn't much of a choice. The vast majority of people that are arraigned are in fact guilty of the crime they are accused. Even if you believe a defendant only deserves life in prison, without the threat of a death sentence, there may be no way to get him to plead guilty and accept the sentence. If a case goes to trial, in addition to the enormous cost, you run the chance that you may lose the case, meaning a violent criminal gets off scot free. The existence of the death penalty gives prosecutors much more flexibility and power to ensure just punishments.

death penalty 1) Deterrent of capital crimes The theory of justice which demands for "Tooth for a Tooth and an Eye for an Eye" is the strongest argument of the capital punishment. When a criminal does an act to fulfill his selfish motives resulting into personal gains then the equilibrium of justice in society is disturbed. To maintain this equilibrium the criminal should be punished with the same intensity of punishment no matter, even if it is capital punishment. If the criminal can dare to snatch away liberty, peace, lives from any individual then the justice says that he should also be deprived of all these facilities leading to a comfortable life it the society. In a larger sense, capital punishment is the ultimate warning against all crimes. If the criminal knows that the justice system will not stop at putting him to death, then the system appears more draconian to him. Hence, he is less inclined to break and enter. He may have no intention of killing anyone in the process of robbing them, but is much more apprehensive about the possibility if he knows he will be executed. Thus, there is a better chance that he will not break and enter in the first place. If you read about Bundy"s life in prison, waiting nine years for his execution, you will see that the man exhausted every single legal point he and his lawyers could think of, all in an attempt to spare him execution. He "defended" himself in prison interviews by blaming pornography for causing his uncontrollable teenage libido, and for causing him to think of women as objects and not humans. He attempted to have his death sentence commuted to life without parole by explaining that it was all pornography"s fault, and that had it never existed, he would have been a good person. When that didn"t work, he pretended to come clean and tell police where the bodies of unfound victims were, so that their families could have closure. He never once admitted that he was a bad person, and just before his execution, he claimed that he hadn"t done anything wrong. It was obvious that he feared being put to death. He did his best to avert it. This means that he did not fear life in prison"at least not as much as he feared capital punishment. He had many opportunities to kill himself in his cell, but he did not. He might have done it a month before his execution, when all hope for clemency was gone"but he was afraid of death. How many would-be murderers have turned away at the last second purely out of fear of the executioner"s needle? The death penalty honors human dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or for ill; it does not treat him as an animal with no moral sense. 2) Closure There are many victims of a single murder. The criminal gets caught, tried, and convicted, and it is understood that the punishment will be severe. But the person he has killed no longer has a part to play in this. Unfortunately, the murderer has deprived his family and friends of a loved one. Their grief begins with the murder. It may not end with the murderer"s execution, but the execution does engender a feeling of relief at no longer having to think about the ordeal"a feeling which often fails to arise while the murderer still lives on.A system in place for the purpose of granting justice cannot do so for the surviving victims, unless the murderer himself is put to death. 3) Less expensive Capital Punishment is the cheaper way to remove the ill from the society. If the criminal is given life imprisonment, all his expenditure is improvised by the government. Instead of spending money on criminals this money can be used for the development of the society and welfare of the people. Lots of people die of hunger; instead of feeding such people government spend money to feed the criminals, which in turn raises number of cases of crime in the society. JFA [Justice for All] estimates that life without parole LWOP cases will cost $1.2 million-$3.6 million more than equivalent death penalty cases. There is no question that the up front costs of the death penalty are significantly higher than for equivalent LWOP cases. There also appears to be no question that, over time, equivalent LWOP cases are much more expensive... than death penalty cases. 4) Save lives Perhaps the biggest reason to keep the death penalty is to prevent the crime from happening again. The parole system nowadays is a joke. Does it make sense to anyone outside the legal system to have multiple "life" sentences ? Even if a criminal is sentenced to life without possibility of parole, he still has a chance to kill while in prison, or even worse, escape and go on a crime/murder spree. I heard on the news, February 2000, where a 62 year-old grandmother, Betty Beets, was pleading for her life because she was on death row and was going to be executed. At first, I felt very sorry for her, but after doing research on her, I learned she had five husbands. She had already killed the fourth one, and served a prison sentence for murder, and she got out of prison early. She murdered the fifth husband-she shot him, and buried him in her back yard. Betty Beets was imprisoned a second time, and now was pleading for her life? It has been proven these killers do it again and again. The rate of recidivism is high for people who commit murder and crimes. I feel murderers should be executed the first time because chances are they will come out of prison and kill another innocent person again. We need stricter laws and swift death penalty. A criminal is like a rotten apple among the good ones, he is like a virus to the society, which can even infect others of the same disease. Like a doctor excise any body part to save life of a patient likewise, a criminal is cut out permanently from the society for the well being of the society. Human beings live in civilized society and do not allow anyone to perform any inhuman act which causes harm or any type of discomfort to any individual. Capital Punishment is the best way to remove such diseased people from the society. Before they could spread their immoral believes to other people in order to justify their act they should be removed from the society from the "root level". 5) Less possibility of error One of the biggest arguments against the death penalty is the possibility of error. Sure, we can never completely eliminate all uncertainty, but nowadays, it's about as close as you can get. DNA testing is over 99 percent effective. And even if DNA testing and other such scientific methods didn't exist, the trial and appeals process is so thorough it's next to impossible to convict an innocent person. Remember, a jury of 12 members must unanimously decide there's not even a reasonable doubt the person is guilty. The number of innocent people that might somehow be convicted is no greater than the number of innocent victims of the murderers who are set free. No system of justice can produce results which are 100% certain all the time. Mistakes will be made in any system which relies upon human testimony for proof. We should be vigilant to uncover and avoid such mistakes. Our system of justice rightfully demands a higher standard for death penalty cases. However, the risk of making a mistake with the extraordinary due process applied in death penalty cases is very small, and there is no credible evidence to show that any innocent persons have been executed at least since the death penalty was reactivated in 1976... The inevitability of a mistake should not serve as grounds to eliminate the death penalty any more than the risk of having a fatal wreck should make automobiles illegal. Capital Punishment proves to be the best method to eliminate negative elements from the society forever thus, leading to a more humane society. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org... http://www.clarkprosecutor.org... http://www.prodeathpenalty.com...

The Death Penalty should be Abolished 1. The death penalty is not in fact necessary - saying that it is necessary implies that it provides a service and/or solution that cannot otherwise be obtained. And that is patently false. Rather what the death penalty does is allow individuals to sate their need for vengeance. But vengeance is not nearly the same thing as justice and therefore the death penalty should be considered cruel and unusual punishment that does not fit the scope of any crime. 2. The point of the Justice system is to a.) punish and b.) rehabilitate offenders to become useful members of society. I've already addressed point a, but in regards to point b - it's rather hard to rehabilitate a corpse. A dead person can never become a better or more decent person nor can they be taught the value of remorse. Most importantly someone who is dead cannot be taught to repent of their crime - which is to say they cannot be taught to work toward repaying the debt of what they have deprived society and their victims of. 3.) Which brings me to my third point - "vile" and "evil" are not only subjective values, but there are very few individuals who entirely lack the ability to be taught to recognize the errors of their ways if not the actual import of what they've done. And most of those who exist in that category are what would be known as sociopaths and/or psychopaths. A sociopath can be tried as someone with the competence to know better, but sociopathy does possess a biological component and therefore there is a discernible gray space as to whether they need help or punishment. A psychopath meanwhile can be held accountable, but the gray space for the agreed upon treatment is even wider in nature. Killing either of type of person would therefore be as big a sin as anything they might have done. 4.) And of course in bringing up competence we then must look at how accurate the Justice system even is when it comes to convictions. Because you can't simply apologize to someone you've executed after the fact. Apologies have never brought anyone back from the dead. And unfortunately there have been more than a few executions that proceeded on little if any real evidence and an ungodly amount of racial bias. Consider the Scottboros Boys or Brown vs Mississippi or Lena Brown the only woman to have been executed in Georgia with electrocution because she dared to defend herself against a white kidnapper. Of course, it's not just blacks - plenty of whites have been screwed over as well. 5.) Now to address the point of deterrence - the death penalty has been shown to fail as a deterrence. There are many reasons for that, but the one that counts most is that the application of the death penalty is simply shoddy. Depending on location, race, gender, and socio-economics it's possible for someone who meets the requirements for such a sentence to be passed over in favor of someone who does not. It's also possible for evidence to be fudged or "lost" or simply discounted. And then there is the fact a conviction can be appealed for decades all on the tax payer's dime. For the person who would conceivably "deserve" such a punishment it's effectively a Paper Tiger rather than an actual punishment to watch out for. 6.) Which brings up another point - the cost. Maintaining Death Row, providing that final meal, the cost of the attendant form of execution, the cost of appeals, and such all lay a rather heavy fine on the tax payers many of whom aren't in fact okay with this sort of punishment. Is it really fair for money that could go to any number of more socially acceptable gains be instead used in the act of ending someone's life? No, of course not. 7.) Finally ... what right does anyone have to take a life? If it is wrong to murder, why is it okay to kill someone just because a judge and jury says so? If a lynch mob is wrong to hang a man based on their brand of "justice" then isn't it also wrong for the courts to kill a person? This is not like a war where one must kill or be killed nor is a form of self-defense. It is the conscious decision to deprive someone of their life and that can never be correct. Not if actual justices rather than emotional vengeance is to be served.

We should not ban the deah penalty Counter argument 1) Killing is wrong so we should kill them so they will not be KILLING more people. Plus people who commit murder or rape are most likely to commit the same crime more then once. So shouldn't we as American citizens take out the criminals to make America more enjoyable? 2) The second argument goes back to counter argument 1 3) [1] United States does not execute people based on their population counts but on the murders they commit. As blacks represent 47% of murderers and whites 37%, we see that whites are twice as likely to be executed for committing murder as are their black counterparts. Furthermore, the Bureau of Justice Statistics says that whites sentenced to death are executed 17 months more quickly than blacks. 4) The Sixth Amendment provides the right to have an attorney. The right to a court-appointed attorney for people who couldn't afford to hire a private attorney was firmly established in the US Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright. There for they have a right to fair trial and the jury first has to pick guilty or innocent BEFORE the judge can make a verdict. Who even said the judge was going to put him to death row? "As for the penalty system, accidentally executing an innocent person, I must point out that in this imperfect world, citizens are required to take certain risks in exchange for safety." ~ Wesley Lowe 5) As the world is changing so is technology. We have the technology to figure out who did the crime with DNA. 6) [2] The death penalty was first instituted by God Himself in Genesis 9:6: "Those who sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." Man didn't invent the death penalty, so man has no right to abandon it. We live in an age when everyone is far too concerned with "human rights", and God has been practically ignored, as if He had no rights at all. God has given man the MORAL DUTY to execute those who choose to take the lives of others. Exodus 21:12 says, "He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death." Do you wish to honor God? Then you must support the death penalty, because God commands it. 7) We do not want felons and criminals as a part of our society so even if they were alive they wouldn't amount as much to society as a person who doesn't have a record at the police station. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1) The fear of Death: It is human nature to fear death. Imposing death punishment for brutal crimes like rapes and murders will definitely make the criminal think twice before committing a crime! Most people argue that most murders are done in the heat of anger or passion! But there are also people who are professional murderers. Looking at both sides, I feel that death penalty will surely deter a person from committing a crime. 2) No Escape: It is easier for a person to escape imprisonment in the long run, but no one can escape death! We have seen in the above mentioned real life scenarios where criminals managed to to escape prison and punishment, only to commit more crimes and making the innocent suffer! That I think, is more than enough to support this statement. 3) It's Retribution, Not Killing!: Most people who are against death penalty, say that it is just taking revenge or killing under the name of law! Well, I personally believe that life is precious and sacred. Which is why, I think that a person who has taken it away, must realize that by committing this crime, he has also taken away the right to have his own life. When I think about the victim and their loved ones, I think that letting the criminal facing 'inconvenience for some time in prison' would be unfair to them. It's not the law that is killing the criminal, he chose it with his own actions! 4) Saving the Innocent: "If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call." ~ John McAdams - Marquette University/Department of Political Science, on deterrence 5) Law Should Provide Justice: We follow the law so that we get justice when what happened to us is unfair! Even the victims ask for mercy, plead for their lives, but if the criminals show no mercy, why should the law be merciful to the criminal? I think that the death penalty too, is lenient when it comes to justice. At least the guilty criminals get time to say their last words, make a will, mentally prepare themselves for death. Did the innocent victims get a chance to do so? If you knew that you would be killed instantly after committing a murder, would you kill? [1] http://www.prodeathpenalty.com... [2] http://www.biblebelievers.com...

death penalty Death penalty should be legalised to punish criminals who have taken or spoilt lives of other people. A person who murders another person not only kills him but also hurts his friends and family members. It's also a quick process instead of keeping criminal in prison for years and spending a lot of money on him /her.

The death penalty should be banned from a form of punishment. Ultimately, the moral question surrounding capital punishment in America has less to do with whether those convicted of violent crime deserve to die than with whether state and federal governments deserve to kill those whom it has imprisoned. The legacy of racial apartheid, racial bias, and ethnic discrimination is unavoidably evident in the administration of capital punishment in America. Death sentences are imposed in a criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent. This is an immoral condition that makes rejecting the death penalty on moral grounds not only defensible but necessary for those who refuse to accept unequal or unjust administration of punishment. The death penalty gives closure to the victim's families who have suffered so much. Some family members of crime victims may take years or decades to recover from the shock and loss of a loved one. Some may never recover. One of the things that helps hasten this recovery is to achieve some kind of closure. Life in prison just means the criminal is still around to haunt the victim. A death sentence brings finality to a horrible chapter in the lives of these family members.

Death penalty should be implemented in our society 1. Deterrence The Chief the chief argument for the death penalty is its ability to save lives. Indeed, a strong consensus among modern studies has found the death penalty can deter crime [1. . http://www.cjlf.org...] To understand why the death penalty would deter crime is to understand deterrence theory. Criminals, like humans, are rational actors. They make choices based on what the costs and benefits are. In Economics economists have seen this in all of their research. The higher the cost the less people buy that product. Economists are experts in human behavior and how people will act under certain conditions, and are often the best at determining why people do certain things, and how to stop them from doing these things. Crime goes down when the punishment gets stiffer. Hundreds of empirical studies exist to prove this point. The rebuttal to this will often be criminals, or those committing murder, are not rational actors and cannot be deterred by stiffer punishment. However, juveniles, who are less rational actors, are also affected by stiffer penalties [2. . http://www.bus.lsu.edu...] The early empirical research on the subject by Issac Ehrlich has demonstrated strong deterrent effects by the death penalty, and has responded to most criticism of his work. Meanwhile, other studies have come out to prove the deterrent hypothesis. Some economists noted how the models used in the studies were not robust, but the authors of the studies in question have refuted these analysis’s and noted they actually tried to reduce the deterrent effect by various tests but have found these results simply don’t go away. They are robust and correct [2]. The consensus amongst the research is growing stronger by the day. In the 1960s, studies found criminals acted as rational actors which would then imply stiffer penalties (like the DP) would reduce crime [3. . http://www.nber.org...]. Ehrlich, in his original studies, decided to expand upon this early research on penalties and see if it applied to the death penalty. Ehrlich found the death penalty saved at least three lives per execution [4. . http://deathpenalty.procon.org...] Newer research confirms these findings, generally showing that the death penalty saves 3-18 lives. The Heritage Foundation sums up the evidence, “In summary, the recent studies using panel data techniques have confirmed what we learned decades ago: Capital punishment does, in fact, save lives. Each additional execution appears to deter between three and 18 murders. While opponents of capital punishment allege that it is unfairly used against African-Americans, each additional execution deters the murder of 1.5 African-Americans. Further moratoria, commuted sentences, and death row removals appear to increase the incidence of murder. ” [5. . http://www.heritage.org...] Many studies by criminologists use models which exclude lagged variables (as the death penalty is often publicized to the public, and therefore criminals, after the execution and before the execution). These early studies by criminologists, therefore, use methods which would not accurately describe the death penalty. They also uses simplistic state-comparison models which inadequately controlled for other variables. Studies that account for these variables and account for lag find a strong deterrent effect [6. . http://www.hawaii.edu...] There is also proof that shortening the amount of time on death row and executing more people on death row increase the deterrent effect [6]. Testimony before congress noted studies that do not find deterrence generally have weak regression models, and updated research proves the deterrent effect. All studies that use data from before and after the death penalty ban and re-legalization find that the death penalty provides a strong deterrent [7. . http://www.judiciary.house.gov...] In short, the death penalty deters crime. 2. Justice Many prisons have great facilities, air conditioning, and are indeed resorts. Although one can argue that this is just for many criminals, jails are nice areas nonetheless [8. . http://www.theatlantic.com...]. Murderers are some of the worst criminals (with only rapists debatably as bad or worse). Murderers don’t deserve a comfy bed, phones, etc. For people who believe in proportionality, anything less than the death penalty would be unjust. We cannot inflict deterrence or correction to those who do not deserve punishment. Then, the main issue in justice system is retribution. Although the state may uphold death penalty laws because of their deterrent effects, the reason we must morally uphold the death penalty because it is what criminals deserve [9. . http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com...] My opponent would likely agree with the idea of proportionality. If this is correct, than criminals get what they deserve, meaning the death penalty would be morally superior to LWOP. Further, the deterrent effect which I established builds upon the death penalty. The death penalty is a life-life trade off, and we must determine if the lives of innocents are worth more than those guilty. If this is the case, losing a guilty life through the death penalty (assuming the death penalty saves innocent lives) merely shows the death penalty, regardless of proportionality, has a moral benefit for saving other innocents that would otherwise have been murdered. With states which choose life over death, they then condemn many innocents to death inadvertently. The choice of life for a murderer, then, is morally objectionable at least—and near heinous at worst. Then this moderate view of capital punishment should lead us to conclude the death penalty is preferable [10. . http://www.bus.lsu.edu...] ___________ The death penalty is preferable on its deterrence ability alone—and necessary on its moral proportionality basis alone. The death penalty saves lives and is morally preferable.

The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished Here we go my first argument is going to on wrong convictions. 1.Wrong Convictions Since 1973, more than 130 people have been released from death row throughout the USA, due to evidence of their wrongful convictions. Nobody knows how many people are charged for crimes and murders they have never committed. However, the legal system has found some cases where, they have wrongly accused the innocent defendant. Factors such as inadequate legal representations, police and prosecutor misconduct, racial prejudice, jail house "snitch" testimony, political pressure to solve a case, misinterpretation of evidence, etc. can work against an innocent person and conduce to harsh death penalty. 2.Cost Most of us fail to realize that executing a death sentence is 2.5 times more expensive than keeping the same criminal in prison for life. This is because, the cost incurred prior to and during the trial, involves an endless stream of appeals, legal wrangling, etc. For such trials, special motions and extra time for jury selection are required. Investigation charges also rise exorbitantly, especially by the prosecution. Thus, spending finances on death penalty is tantamount to reducing essential financial and time resources needed for crime prevention, mental health treatment, rehabilitation, valuable victim's services, etc. 3.Rehabilitation Failure Putting somebody on death row does not accomplish anything. Death penalty closes all doors for the criminal to acknowledge his mistakes. Family members of the convicted may want to see the murderer punished, but death penalty will not ease the pain caused by the loss of the loved one. Retribution will not pacify the pain or fill the vacuum caused by the loss. This does not mean we are not to punish the guilty. A life imprisonment is a terrible punishment, amplifying the agony of the convicted over the decades spent in prison. Moreover, if we take away the murderer's life, how are we different? Isn't giving a second chance more humane? Although lethal injects and electric chairs are not as barbaric as medieval torture devices, it still is taking somebody's life.

The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished Sorry for the late response. I've been busy for the past few days.C1: DeterrenceThe Death Penalty serves as a determent to criminals.There is a relationship between the death penalty and murder. The deterrent effect of the death penalty helps to save lives, ultimately resulting in the overall prevention of the loss of human life [1]. Multiple studies that have occured over time have demonstrated that the death penalty saves lives [1]. Several professors of Emory University found in a 2003 nationwide study that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders [6].A 2006 study found that each execution results in five fewer homicides [7]Shorter waits on death row is connectted with increased deterrence. For every 2.75-year reduction of the time a death row inmate has to wait, at least one murder is deterred. C2: Bargaining ChipThe Death Penalty provides leverage and allows prosecutors to use it as a "bargaining chip" to obtain guilty pleas and plea bargains [2] [3]. The criminal justice system is sped up by the DP, which helps to prevent backlogging. Research has shown that 90% of cases in the US are resolved by plea bargains, with the guilty party admitting to all or part of the offenses charged in exchange for reduced/lenient charges [4]. This showsOne example is the case of 12-year-old Zina Linnick's disappearance. Even a remote threat of using the death penalty could give enough of an incentive for a person to confess [3].Another example would be serial killers Robert Yates and Gary Ridgway. The confessed due to the threat of the death penalty [3].Without a doubt, the death penalty allows prosecutors to get information quicker. This can even possibly save lives - such as revealing the location of an abducted person about to die.C3: AccuracyDNA testing and other modern forms of forensic science have allowed us to eleminate all doubt or suspicsion towards a person's guilt or innoncence. DNA testing helps to effectively prosecuting the guilty and protects the innocent [8].Furthermore, a jury of twelve have to unanimously decide that they have no doubt that the defendent is guilty in order to sentence a person to death. [9]C4: PopularityGallup polls have shown that the majority of Americans support the Death Penalty. Our goverment is based on a republic, and a republic at its heart, is ruled by the majority.Gallup polls reveal that:1) There is a consistant trend of the majority supporting the death penalty being used in cases where the guilty party is convicted of murder. In 2011, 61% supported the DP while only 35% was agaisnt it.2) Even over time, the majority of Americans believe that the Death Penalty is used not enough.3) The majority of people believe that the death penalty is currently being applied fairly.4) Furthermore, there is a tendency that most people believe that the Death Penalty is morally acceptable. 65% of people believe it is right, while only 28% believe it is wrong.5) OVer time, people have constantly shown that they believe when choosing between the death penalty and imprisonment for life (without parole), the death penalty should be used.The Gallup Poll(s) can be found at my 10th source.Sources:[1] http://www.heritage.org...[2] http://sentencing.typepad.com...[3] http://www.thenewstribune.com...[4] http://www.thecrimereport.org...[5] Joanna M. Shepherd, "Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment," Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 33 (June 2004), pp. 283-321.[6] Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd, "Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data," American Law and Economics Review, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2003), pp. 344-376.[7] http://www.washingtonpost.com...[8] http://www.forensicmag.com...[9] http://crime.about.com...[10] http://www.gallup.com...

Death Penalty However, the death penalty serves as an example for others, because if people know that they will be killed, they may be less likely to commit a serious offence. Also, if there is a serious offence, an entire life imprisonment may not be enough to punish them, i.e if someone went on a rampage and killed a whole lot of people, and was caught, they should be made to pay- because the lives of the relatives of the victims should be taken into account. The killer should not really been made to live- he should be punished for what he had done.

Death Penalty I agree with the rules but don't copy pasta tons of stuff, cite it. The overarching reason why capital punishment should not be allowed is due to the fact that it is just unnecessary. Point 1: The death penalty is NOT a deterrent. For example, in 1976 there were 0 accounts of the death penalty being issued and the murder rate was 8.8. Now we jump ahead to 1979. There were 2 accounts of the death penalty and the murder rate was 9.7. (These are ratios) Moving ahead to 1990. 23 executions and a 9.4 murder rate and so on and so forth. (ACLU #1) I could go on but I feel I have made my point regarding deterrence but if need be I will pull more evidence in. Point 2: It is actually more expensive than locking someone up. For example, in California "The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons w here those sentenced to life without possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate."[2] The costs of the death penalty system are about $137 million per year whereas a new reform where a maximum life sentence would be issued would cost $11.5 million per year.[2] This is a huge difference and shows the massive costs associated with the death penalty. Point 3: It is entirely possible that one could kill the wrong guy. If this is the case there is nothing you can do. He is dead and cannot be brought back. All that the state can do is say "Whoops, my bad" and give money to the grieving family whereas if the person is in jail and they then see he is innocent, he is still alive and can live the rest of his life. [1] http://www.aclu.org... [2] http://www.deathpenalty.org...

Death penalty should be allowed I would like to begin round two with one argument. First, I strongly believe that it is immoral. This argument is divided into two parts. First, how the government is actually letting themselves kill the citizens. Second, how it will be sending out the wrong message. (1) The government is justifying themselves to kill the citizens. In a way, the government is making a contradiction. According to the law, killing people is not justified. In other words, killing people is banned. If murdering is banned for individuals, the government should not be killing either. Of course my opponent (the proposition) may argue that people who had done serious crimes that had caused a detrimental harm to the society should be killed for the rest of the citizens' safety and happiness. For example, they may say that the family of the victim (of a murder incident, or any other violence) will become more relieved. However, then what about the murderer's family? Why is this society only respecting one side and not even thinking about the other? In any way, I believe that the government should not have the justification to kill the citizens. (2) Not doing the duty as a government. Isn't the government there to protect the citizens? However, if the government starts killing people who are criminals, then it will not be fulfilling the duty as a government. The proposition, of course, can argue that murdering criminals who did crimes would be able to protect the rest of the society, but there are two points of rebuttal. First, I believe that there are better ways to treat criminals. Is the only way to deter the crime rates to kill somebody? I think that criminals can be put in prison and be limited in many different rights, but as a government, the government itself should not be violating the right to live. Second, will executing people actually deter the crime rates? The answer is a no. Just because the government executes people who do crimes doesn't mean that there would be less criminals, because there are still mentally ill people, and some psychopaths who don't know anything. Not only that, the government has to be responsible to create a policy that has a problem that is solved. However, this policy, the government executing, will not solve any problem but instead, will only give the government too much power.

Death penalty should be allowed. I accept

The death penalty should be abolished If the punishment is supposed to fit the crime, is it really fitting that a murderer should be allowed to live out the rest of his life in a jail cell rather than be deprived of the fundamental right to life that he has taken from someone else? Punishments don’t have to mimic the crime to be fitting. Rape is a severe crime, yet we do not have a rape penalty. Should we have a fraud penalty where people who commit fraud are told they will be given a certain punishment, yet are given a worse punishment instead? We punish harsh crimes with a harsh yet different punishment, because there is a moral limit to how we punish criminals. If we shouldn't’t punish people with rape or fraud, than should we also not punish them with death? Should we expect a wife to be happy that her husband's murderer is rotting away in a jail cell because he ruthlessly took her husband from her? Is it really fitting to tell someone that even though their loved one was murdered, we're just going to lock the murderer away for a long time as punishment? This is not a fitting punishment for a murderer. We shouldn’t maintain a penalty that potentially kills innocent people simply to make the victim’s family feel better. Also life imprisonment is no cake walk. It is a very harsh punishment. There are other, non-lethal ways to find closure in this situation, like forgiveness. Even though escape from a maximum security prison is rare, it does happen. If a murderer hasn't been put to death, they run the risk of escape and repeating their offense. Even if they don't escape, they can still murder other inmates.All right so we are both pointing to risks that are admittedly rare. My rare risk is the execution of someone innocent, your risk is that the murderer potentially escapes and kills someone. The thing is, the threat of someone innocent dying from my risk is more direct. An innocent execution will always result in an innocent death. If a murderer escapes he or she doesn’t necessarily have to murder someone, plus in all likelihood they will soon get caught.As far as inmate murders go, solitary confinement can be an alternative to the death penalty. Also if the guard sees the murderer about to kill an inmate, I do support him using lethal force to stop the murderer. That would be an act of defense.there should be no shadow of a doubt that the person is guilty of murder, probably backed up by DNA evidence and especially with a signed confession. Abolishing the death penalty will guarantee no innocent executions. Even with those restrictions, human error will still work into the system.My question to you would be as follows: Death is, of course, not reversible (unless Jesus comes to your funeral). So why should a murderer get a punishment that is reversible? Because they might not really be a murderer. If the punishment is reversible, then we can correct such mistakes. We should remember that old adage that “The smartest man in the world is the guy who invented the eraser.” Human judgement can be mistaken and to give it the power of life and death will result in fatal mistakes. people who are not pacifists see war as a necessary action.War is a topic for another debate, but you don’t have to be a pacifist to oppose non-defensive wars. This goes back to my point of how immediate self defense is the only justification for homicide, thus even executing the guilty is not the justified form of homicide.

The death penalty should be banned from a form of punishment. Justice is better served. The most fundamental principle of justice is that the punishment should fit the crime. When someone plans and brutally murders another person, doesn't it make sense that the punishment for the perpetrator also be death? Our justice system shows more sympathy for criminals than it does victims. It's time we put the emphasis of our criminal justice system back on protecting the victim rather than the accused. Remember, a person who's on death row has almost always committed crimes before this. A long line of victims have been waiting for justice. We need justice for current and past victims. It provides a deterrent for prisoners already serving a life sentence. What about people already sentenced to life in prison. What's to stop them from murdering people constantly while in prison? What are they going to do--extend his sentence? Sure, they can take away some prison privileges, but is this enough of a deterrent to stop the killing? What about a person sentenced to life who happens to escape? What's to stop him from killing anyone who might try to bring him in or curb his crime spree?

Death penalty should be banned The Death Penalty is fine. 1. It saves time. 2. It saves money. 3. It can be used on criminals proven without shadow of a doubt such as those who confess to (or are caught performing) of heinous crimes. 4. Not all humans are capable of rehabilitation. 5. It eases taxpayer burden. 6. It can be done humanely.

The Death Penalty should be legal in all US states. For some, the death penalty could be less worse than jail. The death penalty is only used when absolutely needed, and sometimes it is the only rational/moral option. Even if a criminal was released from the death penalty/jail, it would be very hard for them to make a living. The death penalty can be painless. The death penalty provides disclosure for victims. If the death penalty is not in use, then America will end up spending more money trying to contain criminals from the outside world. Many lives could be saved by each execution of a guilty killer.

The death penalty should be abolished We live in a world where there are certain moral absolutes that have to be enforced. One of these absolutes is the sacredness of human life. Anyone that takes human lives or gravely threatens its existence, therefore, should be dealt the harshest punishment we can conceive of death. Moral values do not exist on their own, they have to be promoted and supported by society at large. In modern and civilized societies the supporters of capital death have decreased in number. Critics view the death penalty as barbaric. However, this unrealistic and romantic view ignores the basic human nature. The most common argument my opponents may pose may be that the death penalty is apparently inhumane but aren"t the crimes of torture, rape, treason, kidnapping, murder inhumane?

Death Penalty should be eliminated I believe that Capital punishment is a reasonable method of punishment for those who committed crimes against another's life. (murder, intended maiming or mayhem that causes the later death of a person, etc) When you murder someone, you are ending any opportunity they have to enjoy whatever part of their life they have left. If they are younger, they may never marry or get a job or have children or enjoy their life as an adult. If they are adults, it is a crushing feeling to lose a loved one and know they will never be able to speak to you, or enjoy your company, and vice versa. There is no excuse for the deliberate ending of ones life. People who murder are not soulless; they too have feelings, but the pain, depression, and misfortune inflicted upon the loved ones or relatives of a victim is something that can never be healed, nor can the victim ever live again. In order for this horrible crime of causing death to be repaid, death must also impart upon the offender. Justice must take place.

The Death Penalty Should be Abolished I believe the death penalty shouldn't go anywhere. If a person has committed a capital crime such as murder, Treason, Or crimes against humanity, They don't deserve to live. It costs the government less money to give someone the capital punishment than to give them life in prison. It arguably deters crime, Since most criminals would be less likely to commit a crime if it meant death.

The Death Penalty I belive in the death penalty for many reasons but here are the big ones for me: 1. Death penalty costs the government less as opposed to life imprisonment without parole. Proponents say despite expenses incurred by the government from imposing capital punishment, death penalty is still cheaper compared to the costs of life without parole. Although there is no contention that the cost of the former is high, life imprisonment is accumulatively higher given the expenses for food, health care and other costs of sustaining the lives of incarcerated individuals serving life. 2. It deters would-be criminals to commit felonies. Advocates of death penalty cite examples on how imposing the death sentence or abolishing it has affected crime rate. According to a study conducted in the late 1960"s, there was a 7% crime rate increase on the years when this law was abolished. On the other hand, fewer crimes were committed with the increase in number of inmates in the death row who were executed each year. Proponents say that these figures clearly indicate the efficacy of capital punishment on deterring crimes. 3. The absence of death penalty is synonymous to crime rate increase. As reported by time magazine, an estimated 2,000,000 people in the United States have been victims of crimes, from assault to murder. With insufficient laws to address this problem or the lack of teeth in these laws, criminals become careless and bolder to commit heinous crimes because of the leniency in punishments and loop holes in the justice system. For these reason, there is a need for death penalty. Green Garage 4. It is constitutional and does not violate the Eight Amendment which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, fines and cruel and unusual punishments, including torture. Advocates of death penalty say that the pain associated with the execution of a death row inmate is not improbable. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the Eight Amendment challenge which stated that the drug used to render the criminal coma-like unconscious before injecting the lethal drug is not capable to do so completely. The Supreme Court was firm on its stand that any method of execution definitely will inflict some pain and states with capital punishment have already adopted more humane methods to carry out executions. 5. Death penalty is a just punishment for crimes committed against the rights to life, freedom and safety of victims. It is the right of an individual to live peacefully and be free from harm. Unfortunately, crimes like murder, rape and assault are committed by perpetrators who have no regard for life and property of others. Since they violate other people"s lives, it is but fair that they are brought to justice and suffer the fate they rightfully deserve. People who are for capital punishment also talk about free will wherein an individual is given the right to do things in his or her own volition and he or she is responsible for his or her own fate.

Death penalty The death penalty should still be in place. Why? The death penalty is called punishment for a crime. If someone kills 10 innocent people that person doesn't deserve to live. By letting someone end up in prison for life is basically giving them kudos for ending someones life. Society is justly ordered when each person receives what is due to him. Crime disturbs this just order, for the criminal takes from people their lives, peace, liberties, and worldly goods in order to give himself undeserved benefits. Deserved punishment protects society morally by restoring this just order, making the wrongdoer pay a price equivalent to the harm he has done. This is retribution, not to be confused with revenge, which is guided by a different motive. In retribution the spur is the virtue of indignation, which answers injury with injury for public good... Retribution is the primary purpose of just punishment as such... [R]ehabilitation, protection, and deterrence have a lesser status in punishment than retribution." J. Budziszewski, PhD Professor of Government and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin "Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice," OrthodoxyToday.org Aug./Sep. 2004

The Death Penalty (Hi there. Just for the record I agree with you. I just want to practice debating, and see if I can argue against what I believe in.) First of all, the death penalty is for those who have committed horrific crimes against humanity. It's hard to imagine how much the family of the victims hurt after learning about the murder/other crime committed against someone they love. The death penalty allows them to feel that they have gotten even. And when serial killers end up serving a life sentence instead of taking the death penalty, things end even worse. There are many records of them being killed brutally in prison, such as Jeffrey Dahmer, who ended up being bludgeoned to death.

Death Penalty Death penalty is often advocated with the debate that by killing felons, the government would prevent future killers from killing or other people committing heinous crimes. It can also prevent re-attempting to do a crime. It is obvious that those who are executed cannot carry out future crimes. Humankind has consistently used punishment to unnerve future offenders from illegal activity. Since humankind has the topmost significance in deterring murder or other heinous crimes, it should practice the most robust punishment possible to avert wrongdoings, and that is death penalty. Unfortunately, our judicial system shows more empathy to criminals than it does to victims. It is the right time to put priority of our justice system back on safeguarding the victims rather than the offenders. One of the biggest debates against the death penalty is the chances of error. Of course we can never absolutely wipe out skepticism, but nowadays, DNA testing and other approaches of modern crime scene science can now productively eradicate almost all ambivalence as to a person"s guilt or innocence. DNA testing is over 99% efficient. In 1973, Isaac Ehrlich utilized a new manner of study that shows that 7 lives are spared from murder for every inmate who was executed. Identical outcomes have been presented by zealots of Ehrlich in follow-up researches. Capital punishment subsidizes to the dilemma of overpopulation in the prison system. Prisons across many countries are now facing the issue of too many prisoners and not ample slots or capital. Each new prisoner needs an allocation of a cell, food, clothing, extra guard time, and so forth. Penalties which are rapid and assured are the best deterrent because there are some studies where the death penalty is subtly used and that takes some years before death penalty is finally performed. Death penalty gives prosecutors another dealing chip in the plea bargain proceedings, which is crucial in reduction of costs in an squeezed court system. According to Ernest van den Haag, a Professor of Jurisprudence at Fordham University, said: "Even though statistical demonstrations are not conclusive, and perhaps cannot be, capital punishment is likely to deter more than other punishments because people fear death more than anything else. They fear most death deliberately inflicted by law and scheduled by the courts. Whatever people fear most is likely to deter most. Hence, the threat of the death penalty may deter some murderers who otherwise might not have been deterred. And surely the death penalty is the only penalty that could deter prisoners already serving a life sentence and tempted to kill a guard, or offenders about to be arrested and facing a life sentence. Perhaps they will not be deterred. But they would certainly not be deterred by anything else. We owe all the protection we can give to law enforcers exposed to special risks.." Particularly, this is a style of elimination, related to the idea how a thief put in jail is inhibited from stealing on the streets. (BBC.co.uk, DeathPenaltyCurriculum.org, BalancedPolitics.org, List)

Death Penalty The death penalty is designed to be a punishment for heinous crimes and represents somewhat of an "eye for an eye" approach to sentencing. In theory, this seems fair at the outset but if we really address the goal of punishment, I maintain that the death penalty is not effective in reaching this goal and instead represents one of the greatest potential injustices that could occur. The goals of punishment are primarily a) to impose some responsibilty for someone's actions upon them (the criminal) and b) to deter future similar action from that person and from other members of society. The death penalty does address the first point. The person who presumably killed multiple people will then bear the responsibility of dying for their actions. But, do they really pay a price? Often, these are people who may have had no real desire to live in the first place. More important is the second point. Those people that are willing to commit a heinous crime are not afraid to die. Killing them really does not cause them to suffer nearly as much as a lifetime in prison might. Thus, the idea of a death penalty for their actions is probably not enough to deter people that commit heinous crimes from committing heinous crimes. This brings me to the greatest injustice that could possibly happen because of the death penalty: the execution of an innocent person. The sole reason the death penalty should not exist is because there is the possibility we may be executing an innocent person. Juries have absolutely made this mistake before. The execution of even one innocent person, no matter how many people were guilty that were executed, would represent the greatest tragedy we could have our government bestow upon its own people. People are not infallible enough to be making such judgments upon other human beings. And, I think if you have ever done jury duty, you will immediately doubt how well trained our jurors are to be making such life and death decisions. In summation, the death penalty is fair in terms of retribution, but it does not deter capital offenses and it is far too risky because of the potential for human error.

Resolved: The death penalty should be legalized. The Death Penalty should be legalized as it lowers criminal rate, increases national security, and protects citizens. It lowers criminal rate, and murder rate. Each execution stops 5 murders. (3) Criminal are afraid of committing the crimes punishable by death penalty (rape murder, murder, kidnap murder, genocide, terrorism, etc) so it will lower the overall crime rate as there are many crimes eligible for punishment by death. Murderers can be executed, so it's safer for travel or public. Executions, although not a good thing overall, can protect our country and people from getting killed or hurt. It protects citizens from possible murder, rape, terrorism attack, genocide, etc. Executions are not common and only used for crimes that have been stated to be punishable by execution. Those are my reasons of why death penalty should be legal.

Death Penalty Argument 1: The Deterrent Effect "If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and doing so would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call." - John McAdams The death penalty's purpose is to dissuade criminals from performing crimes, the knowledge that a death penalty exists often deters criminals from performing a crime. The decision to murder, rape or steal is often based on the reward and the punishment, some people might decide that a life sentence is not so bad and proceed to perform a crime, however man fears nothing more than death, it is in our genes, we do not want to die. Statistics show that the average murderer often pleads guilty in court, they will readily receive the punishment, as long as it is not death. If the death penalty is practiced, criminals will know that they will face execution if they perform a large enough crime, therefore they will be less likely to do it. In short the death penalty should be legalized because it helps save innocent lives. For example in 2005 capital punishment was abolished in Mexico, since then, Mexico has become an epicenter of murder, kidnapping, and drug wars, people sentenced to prison often escape due to the fact that if they do not break any other laws while escaping they are not charged for anything and no extra time is added to their sentence, which is under the assumption they are even captured. If the death penalty was in place people will think twice before committing a crime, as they cannot come back after they have been put to death. Crime rates are also increasing dramatically over the last half century millions are being killed and will be killed because our "justice system" is not working. Millions have already been killed and will be killed every year. According to Time Magazine, there are 2,000,000 people beaten in the United States. Some are knifed, shot, or assaulted. Crime growth has been going up in the past because of too much leniency going hand in hand with the increased rate of people being victimized. There are many loopholes devised for offenders, and because of that crime rate has increased drastically. Between l960 to 1968 crime rate increased 11 times. More and more people are being murdered, raped, assaulted, kidnapped, and robbed, etc. (Isenberg, I., 1997). However there are no loopholes to the death penalty. Argument 2: Repeated Murders A lot of the time the words: "A sentence to a prison prevents a criminal from doing any harm" does not keep its word. Some statistics supporting this evidence are that more than 500,000 crimes were committed by people who have already committed a crime in a single year - and around half of those were committed by "career" criminals, each with more than 25 previous offences. 1,800 domestic burglaries, and almost 3,000 thefts, were committed by convicted burglars, while 650 violent offences were carried out by people previously convicted of violent crime. And 1,200 sex crimes were committed by known sex offenders. Of the 134 dangerous or sexual offenders charged with a serious further offence last year, 26 were managed with regular multi-agency public protection meetings, other figures showed. Three of these were assessed as posing the highest risk to the public and eight serious case reviews were ordered after the offenders went on to kill or rape, or tried to murder or rape, despite being monitored. Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements panels, which include police, councils and other Government agencies, were set up to manage the risks to the public from dangerous criminals after they leave prison. Life sentences do not stop repeated murders from happening as well Andrew Dawson, George Johnson, Ernest Wright, David Cook and Desmond Lee were all allowed out on licence despite getting life sentences. Some even killed again within weeks of being released from prison. Andrew Dawson was given a life sentence in 1982 after admitting the murder of a 91-year-old Henry Walsh in his flat at Ormskirk, Lancashire, stabbing him a dozen times with bread knife. Within weeks of his release in 2010, he stabbed defenseless John Matthews and Paul Hancock to death in separate attacks, before leaving their bodies in their bathtubs in Derby. The 51-year-old told police he felt an 'urge to kill' before knocking on the men's doors in the block of flats, where he also lived, and hacked them to death. How does the death penalty affect this? Simple, the death penalty will prevent these repeated murders, to not institute death penalty is to allow the 250"000 crimes, each committed by people with 25 previous crimes, to go by. Should we simply allow this to go on, or should we take action against it and institute the death penalty. Argument 3: Safety is Utmost Although the death penalty does risk the chance that it will accidentally kill an innocent man, by killing a murderer we have prevented the death of other people, this is supported by argument 2, if a murderer given a life sentence, they will most likely kill if the chance arises, an example would be licensed leaves, as they can not be punished any more. The death penalty would remove the chances that a murder would kill again, and the death penalty could also serve as a warning to people in life sentences, telling them that there is a higher punishment, one that they cannot come back on. If letting a person die means keeping more people safe, then we should let the person die. People that want to kill have means of doing so, and we they do they often kill many, many scenarios involve people killing ten or more. The average citizen does not have a mind or intentions to become a killer or being falsely accused of murder. What he is worried about is being a victim. The number of repeated murders in this world is far, far more than the number of repeated murders. Thank You

The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished ==Refutations==C1: Deterrence-Capital Punishment won’t be a deter many murderers. [1]Many violent people resort to violence towards others and, in many cases, kill themselves anyway after killing their victims. Capital punishment wouldn’t be a deterrent to them. If these might be viewed as exceptional circumstances, then a way of covering all circumstances would be to compare the statistics between states with and without the death penalty. However, the majority of the justices at Gregg, after reviewing the evidence, concluded, “Statistical attempts to evaluate the death penalty as a deterrent to crimes by potential offenders have caused a great deal of debate. The results have been inconclusive”. Furthermore, states without the death penalty don’t have the highest murder rate, thus disproving the death penalty. [2]The most striking recent evidence recent evidence to emerge on this comes from a September 2000 article by Raymond Bonner and Ford Fessenden in the New York Times. This piece of evidence showed that the twelve states that have not adopted the death penalty since it became legal in 1976 have not had higher rates of murder than those with the death penalty. The study also found that “homicide rates had risen and fallen along roughly similar path with the states with and without the death penalty. C2: Bargaining Chip Using “Zina logic doesn’t fit all cases”, which is from your own source, and shows the flaws of using “the death penalty as a bargaining chip” tactic, which I will now briefly touch on. Firstly, a remote threat of execution is powerful enough that it could concoct false confessions from suspects, which would mislead the investigation. Secondly, whether the death penalty is imposed should be based on the facts of a crime, including aggravating and mitigating factors, not on the defendant’s cooperation or plea afterwards. [3]C3: Accuracy DNA testing has numerous flaws. A police expert admitted that DNA analysis could be unreliable. Police also have been shown to have no confidence in the reliability of DNA testing. [4] There is also many factors that can corrupt the reliability of DNA testing. . [5] C4: Popularity Popularity is not a valid reason for the death penalty to remain. Originally slavery was quite popular, yet that was not a valid reason for its existence. [6]Do you feel that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to the commitment of murder, that it lowers the murder rate, or not? In 2011 32% say it does, while a 64% say it doesn’t. How often do you think an innocent person, who was innocent, has been killed by the death penalty in the last five yearsIn 2009 59% of people agree to this, while 31% disagree. ==Arguments==C1: Life in prison is the best alternative and provides adequate response. Life in prison is a far better alternative to the death penalty. Life in prison without parole is moral, practical, and much less expensive than the complex process that leads to the death chamber. With life imprisonment, the murderer is removed from society and enables attention to the victim and their specific needs and support. [7]“Wrongdoers deserve to be punished”. This is a general, and quite well known, principle. But by itself, this principle provides no defense for the death penalty. It can easily be sastified by a lesser punishment, such as life imprisonment. The proposition the “murderers deserve to die” obviously is in favor of the death penalty, but it does so by begging the question. Why do murderers deserve to die when rapists do not deserve to be raped. Why do murderers deserve to die when we do not have the any idea what punishment traitors or kidnappers or embezzlers deserve. We know that the guilty ought to be punished, but we aren’t told what their punishment ought to be. [8]C2: Capital Punishment risks execution of the innocent-Legal appeal process isn’t enough to stop the killing of innocent people using capital punishment. [9]In many law cases, nothing in the legal appeals process helped uncover the evidence of innocence of these wrongly convicted individuals. Instead, it was investigations conducted by journalists or college students, or the confessions of the true perpetrators of these crimes that helped to exonerate the innocent. In fact, the justice system has at times worked to wrongfully criminalize the innocent. Reckless prosecutors and police lab chemist teams have been critized for playing with the rules to convict people in murder trials. This makes an absolute mockery of the system when professional enforcers of the law mangle the spirit of the law to get convictions, forcing outsiders to rescue the hapless victims of the criminal justice system. ==Sources==[1] Robert; Attorney and retired judge; “Capital Punishment and Violence;” Humanist; January/February 2004; Gale Group[2] Jeff; Columnist; “When Murderers Die, Innocents Live;” Boston Globe; 28 September 2003; Gale Group[3] . http://www.thenewstribune.com... [4] . http://www.theage.com.au... [5] . http://madamenoire.com... [6] . http://www.gallup.com... [7] Senil; Sergeant of the LAPD; “Humans Playing God: Capital Punishment and its Follies;” Tikkun; July/August 2002; Gale Group[8] Hugo; Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Tufts University; Debating the death penalty: Should America have Capital Punishment? The experts on both sides make their case; 2004; Kindle Edition[9] Senil; Sergeant of the LAPD; “Humans Playing God: Capital Punishment and its Follies;” Tikkun; July/August 2002; Gale Group

The Death Penalty Should Be Eliminated My argumentsDeath Penalty is JustAny crime should be punished proportional to how serious they are. So when a man commits the most atrocious acts, he should receive the highest penalty: the death punishment.This a quote of Robert Macy, District Attorney of Oklahoma City, about one of his case: "In 1991, a young mother was rendered helpless and made to watch as her baby was executed. The mother was then mutilated and killed. The killer should not lie in some prison with three meals a day, clean sheets, cable TV, family visits and endless appeals. For justice to prevail, some killers just need to die." [1]What is described above is just one single case. There are many other criminals who committed much more horrifying murders, and they should receive their retribution.Death Penalty deter crimesPunishment makes people less likely to violate the laws and more severe punishment will deter crimes better. Because everyone fears death, they will be more hesitated before committing a serious crime.In one of his research, Professor Isaac Ehrlich of the University of Buffalo estimated that each execution deterred about seven or eight homicides [2]. Additional research of Professor Stephen K. Layson of the University of North Carolina has reconfirmed Professor Ehrlich's results [3].Counter ArgumentsPro accused me of using a logical fallacy, but it is not true. I didn't use the example of armed robbers to compare with the death penalty. I used it as a direct counter to his "all forms of killing are wrong". Because Pro said "all forms" so my example must be included.Then Pro said that the killing of the robbers is "necessary" but not "morally right". He talked about a desirable where the problem could be solved without anyone killed. Of course it's the ideal solution, but sometimes it doesn't work and you have to use the last resort. So, in a situation where you have no other choice, what will you do? Pro said it's still "not right". I respect his opinion even though mine is different. But it doesn't matter, as I've already said in Round 1: You can't outlaw something just because you personally think it's wrong. Pro said it himself: One should not confuse "crime" with "morally wrong", and this is my point: We outlaw "crime", not something "morally wrong", as morality is subjective.Regarding the "paradox of the death penalty", it requires three conditions to be true. The first and the second ones are debatable but it does not matter. Because Pro conceded the third point, so he conceded this argument and therefore this so-called paradox doesn't exist.[1] http://prodpquotes.info...[2] "The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death," (1975), Isaac Ehrlich[3] "Homicide and Deterrence: A Reexamination of the United States Time-Series Evidence," (1985), Stephen K. Layson,

The death penalty should be legal in all US states. For some, the death penalty could be less worse than jail. The death penalty is only used when absolutely needed, and sometimes it is the only rational/moral option. Even if a criminal was released from the death penalty/jail, it would be very hard for them to make a living. The death penalty can be painless. The death penalty provides disclosure for victims. If the death penalty is not in use, then America will end up spending more money trying to contain criminals from the outside world. Many lives could be saved by each execution of a guilty killer.

Death Penalty Should be Banned 'I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live.'-Margaret Thatcher (en.www.wikiquote.org/wiki/Capital_punishment) If the convict kills someone isn't he violating that person's Right to Life. According to me death penalty should not be abolished. Argument 1-It is better to execute the convict rather than spending so heavily on him.A large sum of money is spent on keeping the criminals incarcerated.Take the example of Kasab,the convict of 26/11 attack in India.According to TOI report the expenditure on him during his 3 year stay in prison was roughly 53 crores.(http://www.indiatimes.com...) This money could have been spent for some other good cause. Argument 2-The feelings of victims and family would not find consolation if criminals did not pay with their lives.Society needs protection from these barbarians.Punishing them would also show the side effects of crimes to others. Argument 3-Once a convicted murderer is executed there is zero chance that he will break out of jail and kill and injure people. Argument 4-People say death penalty is cruel and unfair.It is 'inhumane'.So is it humane to let them suffer much more painfully for a long time rotting in jail.Isn't that inhumane.

The Death Penalty should be Abolished I propose simply that the governments of countries should take measures to abolish the death penalty for all people and for all crimes. That means that instead, for especially hoeneous crimes they should pursue top gun alternatives such as genuine life improsenment (literally until they die). This is suitable because they will not be a threat to the public and because they will be deprived of most freedoms and live the rest of their lives in a tough and unpleasant way thus punishing them as well as giving a sense of justice to their victims. So, now on to why I believe we should do this after defining my policy statement. I will propose three simple and logical arguments for why the death rate penalty is bad and thus why it follows that we should pursue its abolition. Firstly, the death penalty is wrong because it allows for innocent people to be murdered by the state. No matter how strong the burden of proof is as claimed by opponents of my position, countless numbers of times innocent people are wrongly convicted of serious crime and in certain countries are then murdered by the state for those false crimes. Let's be clear - our criminal justice systems, like any institution, have flaws and thus make mistakes or are corrupted. Juries are mostly very good at rightly judging evidence but ultimately they, like even experienced judges, are human beings who are subject to bias and opinion and make mistakes. In the case of death penalty cases, mistakes are very serious because they can kill people and thus mistakes cannot be corrected and so much more pain and suffering can be endured by both the wrongly accused and their families and friends. In these cases it only creates more victims. Now, often our institutions have inherent flaws. A good example would be institutional racism. We know this exists for sure within the police force. As can be shown by many examples of biases and acts of violence upon black men in custody. Furthermore, considering African Americans make up almost 50% of the American prison population despite being only 13% of the population and that Black people are 7 times more likely to be convicted wrongly of murder than white people this suggests that racism is a major factor causing injustices in legal systems. As a result, these obvious biases do mean that people are wrongly convicted and murdered on the grounds of racism and other forms of bigotry. Therefore, considering that my claim is true, in order to prevent innocent life from being snatched by the state we must abolish the death penalty as I propose. Secondly, the act of state sponsored murder is wrong and thus the death penalty must be abolished. When a state kills somebody for committing a crime what does that actually achieve? It can be an emotional reassurance to some victims of crime but what use does that actually provide to society in general. Cannot victims feel a sense of justice when a criminal faces a life of punishment and deprivation? There is no evidence that killing even guilty people actually acts as a deterrent to further support my claim that it achieves nothing. Isn't it surely more useful when a murder for instance spends their life in prison with the possibility of realising the immortality of their crime and thus feeling remorse and real guilt and sorrow. Not only is the death penalty useless but it is cruel. Many victims of the death penalty take hours to die. Recently a case emerged where a murderer was executed and the third poison injected into him was the wrong one. When this was given (instead of potassium chloride) it took the victim a much longer and painful time to die. This is wrong because human suffering is universally wrong. As humans we should aspire to progress morally and thus we suffering for suffering's sake is contradictory to this principle therefore rendering it defunct and thus the execution of criminals immoral. Finally, the death penalty is immoral because not only does it now victimise the families of the convicted criminals but because it diminishes the morality of society. As a civilised society we believe generally that the killing of human life is wrong except in exceptional circumstances whereby someone is about to kill someone else for instance. We believe that a civilised society is one that is not barbaric and does not kill people when there is no actual measurable use of killing them. Furthermore, human life is in sacred and special and killing is cruel mainly because it extinguishes that individual's ability to contribute to society after they have been reformed in prison. Many prisoners convicted of crimes such as murder in countries where there is no death penalty often show huge remorse and end up changing their lives, becoming reformed people and thus setting about to lead a moral life. This is not possible under the death penalty. People's contribution to the universe is destroyed by a society which deems itself to oppose the removal of life unless it is essential to the betterment of that society. And, appeasing the fiery emotions of traumatised victims is not essential to the betterment of society. For these reasons, the death penalty is both useless, actively cruel, victimising and limiting of the potential for positive contribution to our society. My final argument is that the death penalty is wrong because it brutalises us as human beings. Capital punishment provides a tangible and yet unacceptable link between justice served by the law and violence. Let's be clear. Violence is wrong in all cases. Even when we do justify violence it is when we are trying to stop more violence and so it's not a contradiction since my claim is that we should pursue the path of least violence and since the death penalty is not a deterrent then it, by my premise is immoral. Moreover, it perverts the notion of justice served by the law and ultimately by our societal notion of universal morality. Statistics show that the death penalty leads to a brutalisation of society and an increase in murder rate. In the USA, more murders take place in states where capital punishment is allowed. In 2010, the murder rate in states where the death penalty has been abolished was 4.01 per cent per 100,000 people. In states where the death penalty is used, the figure was 5.00 per cent. These calculations are based on figures from the FBI. The gap between death penalty states and non-death penalty states rose considerably from 4 per cent difference in 1990 to 25 per cent in 2010. Source: FBI Uniform Crime Report, from Death Penalty Information Center Disturbed individuals are often angered or believe that violence is more acceptable since the most fundamental form of authority (the state) leads by example in murdering criminals and thus these people are more likely to commit murder. It is also linked to increased number of police officers murdered. For the reason that the death penalty brutalises and lowers our societal goals of moral progression, we should abolish the death penalty. In conclusion, the death penalty represents everything that really is immoral. It murders innocent people, it unnecessarily deletes lives in often horrendously painful ways and worst of all, it underpins a notion of acceptable brutality which, as has been shown, perverts our society and corrupts our justice system. Before Keith Tharpe was sentenced to death one juror called him "a nig**r". This injustice is symbolised, embodied and perpetuated by the status quo. So, let us be brave, exercise deep and bold moral courage and say firmly that even the worst people should never be murdered by a society to which they pose no threat. I urge voters to support the Abolition of this brutal and barbaric system of state-sponsored cruelty and degradation.

The death penalty should be abolished Thanks Pro! I'll jump into arguments right away: 1. Justice. The death penalty provides justice for those who are victims of the horrendous crimes criminals commit. The criminals have wronged people and the death penalty is an appropriate way of ridding of the filth that caused so much harm and stress to our society. Keep in mind that the death penalty is strictly reserved for those who have done the most terrible things imaginable, such as rape and murder. [1] With current technology, the chances of innocent people getting convicted are extremely low, ensuring that the death penalty will only harm the foul and will help the families who are hurt by the criminal's crimes move on. I'll rebut my opponent's arguments next round. Good luck! [1] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...

Death Penalty The Death Penalty is worthwhile as it punishes those that deserve it.

The Death Penalty should be abolished I'll preface this with two things: One, this is my first debate, so I apologize in advance if I have some stylistic things that need to be worked out. Two, I'm in the middle of my finals, so I apologize again if my responses take longer than you would like. Now to refuting your arguments. The Death Penalty - Murder is defined as "Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law." As such the act of killing some one with the death penalty is not murder by definition because the government does not recognize it as such. Additionally, the death penalty has been practiced throughout history, and is even advocated in the Bible repeatedly in acts such as stoning children who act against their parents, or any other number of sinners. You said that it is not the government's place to murder people without war, so then is it nor morally reprehensible if there is a war? Then we must look at what war is? It is simply when a country believes it has been wronged by another entity, as such, if a country believes some entity, be it another state, a terrorist faction, or a person, is of sufficient threat to its citizens it has the right then to fight back and kill. Is that not essentially what the death penalty is? - You said"Nobody is afriad of the death penalty so it is ineffective. People are afriad of prison. You never hear, "I would but I don't want to get the death penalty." You do hear, "I would. I don't want to go to jail."" Is it not redundant to say that it is the status quo for humans to not wish to die. As such you don't hear people say "I don't want to get the death penalty" because everyone knows that no one wants to die. In effect, I would just have to generally disagree with you on this point, crimes by and large are not committed on the scale that would merit the possibility of capital punishment because while people are not so afraid of going to jail, they are afraid of the potentiality of being put to death. - "It kills people instead of allowing them to pay for their crimes." Is killing them not forcing them to pay for their crimes? - "The appeal process is too great for a death penalty person. They can get acquitted any time wrongfully." This is true for many criminals. A prisoner in jail has nothing better to do than research case law, and look for reasons that they should be allowed another appeal and eventually get themselves acquitted. They can not do this if they are dead. - "Capital punishment is cruel and unusual... It is destroying American values" Capital punishment is not cruel and unusual, every effort has been taken to see to it that the prisoner in question does not feel any pain in their passing, which is much more a service than they probably gave to their victims. In fact, going back in time, a quick painless death came about with the invention of the guillotine, which arguably is much better than the lethal injection with regards to quick, painless death. - "The death penalty is used disproportionately against the poor, who cannot afford expensive legal counsel, as well as racial, ethnic and religious minorities." While this statement may appear to have some substance, it can not be taken at face value. Unfortunate as it may be, the percentages of people within the U.S. prison system are in the majority for "the poor,...racial, ethnic, and religious minorities." However, whether or not the prison system as a whole is bias, is a topic for another debate. - "The death penalty is applied arbitrarily and inconsistently." I'd like you to expand on this if you can, because with a statement this vague I don't know how to defend my position against it. If you are speaking about the cases in which it is used, then yes, it may very well vary. However this is because the states are allowed to determine whether or not capital punishment is acceptable, and if it is, under what scenarios. This is an example of the states deciding what coincides with the belief systems and the needs of its residents. This is a good thing because it allows the citizens to dictate the world they live in. - "Wrongly convicted, innocent people have received death penalty sentences, and tragically, were killed by the state. People are released from jail constantly for crimes they did not commit. Imagine if you were suddenly murdered for a crime you did not commit." While this does happen, such cases are in the minority, and as you stated earlier, the person in question has many opportunities for appeal, as such you would not be "suddenly murdered for a crime you didn't commit," there is nothing sudden about the death penalty. - "A rehabilitated criminal can make a morally valuable contribution to society." This is by and large not true, very few convicted felons are able to re-adapt to society, few can get jobs worth having, and as such most return to lives of crime. - "Financial costs to taxpayers of capital punishment is several times that of keeping someone in prison for life." While this is true, it is not the actual act of capital punishment, but rather the court fees for all of the additional litigation, which as i said before may be present in a non-capital court case. - "The endless appeals and required additional procedures clog our court system and make speedy trials impossible as well." I think I've touched on this enough. However, the trials are held at the same pace as any trial, and as such the right to a speedy trial is no more infringed upon an alleged murderer than a person convicted of speeding. - "We as a society have to move away from the "eye for an eye" revenge mentality if civilization is to advance." Wasn't "an eye for an eye" one of the first rules set down in Hammurabi's code which was one of the stepping stones for civilization to begin to advance because we had law? Although yes we do need to advance, beyond an eye for an eye, this does not detract from the potential benefit of ridding the world of a mass murderer, or rapist or what have you. - "It sends the wrong message: why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong. Should we rape people who rape people? ... Should we rape people who rape people? No lesson is learned." This simply does not make sense, it is fallacious logic. It is not a Gov does this to Person X because Person X did this to Citizen Y. Rather it is more government gets rid of Person X because they did this ti Citizen Y and it is believed that they have the potential to do said act again and it is more beneficial for the community to be rid of Person X. The way our laws are set up in no way reflect the scenarios you described. Death is just another level of separation between the public masses and the criminal; albeit a permanent one. - "Other countries (especially in Europe) would have a more favorable image of America. And we could have more help in our military and economic ventures." Honestly I think our stance on the death penalty is a low priority to other countries. What I think they are more concerned about is the "murdering" of Iraqis by American troops in the scenario you said earlier would make killing acceptable. If that is so, why are they so angry about our invasions and war? - "Most jury members ... murderers roam free." Again partially true, jury members are reluctant to convict if it means the person will receive the death penalty, but then again we don't want them to feel comfortable sending some one to their death, the death penalty makes them treat the case that much more seriously. Also there are usually lesser charges brought against the defendant that the jurors could still find him/her guilty on, without the death penalty. - "The prisoner's family ... appeals process." Yes, and isn't it horrible how much they must grieve... a strange parallel between them and the victim's family. Only it was not the victim who brought the prisoners family into a situation that would cause them pain.

death penalty Let me agree that none of the arguments presented by con are invalid .. But they are not as strong as they appear to be at first glance. 1. Every human life is precious, no doubt. The right to life is the most fundamental of rights. No state should be allowed to take it away easily. But no fundamental right is without riders either. Free speech, property and faith, all these are rights subject to reasonable restrictions. Sure, the right to life is even more fundamental, but this only means that the right to take it away has to be foolproof and not amenable to subjective readings. When someone is a terrorist, killing people at will, or a serial murderer or rapist, is this person"s right to life all that sacrosanct all the time? Also, we need to evaluate the death sentence compared to the alternative: a life sentence. Is living life in a dingy cell somehow more humane than sending the killer to the hangman? When suicide bombers voluntarily kill themselves for psychic gains, why is the right to life somehow so sacrosanct? They want to die anyway " and they don"t believe in other people"s right to live. Let me add two more elements to this argument. Why is only human life so valuable, and not that of animals or other fauna? Why is it so unethical to hang a human being, but perfectly all right to murder animals by the million when this causes global warming, makes our diets excessively fatty and cholesterol-laden, and also leads to needless suffering to creatures whom we dominate? Moreover, what if keeping a person alive can cause even more deaths? Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda, Indian Mujahideen, Al Shabaab, and ISIS will do anything to get the release of their jailed comrades. Keeping Maulana Masood Azhar and Sheikh Omar in jail caused the Kandahar Indian Airlines hijack and may even have contributed to the 9/11 mass murders at the Twin Towers. When keeping deadly killers alive in jail can tempt their compatriots to indulge in more killings, how is this justified? When it comes to demented people who kill or rape for pleasure and revenge, and when they do so out of mental sickness, is it better to keep them rotting in jail or end their suffering and potential threats to society " including other jailbirds? Sometimes, the greater good is more important than the life of one individual. Hence the death penalty is not something we should reject out of sheer emotion. 2.sending someone to the gallows when he may be innocent is the worst form of injustice. There are two kinds of states " malevolent ones, that are run by dictatorships and hence outside the rule of law, and democratic ones, which do give the accused a chance to prove their innocence. In the first case, there is no point arguing against the death sentence since that kind of regime is against any argument that is not in favour of it. In democratic regimes, where the rule of law is reasonably expected to operate, the accused have a chance to prove their innocence. In big cases, the courts themselves provide legal support; the real problem lies with the poor and weak in criminal cases that do not catch the public eye. It is a travesty that the bulk of the people languishing on death row are from these segments of society. This problem needs remedying by strengthening the law - a law which provides state legal support for the poor. Maybe, a group of concerned citizens can serve as watchdog to ensure that this gets done. That still leaves the question of the non-guilty facing a death rap because of poor evidence gathering by the criminal investigation teams. This is a valid argument, but not an overpowering one. Reason: the fact that mistakes will be made occasionally should not be used to kill the idea of death penalty in the rarest of rare cases. Once we create a basic list of crimes that fits this "rarest of rare" category, the rules for applying the death sentence can be tightened suitably so that convictions based on weak evidence should automatically attract nothing more than lifers. This is a reasonable safeguard to have " and it can be codified into law. 3. The third argument, that capital punishment is never a deterrent, is actually the weakest of them all. If death is no deterrence, is a jail term (even a lifer) a better deterrent? Ask yourself: if you intend to kill, not out of some degree of temporary insanity or driven by extreme emotion, nothing is a deterrent. If you kill after plotting assiduously for it, you are prepared for any consequences. So death or jail will be no deterrent anyway. I believe that punishment itself does not deter too many crimes involving the killing of people, but it is still needed to send out a message to society. Punishment is how we educate ourselves on what is acceptable or unacceptable to a society. This is the prime purpose of any punishment, death or jail, regardless of whether it deters or not. 4. States punish crimes with punishment, including death, so that people don"t take law into their own hands and seek retribution directly. Punishment by the state is vital to keep ordinary citizens from taking the law into their own hands " some form of retribution is vital for closure, for righting wrongs. Of course, an occasional Gandhi or a Buddha may not want retribution, but most societies are held in place by the promise of retribution for wrongs inflicted, and not by the forgiving nature of the wronged. Retribution is a human emotion that needs to be acknowledged " just as love, anger and hate are " and punishment is vital if society is not to sink into wanton lawlessness. These are some of the reasons why I think the death sentence should be retained. But it cannot be wayward and arbitrary. We need a specific set of crimes which are defined as rarest of rare and not leave it to the imagination of all-to-human judges to decide this. http://www.123helpme.com... http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org... http://www.newsmax.com... http://www.usnews.com... http://www.biblebelievers.com...

The Death Penalty Should Be Continued. The death penalty is bad because 1. It is cruel. Killing people is cruel and therefor should be considered cruel and unusual punishment which is unconstitutional. 2. A government should not be allowed to take away any person's life for two reasons. A. The government should never have the ability to decide whether a person lives or dies. I'm not saying that a person who kills 15 people and rapes your mother doesn't deserve to die, Im just saying it is not the right of the government to do it. B. Governments are not perfect, our law enforcement and courts are not perfect and if there is a small chance of innocents, a person should not be killed. 3. It is not that effive in the reduction of crime. Follow my logic, if a person is going to kill a number of people he is not going to stop simply because the government might kill him. Those who kill are pushed further away from humanity, therefore, these people do not fear death. "From 1976 to 1996, the number of executions per year in the United States has increased from 0 to just under 60. The homicide rate per 100,000 population has remained constant at just under 10." Also in areas where there is a death penalty their are 7.1 out of 100 000 people murdered, while in areas without it their is an average of 3.6 people out of 100 000 people murdered. 4. In a civilized society, we should not kill people. It is barbaric and we are better than the people who murder people. Since you read this before and you pre-emptively took our everything else. I still my first point true, the second one, the fact that it increases crime from a statistical stand point, and my fourth point. You argue that killing someone is the only way to stop them from getting back on the street, but life in prison seems to work just fine. True our justice system is not perfect, but it seems to me its probably easier to get someone imprisioned for life, than sentenced to death. If we use death simply to control someone, its a slipery slope before we use death to control someone else for other reasons, and so on down.

Death Penalty Common sense, lately bolstered by statistics, tells us that the death penalty will deter murder. People fear nothing more than death. Therefore, nothing will deter a criminal more than the fear of death. Life in prison is less feared. Murderers clearly prefer it to execution otherwise, they would not try to be sentenced to life in prison instead of death. Therefore, a life sentence must be less deterrent than a death sentence. And we must execute murderers as long as it is merely possible that their execution protects citizens from future murder. Society is justly ordered when each person receives what is due to him. Crime disturbs this just order, for the criminal takes from people their lives, peace, liberties, and worldly goods in order to give himself undeserved benefits. Deserved punishment protects society morally by restoring this just order, making the wrongdoer pay a price equivalent to the harm he has done. This is retribution, not to be confused with revenge, which is guided by a different motive. In retribution the spur is the virtue of indignation, which answers injury with injury for public good. Retribution is the primary purpose of just punishment as such. Rehabilitation, protection, and deterrence have a lesser status in punishment than retribution. No system of justice can produce results which are 100% certain all the time. Mistakes will be made in any system which relies upon human testimony for proof. We should be vigilant to uncover and avoid such mistakes. Our system of justice rightfully demands a higher standard for death penalty cases. However, the risk of making a mistake with the extraordinary due process applied in death penalty cases is very small, and there is no credible evidence to show that any innocent persons have been executed at least since the death penalty was reactivated in 1976. The inevitability of a mistake should not serve as grounds to eliminate the death penalty any more than the risk of having a fatal wreck should make automobiles illegal.

The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished I. The Right to LifeBefore it can be concluded that humans have the right to life, it must be asserted that rights exist at all. One simple argument in favor of the existence of rights is national and international law itself. Certain laws codify what rights citizens and humans have, and thus can be treated as rights, applicable to everyone. These rights may seem artificial in comparison to rights that arise either from divine decree or human innateness, but they are rights nevertheless. [1]On the national level, Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, one of the three founding documents that American government is based on (the other two being the Constitution and the Bill of Rights), wrote that, “…that they [men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ” On the international level, the United Declaration of Human Rights, written up by the United Nationals General Assembly, says, “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. ” Thus, we see that the right to life is already an integral part of both US and international law. [2][3]A more sophisticated argument involves agency-based justification. “He [Alan Gewirth] argued that denying the value of successful agency and action is not an option for a human being; having a life requires regarding the indispensable conditions of agency and action as necessary goods. Abstractly described, these conditions of successful agency are freedom and well-being. A prudent rational agent who must have freedom and well-being will assert a ‘prudential right claim’ to them. Having demanded that others must respect her freedom and well-being, consistency requires her to recognize and respect the freedom and well-being of other persons. Since all other agents are in exactly the same position as she is of desperately needing freedom and well-being, consistency requires her to recognize and respect their freedom and well-being. She ‘logically must accept’ that other people as agents have equal rights to freedom and well-being. These two abstract rights work alone and together to generate equal specific human rights of familiar sorts. ”[1]If we have any rights at all, by the agency-based justification argument quoted above, we should have the right to life. Freedom and well-being can only be had when an agent is alive, thus making life a “prudential life claim” to such agent. Because of consistency, that agent must extend the same right to life to everyone else, and by the equality of agent desires, every other agent must feel the same way. Therefore, the right to life is fundamentally protected according to the agency-based justification argument. Therefore, the right to life exists because of both national and international law, and because of agency-based justification. The death penalty necessarily violates such life, as it involves the deliberate ending of a life. Therefore, the death penalty should be viewed as an act which violates the fundamental rights of a human being, and thusly should not be enacted anywhere in the world. II. Psychological EffectsExecuting a criminal is incredibly traumatic to the family. Even if that criminal committed horrible crimes, the family still, understandably, has a strong emotional attachment to the criminal, and seeing that bond snuffed out by the government is a horrible feeling. Source four chronicles some of the psychological problems that family members of executed criminals experience, including PTSD, depression, anxiety disorder, and many other psychological conditions. Children in particular are hugely affected. Another study (source five), found that, in addition to the myriad of psychological problems children can experience, they can also experience social stigmatization, which leads to other psychological problems like loneliness. [4][5]Executioners can also experience psychological issues. Executing a criminal who has committed a lot of violent crimes is often seen as a morally righteous act. Consequently, the people who perform the executions are commonly viewed to be the ones bringing about such a morally righteous act, and thus executioners should regard themselves highly. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Executioners often experience depression and paranoia from the actions they commit. One executioner, Jerry Givens, who executed 62 people, said, “I performed the execution. So you might suffer a little. I'm going to suffer a lot, because I performed the job. ”[6][7]Finally, the criminals on death row themselves often have psychological issues because of the fact that they’re on death row. There’s even a name for it, death row syndrome. It arises because of the isolation death row inmates often face (most are placed in solitary confinement for at least 23 hours a day) and the fact that they view their fate as uncertain, as the appeals process is extremely complicated and often takes decades to be resolved. Death row is often seen as as psychologically damaging as torture. Particularly given that, as I’m going to argue in my next point, that a lot of death row inmates are actually innocent, it is easy to see that this process is practically inhumane. [8]The death penalty cannot be so beneficial as to outweigh the huge psychological effects that the criminal, the criminal’s family, and the executioner often face. These effects are completely unnecessary. III. The Potential for Innocents to Be KilledThe death penalty is the ultimate punishment. There is nothing that can be taken away from a person that is more important than the person’s life. It’s, at best, questionable whether or not the retributive justice of taking the life of someone who has taken a life is justified. However, there’s also the potential that an innocent person can be executed. One study found that 4.1% of people on death row are innocent. Given the psychological problems detailed above that people on death row often face, not to mention the waste of that person’s life and the fact that, even if he is eventually released, he will inevitably be stigmatized for the rest of his life, this is unacceptable. But it gets one step worse, as the same study found that at least 0.5% of people who are executed are innocent as well (though the number could be a lot higher). This isn’t just unacceptable, this is absolutely deplorable. [9]Even though, according to Supreme Court cases, executing mentally ill people is ostensibly illegal, it still happens a large number of times. Anywhere between five and ten percent of people on death row suffer from some severe mental illness, and there are numerous stories of people with clear mental illnesses that were deemed competent to stand trial, summarily condemned, and then executed, despite the fact that it was clearly visible to the judge and jury that such people suffered from severe mental illness. This is clearly wrong because such people are not truly guilty, as they are unable to understand the consequences or the moral depravity of their actions. Now, one could argue that exuting the mentally ill should be illegal. However, the Supreme court has already ruled that, if a criminal is deemed to be mentally ill either at the time of their trial or the time of their execution, that they cannot be executed, and yet, these laws are often subverted, as I've just shown. [10]Similar to my above argument, the death penalty cannot be so beneficial as to outweigh the fact that innocent people and people with mental illness are being executed. And similarly, these effects are completely unnecessary. ConclusionI have shown that the death penalty violates the right to life, which exists both because of national and international law and because of the agency-based justification argument, that the death penalty results in needless psychological problems for those on death row, their families, and their executioners, and that many people both on death row and that have been executed are innocent, either because of true innocence or as a consequence of preexisting mental illness. Therefore, the death penalty is wrong, and should thus be abolished. Sources[1]: . http://plato.stanford.edu...[2]: . http://www.archives.gov...[3]: . http://www.un.org...[4]: . http://b.3cdn.net...[5]: . http://www.quno.org...[6]: . http://www.njadp.org...[7]: . http://abcnews.go.com...[8]: . http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[9]: . http://www.pnas.org...[10]: . https://www.aclu.org...

There should not be a Death Penalty. The Death Penalty has killed a lot of innocent people. God is the only one who can make that decision.

The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished ==Arguments== C1: DeterrenceThe Death Penalty serves as a determent to criminals. There is a relationship between the death penalty and murder. The deterrent effect of the death penalty helps to save lives, ultimately resulting in the overall prevention of the loss of human life [1]. Multiple studies that have occured over time have demonstrated that the death penalty saves lives [1]. Several professors of Emory University found in a 2003 nationwide study that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders [6]. A 2006 study found that each execution results in five fewer homicides [7]. Shorter waits on death row is connectted with increased deterrence. For every 2.75-year reduction of the time a death row inmate has to wait, at least one murder is deterred. The Emory group used nationwide data from 1960 to 2000,and discovered that 91% of the states had higher homicide rates after they suspended the death penalty [11]. On the other hand, 70% of the states had homicides decrease after the Death Penalty was put back in place [11]. Furthermore, a study, from the Wall Street Journal found that the death penalty saves 74 lives by stopping possible murderers in the next year [12]. C2: Bargaining ChipThe Death Penalty provides leverage and allows prosecutors to use it as a "bargaining chip" to obtain guilty pleas and plea bargains [2] [3]. The criminal justice system is sped up by the DP, which helps to prevent backlogging. Research has shown that 90% of cases in the US are resolved by plea bargains, with the guilty party admitting to all or part of the offenses charged in exchange for reduced/lenient charges [4]. This showsOne example is the case of 12-year-old Zina Linnick's disappearance. Even a remote threat of using the death penalty could give enough of an incentive for a person to confess [3]. Another example would be serial killers Robert Yates and Gary Ridgway. The confessed due to the threat of the death penalty [3]. Without a doubt, the death penalty allows prosecutors to get information quicker. This can even possibly save lives - such as revealing the location of an abducted person about to die. C3: AccuracyDNA testing and other modern forms of forensic science have allowed us to eleminate all doubt or suspicsion towards a person's guilt or innoncence. DNA testing helps to effectively prosecuting the guilty and protects the innocent [8]. Furthermore, a jury of twelve have to unanimously decide that they have no doubt that the defendent is guilty in order to sentence a person to death. [9]Furthermore, the death penalty has nearly a 99.6% rate of accuracy. C4: PopularityGallup polls have shown that the majority of Americans support the Death Penalty. Our goverment is based on a republic, and a republic at its heart, is ruled by the majority. Gallup polls reveal that:1) There is a consistant trend of the majority supporting the death penalty being used in cases where the guilty party is convicted of murder. In 2011, 61% supported the DP while only 35% was agaisnt it.2) Even over time, the majority of Americans believe that the Death Penalty is used not enough.3) The majority of people believe that the death penalty is currently being applied fairly.4) Furthermore, there is a tendency that most people believe that the Death Penalty is morally acceptable. 65% of people believe it is right, while only 28% believe it is wrong.5) OVer time, people have constantly shown that they believe when choosing between the death penalty and imprisonment for life (without parole), the death penalty should be used. The Gallup Poll(s) can be found at my 10th source. ==Rebuttals==C1: Life in PrisonMy opponent tries to suggest the idea that criminals do not suffer when they die. However, you must consider that usually, we are talking about murderers. They took the life of another person, why do they get to live? it is commonly preached that iving life, no matter how bad, is far more preferable than death. And furthermore, my opponent concedes the fact that you cannot confirm that the inmate will stay in jail for life. Goverment officials or judges can offer clemency, parole, or find a reason for a new trial [13]. Unlike what PRO claims, by putting murderers in prison for life without parole, does not mean that they will not get out. Furthermore, we put the lives of of other people who commited less severe crimes at risk, due to the fact that there are far more dangerous murderers in jail. Say in 2012, there are X number of murderers scheduled to be executed. However, they are sent to prison. This means there will be X more murderers in prisons. Then in 2013, there are Y number of murderers who should be executed, but they are sent to prison. X + Y in prison. And so on. Furthermore, the numbers will continue to grow until the first generation (X) start to die. We see that there is going to be an accumulation of murderers - which make prisons far more dangerous then they are now. C2: Killing is Immoral? As for my opponents argument on how "We might kill innocents", please see my accuracy contention. Furthermore, if Killing is "immoral", then war obviously cannot be tolerated. However, war can be justified, when you are going to war in order to preserve and defend your country. My deterrence argument shows that when we kill people who have commited horribly immoral acts, we actually save the lives of others, who are completely innocent. In my eyes, these executions are perfectly justified. All of my opponents other arguments I have answerered within my own contentions. I await your response. Sources:[1]. http://www.heritage.org......[2]http://sentencing.typepad.com......[3]http://www.thenewstribune.com......[4]http://www.thecrimereport.org......[5] Joanna M. Shepherd, "Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment," Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 33 (June 2004), pp. 283-321. [6] Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd, "Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data," American Law and Economics Review, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2003), pp. 344-376. [7]. http://www.washingtonpost.com......[8]http://www.forensicmag.com......[9]http://crime.about.com......[10]http://www.gallup.com......[11]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[12]http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu...(ChronicleofHigherEd).pdf[13] David Schaefer, PhD, Professor of Political Science at Holy Cross College, in his Dec. 2001 article for The American Enterprise titled "The Death Penalty and Its Alternatives"[14]. http://www.prodeathpenalty.com...

The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished Intro-Throughout the course of the justice system as we know it, humanity has sought to find appropriate means in which a punishment might fit the crime. As it stands, with proper adjudication, we have found a workable model in which the tried and guilty of humanity have ability to contest their sentence, contest their trial, and prove their innocence or their situation being worthy of leniency before the sentence. The most extreme crimes in this world really don’t have the ability to have justice meted out. As we discuss this topic, seemingly in my back yard, one of the worst premeditated shootings to have occurred on American soil was just perpetrated in which 49 people were killed by the acts of one man. There really is no way that should this killer have been taken alive that there is a balance he could have paid back to society. The Death Penalty as we discuss it represents the last potential for a heinous perpetrator to find justice, for our laws to have a function, and our punishments to have meaning. It’s a clear statement that should your actions take the lives of others, you must pay in the only meaningful way for the evil that has been committed. Here are what I feel are the most compelling reasons for keeping the Death penalty as a real punishment, and an appreciably, viable deterrent. Right to Death-While the reader might puzzle over this, the rationale is quite simple. Currently, we do have capital punishment in certain states. I suggest a hypothetical to prove my point: if the offender in question knowingly pleads guilty, knowingly instructs his/her defense and the court that he/she knows his crime is horrible, does not feel he/she is worth rehabilitation, would prefer to die rather than risk potential release and commit this crime again, is this not a clear cut case of legally enacted right to die? If the offender states as such so plainly, the resolution as stated denies the right to die. Purpose of Justice-It has been stated that the reason for a justice system is as follows: “'The purpose of the Criminal Justice System. .. is to deliver justice for all, by convicting and punishing the guilty and helping them to stop offending, while protecting the innocent. ” (1) What is injustice? I contend we all know what that is when we see it. When Ponzi schemes are revealed and billions of dollars of people’s retirement disappear. When valuables are stolen and destroyed, leaving the victim with no recourse even when the offender is found guilty. Injustice is that sense of understanding that a void has been created by the offender, and no matter what platitudes might be offered, that thing, whatever it was that the offender acted on, is gone, and no reasonable efforts can replace it. Cars and money are replaceable. Justice is easy to find in a situation where a few thousand dollars are stolen from a robbed bank, and it’s easy to take that out of the perpetrator to attempt to make the victims whole. People, however, are not so easily replaced. There is no reasonable means a murderer can replace what they took from the victim’s family, or the victim themselves. Is it really possible to call a life time incarceration in which the most basic needs of life are provided to the offender as a just circumstance when such was not provided to the victim by the offender? Justice incarnate is represented by holding a balance. At its most basic of understanding, justice is the ability for equality to be achieved again, to find balance in the offense to right the wrong that was done. The resolution simply doesn’t allow for that. It gives carte blanche to an offender, that no matter how much they take and take and take of this most precious gift, life, it will never be in turn taken from them. That is simply not just. Accrued cost-I have no doubt this seems cavalier to state, but to the tax payer, as it stands, expedience in conducting sentence and proper appeals would prevent the tax payer (of which the victim’s family might be present) from paying for the lifestyle of the offender, however diminished it might be. I have no desire to support convicts in general, much less convicts that have been found guilty of killing those I love. I can’t imagine that sentiment would be unpopular amongst all the families of have killers of their family on death row. Numbers for incarceration vs execution vary widely, however from what casual inspection I have done, admittedly due to legal process, it costs more to attempt to execute an inmate than it does to keep them incarcerated permanently. This, however, assumes that the inmate makes use of all their appeals (a likely prospect). This also assumes that an inmate that is effectively a dependent of the state expires in a succinct fashion: that is to say they die quickly. Given the state of affairs regarding healthcare costs, such a statement of execution being a less expensive alternative can very much be a reality, and is more likely to be so as time goes on. (2) Deterrent-Given a majority of states that have specific law regarding crimes conducted with firearms, it is quite possible to rack up a life sentence by brandishing a firearm, shooting into the air, and using one in the commission of a felony. Ten/20/Life rules virtually guarantee that a poorly conducted robbery will result a life time of incarceration. Speaking logically, then… what does it matter if you kill some one in the commission of the crime? The deterrent effect of the death penalty is obviously widely debated, however a few conclusions can be drawn: -“Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14). ” -“Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor. ” (3)Now, sadly, the remainder of my position from here comes across as rebuttals to what was wisely established by Pro in the first round, so rather than risk considering my opening remarks as refutes, I will hold the remainder until my next round.1) . http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk...2) . http://www.mountain-news.com...3) . http://www.washingtonpost.com...

Capital Punishment Should Be Allowed First debate, very excited! OK here I go: Everyone has the right to live, no ones life should be ended because someone decided that they should. The saying two wrongs don't make a right goes a very long way when it comes to topics like this. Human life is so valuable, that even murderers shouldn't be deprived of their life, even if they have killed someone. The death penalty is something that you can't take back, it is irreversible! Imagine killing someone and later on finding out that they are innocent. Texas man Cameron Todd Willingham, for example, was found innocent after his 2004 execution. Lastly, using the death penalty doesn't deter criminals, evidence says it does the complete opposite! Twenty seven years after abolishing the death penalty, Canada saw a 44 per cent drop in murders across the country. And it wasn't alone.

the death penalty should be allowed Pro has not responded to any of my arguments. This is a debate, and debates entail an exchange, not talking past each other and ignoring the other side.Now, on to the mesh of one sentence arguments...the American jail is not as hard as should be on certain prisoners for what they have done. 1) This is irrelevant. If jails should be harder, it only follows that the jails should change, not that the death penalty should be allowed. 2) Why are jails not hard enough? Please provide support. I think that if you have the guts to go up and have the nerve to kill someone then you definitely don't deserve to still be living and breathing on this earth its just not right1) I developed a lengthy argument last round which addressed the moral responsibility of individuals and the unjust nature of the death penalty. I invite Pro to read it.2) Pro only appeals to emotion. She doesn't make an argument. you need to learn from your mistakesUnfortunately, you'll find that when you try to use capital punishment to educate someone, their capacity to remember what they learned is greatly impared. it will also teach others to learn from what you have done and be warned that if you decide to take this path in your life there will be serious consequences like the death penalty Deterence is a contentious issue, so Pro cannot make an argument for it without providing outside research. In 2008, a survey was conducted on members of the prestigious Fellow in the American Society of Criminology. 88.2% of the experts do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent. 74.7% say that research refutes the claim that death-penalty states have lower homicide rates than neighboring states without the death-penalty. In fact, death-penalty states had 42% higher homicide rates than non-death penalty states in 2007. [1] Also, in a 1995 national survey, two-thirds of nearly 400 police chiefs and county sheriffs responded that they did not believe the death penalty significantly lowered the number of murders [1]. “Overall, it is clear that however measured, fewer than 10% of the polled experts believe the deterrence effect of the death penalty is stronger than that of long-term imprisonment”[1] A study was conducted a few years ago by the prestigious National Research Council of the National Academies [2]. The study covered over three decades of research and concluded that there were three fundamental flaws in current studies on deterrence: 1. “The studies do not factor in the effects of noncapital punishments that may also be imposed. 2. The studies use incomplete or implausible models of potential murderers’ perceptions of and response to the use of capital punishment. 3. Estimates of the effect of capital punishment are based on statistical models that make assumptions that are not credible.” The conclusion of the study was that research is not informative about the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates and, therefore, should not be used to inform policy judgements. There have been a vast amount of studies regarding capital punishment and deterrence such as the 10 mentioned between 2004 and 2012 here [3]. The only thing we can gather from all these studies is that the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates can’t be established, as the mentioned article concludes. There are, however, reasons why the death penalty might have very little deterrence or no deterrence at all. The first reason is the consensus of experts against deterrence. The second is presented below. For the death penalty to deter, criminals need to actively weigh the thought of execution to their potential crime. This is problematic; one, because executions happen so little in America and are applied so arbitrary that no one would believe they had much chance of receiving the death penalty. Also, murders are largely committed in the heat of passion, or under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or because they are mentally ill--little thought is given to the possible consequences. Those murderers in the minority, who plan the crime in advance, are counting on not being caught; they expect to avoid punishment altogether.[4]or harsher and stricter jails This debate has nothing to do with the debate.People need to take the blame for what they have clearly done and its not right to kill and innocent person and still live and eat and live your life when them and their families have to suffer for what you have done Correction: Live and eat and spend the rest of your life in prison. No one contends that murderers should recieve punishment. Pro has simply given no rational argument for why it warrants the death penalty. I've already given many reasons why the death penalt is unjust. Pro can't address any of my arguments nor even give one of her own.i don't know if you've noticed but your justice system has more sympathy for our criminals than our victims No, I haven't.Another good reason to have the death penalty is because when a prisoner's parole or escape can give the criminals another opportunity to kill another person again. The only way to stop recidivism is to execute every murderer, which no person wants, or life without parole, which is an alternative to the death penalty.Also have you noticed with all these prisoners here and known of them getting killed its taking up space and that's not realty safe.Seriously... The answer to our prison population IS NOT TO JUST START KILLING PEOPLE. And finally something we all have to pay attention almost everyday is our taxes did you know that we are paying to keep our criminals stuck in that jail place when it could be going to something a lot more useful that could actually help and benefit us.Pro obviously did not even attempt to read my case.Sources: [1] http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu... [2] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[3] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[4] http://deathpenalty.procon.org...;

The Death Penalty should be legal in the United States The death penalty is punishment in which the person who committed the offense is put to death by the state. [1. http://en.wiktionary.org...] Currently 35 of the 50 states have a death penalty, as well as does the federal government and the U.S. Military. [2. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org.... The resolution allows states to continue to use a death penalty if they choose. In this debate, I will argue that there are some circumstances in which the death penalty should be legal; my opponent must argue that there are no circumstances in which it should be legal. 1. Justice demands that the death penalty be legal. In the United States, the death penalty is and should be reserved for the most heinous crimes, usually upon demonstration of aggravating circumstances like multiple murders. In a just society, punishments should be proportionate the seriousness of the offense. Some crimes are so heinous that only a death penalty provides justice for horrific crimes. One example will suffice: Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against four of seven suspects facing murder charges in the July death of a Florida couple known for adopting special-needs children, authorities said Monday. ... prosecutors believe there were dual motives in the killings -- robbery and a contracted hit. ... one of the children, a boy who has autism and speech issues, was in his parents' room at the time they were killed there. ... The boy, ... in an interview with a nurse ... told her that "two bad men" wearing black masks awakened Byrd Billings and told him: "You're going to die." [3. http://articles.cnn.com...] What punishment short of the death penalty would be just in this case? 2. Execution saves innocent lives We should be greatly concerned that no innocent person is falsely executed. To prevent wrong executions, states should and have enacted laws requiring extra scrutiny of death sentences. In addition, there are well-financed expert legal teams that independently examine death penalty cases, e.g., “The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 ... to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing. To date, 266 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row.” [4. http://www.innocenceproject.org...] Having been on death row does not mean that the prisoner would have been executed. The prisoner might be in a state like California that theoretically has the death penalty, but it is virtually never applied. In California, felons sometimes request death penalty conviction to get the extra privileges that status affords. [3. http://lapd.com... ] The person might also be found innocent as a matter of course, such as by the requirement for additional scrutiny or by the confession of the real perpetrator. The death sentence might also have been commuted to a lesser sentence by the governor. The Innocence Project is reluctant to say if they have actually saved anyone from wrongful execution. It is at most 17, and probably less than five. While the Innocence Project keeps precise statistics on wrongful convictions, the statistics are incomplete on additional killings by those given a life sentences instead of execution. A partial count is those given life instead of execution have killed four guards, 12 fellow inmates, and 13 upon escaping. Another 12 people were killed upon being paroled from a life sentence, and 67 upon release. [5. http://www.wesleylowe.com...] "Life" does not mean that the person will never be released. Even "life without parole" is can be commuted to "life with parole." The compilers of the list claim that they have enumerated only a small fraction of murders committed subsequent to life imprisonment, but the absolute minimum is 30. Associate U.S. Attorney General D. Lowell Jensen told a Senate subcommittee that it is impossible to punish or even deter such prison murders because, without a death sentence, a violent life-termer has free rein "to continue to murder as opportunity and his perverse motives dictate." [5] It's wrong to think that sentencing a heinous criminal to life eliminates their moral responsibility for loss of innocent life. that's no true. Preserving murders to kill again increases the moral responsibility. It's like preserving a time bomb. It's irresponsible because the danger increases, not decreases. 3. False convictions are now extremely unlikely due to modern forensics The Innocence Project and opponents of the death penalty scour the records of the past 14,000 post-WWII executions looking for false convictions. The claim to find a few. However, the era of DNA testing only began about ten or fifteen years ago. Juries are now reluctant to convict someone of a serious crime without very solid forensic evidence. This recent demand for forensic evidence is called the CSI effect. [6. http://en.wikipedia.org...] There are disputes over whether the jury awareness really came from watching crime shows on TV, and whether it makes convictions easier or more difficult. A suspect cleared by DNA evidence is certainly harder to convict, and one fingered by DNA evidence is certainly easier to convict. The bottom line is that wrongful convictions for serious crimes are no much more unlikely than in the past. Wrongful convictions are not impossible, but there have been only a handful in the past 14,000 executions, and we expect even fewer in the future. 4. Justice should not be compromised by a very small risk of error Many of us will venture out in automobiles today. The circumstances may align through no fault of our own to involve us in a fatal traffic accident. That's unfair, but we face the odds anyway, knowing that 30,000 accidental deaths occur each year. the odds of our untimely end are about 1 in 100,000. Under the most pessimistic of assumptions of ten per year, our odds of departing via a wrongful execution are 1 in 30,000,000. What do we get for using automobiles? We get a great deal of convenience in our lives. What do we get in return for a legal death penalty? We get a just society and we save the lives of those innocent people that would murdered by the killers we had preserved. 5. Justice deters crime Statistics from states are unclear. Some states may enact a death penalty in response to high rates, others may abandon the penalty because of low homicide rates. States like California theoretically have a death penalty, but actually don't enforce it. The fair generalization is that societies that make the rules of the law clear and consistently enforce those rules deter criminal behavior in general. Japan has the death penalty and the lowest crime rate and homicide rate of advanced countries. [7. http://en.wikipedia.org...] Some criminals believe they won't be caught. Some will be deterred, even some crimes of passion. Littering is a crime of passion. No one sets out a plan to litter at 2 PM the next day. But if there is a thousand dollar fine, and one just read a story of someone receiving the fine, then potential litterers will think twice. Contemplated crimes, like the killings in prison escapes are also likely to be deterred. 6. The death penalty supports plea bargaining Killers confess and list their victims in return for not seeking the death penalty. [8. http://edition.cnn.com... ] That provides certain conviction, closes previously unsolved murders, and provides closure to the friends and families of victims of unsolved crimes. ----- For all these reasons, the death penalty should be legal.

Death penalty The death penalty will: Bring closure to the victim's family and loved ones Deter criminals and the public of heinous acts such as rape and murder It shows that the Justice System does not give sympathy to such despicable law-offenders

Resolved: The death penalty should be abolished. Death Penalty: “Execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. Capital punishment should be distinguished from extrajudicial executions carried out without due process of law. The term death penalty is sometimes used interchangeably with capital punishment, though imposition of the penalty is not always followed by execution (even when it is upheld on appeal), because of the possibility of commutation to life imprisonment.” [1]Essentially, the death penalty and capital punishment are the synonymous, and I will use them interchangeably throughout this debate.What Crimes Result in the Death Penalty?“The capital offenses include espionage, treason, and death resulting from aircraft hijacking. However, they mostly consist of various forms of murder such as murder committed during a drug-related drive-by shooting, murder during a kidnapping, murder for hire, and genocide.” [3]Allow me to move to the crux of the round.Morality Argument:The first and foremost problem with is the morality of such an issue. Though lawmakers and politicians push for such a system, claiming it gives justice to the criminals, it simply isn’t moral. The ideology behind the death penalty, and the mindset that is required to sentence and carry out the death penalty creates deadly cyclical killing. The simple reality is that the advocates for the death penalty assume that killers must be killed. But that formula is flawed. Allow me to demonstrate.A. All who kill must be killedB.a killed bC.x must now kill a to preserve the ideology.From there, y has the obligation to kill x, z must kill y, et cetera. This deadly cycle (literally) goes against any moral groundings of killings, and the laws of our land. If murders must be punished for killing, executioners must be punished for killing. If continuing with this problematic strategy, a never-ending cycle of murder will ensue, causing harm not only to the original family affected by murder, but continuing along the chain. If murder is a crime (which it is) the death penalty goes against predetermined laws; thus, leaving of the death penalty in action causes hypocrisy and contradiction of the law. Moreover, “Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons.” [9]Inhumanity Argument:Along with being simply immorality, the death penalty is inhumane. Besides the fact of looming death, capital punishment is often painful for victims, as there are multiple forms of the death penalty. Even though many would argue that lethal injection is the best and least painful form of capital punishment, a study shows criminals can and have been conscious throughout their death. This study comes from the British Journal, The Lancet, where they explain, “43 percent had concentrations of anesthetic in their blood — as measured by medical examiners during autopsies — that would indicate consciousness rather than sedation during an execution.” [4] Dr. Leonidas Koniaris, chairman of surgical oncology at the University of Miami asks us the decisive question, “As a society we need to step back and ask whether we want to torture these people or not.” The answer is that we SHOULDN’T torture these people.“Worthy” Crime Argument:Studies have shown that the DP has deviated from the previous standards of only SPECIFIC crimes resulting in capital punishment. As of only last year, governments are using the death penalty to punish to combat crime and terrorism as well. A study done by Amnesty International documents, “An alarming number of countries used the death penalty to tackle real or perceived threats to state security linked to terrorism, crime or internal instability in 2014.” [5] What we see is that these penalties are being given for reasons that deviate from the primary and regulated reasons.These crimes can also give capital punishment to minors, such as George Junius Stinney Jr., who was 14 when he was executed. “Stinney, the youngest person to receive the death penalty in the last 100 years, was executed on June 16, 1944. At five feet one inch and only 95 pounds, the straps of the electric chair did not fit the boy. His feet could not touch the floor. As he was hit with the first 2,400-volt surge of electricity, the mask covering his face slipped off, ‘revealing his wide-open, tearful eyes and saliva coming from his mouth.’” [6] The article further explains that Stinney was never actually guilty of the crime with which he was charged.Innocence Argument:We see cases where individuals are not guilty of the crime they supposedly committed, and in serious cases, we see executions when the “criminal” is guilty. In fact, a study from the University of Michigan Law school shows, “a conservative estimate of the proportion of erroneous convictions of defendants sentenced to death in the United States from 1973 through 2004, [is] 4.1%.” [7] Because capital punishment is death, errors are vital, and very important. Justice systems cannot accurately be described as just when they convict and murder innocent individuals. Thus, without conclusive evidence, governments execute innocent individuals and are not just.Deterrence Argument:Though it is a common argument, little credible evidence even suggests that capital punishment deters crime. In fact, the evidence points the other way. In a study published by John J. Donohue and Justin Wolfers, they back up the claim that the death penalty doesn’t deter crime. “Sociologist Thorsten Sellin’s careful comparisons of the evolution of homicide rates in contiguous states from 1920 to 1963 led to doubts about the existence of a deterrent effect caused by the imposition of the death penalty… the National Academy of Sciences to issue a 1978 report which argued that the existing evidence in support of a deterrent effect of capital punishment was unpersuasive… We find that the existing evidence for deterrence is surprisingly fragile.” [8] In reality, deterrence is not a result of capital punishment, and the evidence that supports it is not credible. In fact, “a University of Florida researcher’s new study shows 90 percent of the nation’s top criminologists say killing people to deter violent crime is an immense waste of time and money.” [2]Cost:The death penalty costs too much. "A study found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of imprisonment for life (Cook & Slawson. 1993). On a national basis, these figures translate to an extra cost of over $700 million dollars spent since 1976 on the death penalty." [10]These reasons explicitly explain why the death penalty should be abolished.Sources: [1] http://www.britannica.com... [2] http://news.ufl.edu... [3] http://deathpenalty.procon.org... [4] http://www.chron.com... [5] https://www.amnesty.org... [6] http://www.rawstory.com... [7] http://www.pnas.org... [8] http://users.nber.org...(SLR).pdf [9] Prejean, Helen. "Executions Are Too Costly--Morally" Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States. 1993. Rpt. In Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Ed. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston: Bedford St. Martin's, 2002. 584.[10] http://www.uvm.edu...

The Death Penalty In conclusion, I completely agree that death penalty shouldnt be allowed. I really shouldnt have accepted this debate, hm?

Death penalty is cruel and unnecessary Although killing a person as such is immoral, the common good is more important that the individual rights in any society. Bearing in mind that punishments must go in accordance with crimes, when violating a basic human right that threatens a person's life or its dignity deserves a similar punishment that inflicts psychological and physical hardship in a criminal but that at the same time protects society from him, For instance the death penalty serves these two objectives simultaneously. Apart from this, it is also a fact that when punishing with jail sentences, the prisoner's maintenance is part of the responsibilities of the government and therefore it is paid with common people taxes, which makes the punishment for the criminal a punishment for society, that is what justice aims to protect

The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished I. Wrongful Convictions My opponent cites (or rather does not cite) that over 130 people have been released from death row since 1973. This doesn't mean the death penalty is inaccurate. On the contrary, it is an extra show of precaution. Cases where the death penalty is administered are 99.86% of the time accurate. [1] As for LWOP cases, ". .. from 1973 to 2012, about 5,000 inmates per year die while in custody, or about 200,000 total, during that time. We cannot bring back any of those that may have been innocent, either. ”[2] Because the death penalty can never be reversed, crimes investigated where the death penalty may be used are usually more thoroughly investigated than LWOP or other sentences, meaning that the death penalty decreases the percentage of wrongful convictions. Looking at it another way, innocent people are, on balance, helped by the death penalty. "Murderers that we have allowed to murder again, recidivist murderers, MIGHT number around 28,000 since 1973, based upon existing studies. " In other words, far more people are saved by the use of the death penalty than will ever be wrongly executed. The study goes on, "28 studies, beginning in 2000, find for a deterrent effect, ranging from 1-28 innocent lives spared per execution, or totals from 1,254 - 35,112 innocent lives saved. "[2] What we see is that more innocent people are saved by the death penalty than condemned by it. II. Cost As I mentioned in the last round, "There is no question that the up front costs of the death penalty are significantly higher than for equivalent LWOP cases. There also appears to be no question that, over time, equivalent LWOP cases are much more expensive - from $1.2 to $3.6 million - than death penalty cases. Opponents ludicrously claim that the death penalty costs, over time, 3-10 times more than LWOP. "[3] My opponent isn't really looking at the facts. III. Rehabilitation Failure I'm not going to get too much into the justice/retribution arguments, but since I already proved that the death penalty, saves lives, deters criminals, and saves money, it is only just for justice. As this mentions, "Abolitionists claim that the death penalty is a means of revenge. It is not. One way for the victim's family to get revenge would be to go out and murder a member of the murderer's family in order to get him to experience the same type of suffering he put them through. If the purpose of the state in executing murderers was retribution or revenge, then criminals would be executed in the same way they that murdered their victims. The point of the death penalty, however, is not to see how much pain can be unleashed on the murderer but to bring him to justice. "[4]Finally on morality, I will just post this to save some time: Morality is defined as "the principles of right and wrong. " As moral creatures, humans deserve praise for good deeds, and punishment for bad ones. Punishment may range from a slap on the wrist to death, but the punishment must fit the crime. This is known as lex talionis, or in common jargon, "an eye for an eye. " Abolitionists often insist that if we argue for lex talion justice we must be prepared to rape rapists, beat sadists, and burn down the houses of arsonists. Certainly, this is the case if we take the lex talion literally, and the criminals do deserve those punishments, but we needn't take it literally. The ancient Jews did not. They allowed for monetary compensation for physical or property damage. Why then, if it is not morally okay to rape rapists, is it acceptable to execute murderers? The answer is simple. There is no redeeming value to carrying out the former punishment. Raping the rapist will only cause someone else to degrade themselves by doing it. It will not prevent the rapist from raping again. Executing murderers, however, prevents them from committing their crime again, and thus protects innocent victims. The good, therefore, outweighs the bad, and the executioner is morally justified in taking the murderer's life. On the other hand, if the abolitionist argues that killing is always wrong, then he must also concede that killing in self-defense is unacceptable and should be punished. Few, if any, however, are willing to do so. The abolitionist may choose to argue that the state should never kill. But consider also the scenario of protecting someone else's life. Are police officers (the state) justified in killing attempted murderers to save a victim's life? If the answer to this question is yes, then the question is no longer if the state is justified in taking the life of criminals but when. Morally, it is wrong to simply incarcerate someone for murder. A sentence of life in an air-conditioned, cable-equipped prison where a person gets free meals three times a day, personal recreation time, and regular visits with friends and family is a slap in the face of morality. People will say here that not all prisons are like the one cited. This betrays an ignorance, however, of current trends. Eventually, criminal rights activists will see to it that all prisons are nice places to go. But regardless of the conditions of a particular prison, someone who murders another human being can only be made to pay for his actions by forfeiting his own life. This is so, simply because a loss of freedom does not and cannot compare to a loss of life. If the punishment for theft is imprisonment, then the punishment for murder must be exponentially more severe, because human life is infinitely more valuable than any material item. Take, for example, a murderer who took the life of a teenager. The parents of the victim will be among the taxpayers that pay for his meals and his cable television. Should he choose to take advantage of college courses the prison may offer, the parents of the victim will be indirectly financing those expenses as well. Nothing could be further from justice. It is of this type of situation that the abolitionist approves. Somewhere along the line, their priorities have been turned upside down. [4][5][6]The death penalty is justified both in the practical sense and the moral sense. Sources [1]: . http://www.debate.org...[2]: . http://homicidesurvivors.com...[3]: . http://www.prodeathpenalty.com...[4]: . http://www.hoshuha.com...[5]: . http://biblicalresearch.gc.adventist.org...[6]: . http://www.theatlantic.com...

Death penalty should be allowed I'll offer rebuttals to my opponent again: I will quote parts of their argument at times, which will be italicized, and then if the part I want to rebut is too lengthy, I'll just summarize it in bold.Now, I notice my opponent offered potential arguments that opponents of the death penalty would have in the first half of this round, and I see no need to rebut them, as they didn't really rebut them themselves. So, I will move onto the points that support the death penalty that my opponent offered. Death penalty costs the government less as opposed to life imprisonment without parole.This is a claim that needs evidence back it up. I claimed the exact opposite above, and offered a source. Here are two more sources that show the death penalty is actually more expensive than life in prison without parole[5][6]The absence of death penalty is synonymous to crime rate increaseAgain, this is something that needs facts to support it. While in the next sentence you do provide facts, it doesn't support the idea that without the death penalty, there would be less crime. It merely talked about the crime rate over all. It doesn't show, for example, that crime is low or high because of the death penalty. In fact, statistics seem to suggest the opposite. States that don't have the death penalty have fewer murders occur in them than states with the death penalty[7]. Now, I admit that this doesn't suggest that the reason for the murder rate being lower is because of the death penalty. Correlation doesn't equal causation. For example, there could be other reasons why the states without the death penalty had lower rates of murder. Perhaps it is actually the other way around: maybe they chose to have the death penalty removed because they had such a low murder rate and saw it as unnecessary. Or perhaps there is some other cause of the murders being lower. Who knows? Nonetheless, a logical conclusion that can be made from the evidence is that life in prison without parole might seem to be a worse punishment than death. I mean, life in prison might actually be a worse punishment. Who wants to spend the rest of their life in prison? You'd probably want to commit suicide if you were sentenced to that, so death would be a relief. Now, that is a logical conclusion, what you offered is not a logical conclusion because you offered no data that showed correlation between the death penalty and amount of crime.It is constitutional and does not violate the Eight Amendment which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, fines and cruel and unusual punishments, including torture.This appears to be a non sequitur. which is when the conclusion doesn't follow the premise. You can read about it here and determine for yourself if it was a non sequitur[8]. The reason this is a non-sequitur is because my opponent is using this as a reason for the death penalty, but it doesn't seem to support why the death penalty should be done. Just because something is legal, doesn't mean you should do it. Lying is also legal, but should you lie to your loved ones? Actually, thinking about it, this might be more of a circular reasoning. We're more or less saying whether the death penalty should be allowed(legal) and my opponent brout up the fact that it is legal as reason for why it should be legal. That's circular reasoning. Again, you can read about it here and determine for yourself if this is circular reasoning[9]. This might actually be considered both fallacies.Re: death penalty is justice because you're killing someone who killedI suppose I can't refute this one, but I believe the cons that I've outlined in my arguments so far: how there is a chance for an innocent person to be killed, how life in prison seems to deter crime better than the death penalty, and how the death penalty is more expensive to keep the life in prison outweigh this argument. What would you want the judge to say if you or a loved one got killed, or maybe your whole family except for you that no has to suffer from what happened? Please answer.You're asking the wrong person this lol. You're talking to someone who was sexually mollested as a child but protects the perpetrator and is good friends with the perpetrator now(weird I know, but I swear I don't have stockholm syndrome). I am a strong believer in forgiving people for what they've done and letting them go. To be honest, if I was president, I'd probably pardon most criminals out there. So, my answer should be obvious: I wouldn't want the judge to give them the death penalty if they killed all of my family. Rather, I'd require that they be given some sort of rehabilitation, perhaps therapy, and other techniques used on them to make them a productive member of society who would no longer have a desire to kill anyone. Sources:[5] https://www.forbes.com...[6] http://www.nbcrightnow.com...[7] http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...[8] https://en.wikipedia.org...(logic) [9] https://en.wikipedia.org...

The death penalty should NOT be allowed Rebuttals:(rebuttal for "justice and public support"): "One of the arguments frequently given in support of the death penalty revolves around the idea that the execution of an offender will provide closure to the grieving family of the victim. However, recent research on the topic has suggested that this may not be the case. A 2012 study conducted in Minnesota produced findings indicating that the death penalty likely does not serve to advance the healing process of the families of victims. This particular study represents the first of its kind to systematically examine the healing process of the families of victims when the death penalty has been given as a sentence. The results of this study indicate higher levels of physical, psychological, and behavioral health in victims’ family members in cases where life sentences were given, as opposed to the death penalty, as well as greater satisfaction with the criminal justice system in these individuals." CHECK THIS FOLLOWING LINK FOR THE STUDY: http://discover.umn.edu...The study basically debunks everything you have just stated.(rebuttal for "deterrence"): You are basing your assumption about "fear" from one professor, so I will base mine off of multiple: "H. Lee Sarokin, LLB, former US District Court and US Court of Appeals Judge, wrote in his Jan. 15, 2011 article "Is It Time to Execute the Death Penalty?” on the Huffington Post website: "In my view deterrence plays no part whatsoever. Persons contemplating murder do not sit around the kitchen table and say I won't commit this murder if I face the death penalty, but I will do it if the penalty is life without parole. I do not believe persons contemplating or committing murder plan to get caught or weigh the consequences. Statistics demonstrate that states without the death penalty have consistently lower murder rates than states with it, but frankly I think those statistics are immaterial and coincidental. Fear of the death penalty may cause a few to hesitate, but certainly not enough to keep it in force..." "Michael L. Radelet, PhD, Sociology Professor and Department Chair at the University of Colorado-Boulder, wrote in his 2009 article "Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates?: The Views of Leading Criminologists” in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology: "Our survey indicates that the vast majority of the world’s top criminologists believe that the empirical research has revealed the deterrence hypothesis for a myth... 88.2% of polled criminologists do not believe that the death penalty is a deterrent... 9.2% answered that the statement '[t]he death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides' was accurate... Overall, it is clear that however measured, fewer than 10% of the polled experts believe the deterrence effect of the death penalty is stronger than that of long-term imprisonment... Recent econometric studies, which posit that the death penalty has a marginal deterrent effect beyond that of long-term imprisonment, are so limited or flawed that they have failed to undermine consensus. In short, the consensus among criminologists is that the death penalty does not add any significant deterrent effect above that of long-term imprisonment.""John Lamperti, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Dartmouth College, wrote in his Mar. 2010 paper "Does Capital Punishment Deter Murder? A Brief Look at the Evidence," published at math.dartmouth.edu: "...[I]f there were a substantial net deterrent effect from capital punishment under modern U.S. conditions, the studies we have surveyed should clearly reveal it. They do not... If executions protected innocent lives through deterrence, that would weigh in the balance against capital punishment's heavy social costs. But despite years of trying, this benefit has not been proven to exist; the only certain effects of capital punishment are its liabilities." "Tomislav Kovandzic, PhD, Associate Professor of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, wrote in his 2009 paper "Does the Death Penalty Save Lives?" in Criminology and Public Policy: "Our results provide no empirical support for the argument that the existence or application of the death penalty deters prospective offenders from committing homicide... Although policymakers and the public can continue to base support for use of the death penalty on retribution, religion, or other justifications, defending its use based solely on its deterrent effect is contrary to the evidence presented here. At a minimum, policymakers should refrain from justifying its use by claiming that it is a deterrent to homicide and should consider less costly, more effective ways of addressing crime." (http://deathpenalty.procon.org...) (rebuttal for "recidivism"): As you have stated in your first paragraph, "the Death Penalty is only reserved for the most serious crimes." Lets pretend that the death penalty is illegal for this mindset. Now imagine this: the death penalty was just banned and a serial killer was suppost to be put to death a few days later - but he cannot now. The police would NEVER release him to the public again in fear of him killing more people - so they keep him in prison forever. Now back to reality, let that sink in. If the death penalty is only for the worst of the worst, then why, if the penalty did not even exist, would security allow those prisoners out into society again? The answer is, they would'nt/they won't. So save that argument for prisoners who are going to be released who are not on the death row or were suppost to be executed on the first place - and not for prisoners who will not be released anyway. Citations:http://discover.umn.edu...;

Death penalty and its legalisation. The death penalty should be legalized in the case of first degree murder. If a human being in sane mind kills another with premeditation, then they are a threat to society and are beyond reasonable rehabilitation. If a murderer is sent to wait in prison for twenty years, there is little to guarantee that they will not kill again. The recidivism rate of 60% in the U.S. shows that prison is an ineffective method of turning inmates away from crime. "There can never be any justification for torture or for cruel treatment." The death penalty is not necessarily torture nor cruel treatment. A swift end to a person's life could be considered more merciful than a lifetime of prison. "It is a dead end that does nothing but instill fear in the mind of the citizens." Fear of the death penalty is what makes it effective in preventing crime. "If the death penalty is legalized then what is the difference between countries like North Korea and the rest of the world." Many, many things, such as how the rest of the modern world (for the most part) provides adequate food and resources for its citizens, allows them to leave their home country, and only executes criminals who are deserving of the death penalty for crimes much worse than expressing freedom of speech or press. "If the goal of any punishment, is to teach us those things we should not do, then the justice system should more adequately teach the criminality of killing by refusing to partake in it." Justice does teach us what not to do, but it also teaches that some things are justified. If the justice system cannot enact what it attempts to prevent, then prison is unjustified because it is also illegal for me to kidnap someone and keep them in my home. "What is justice if the punishment for murder is murder?" The punishment for murder is not murder, in the same way that self-defense is not murder. By enacting the death penalty upon murderers, we prevent what will likely be more murder in the future.

The death penalty should NOT be allowed 1st round - Opening statement / arguments:1. Too many innocent people: "The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online on Apr. 28, 2014, estimated that 4.1% of death row sentences (1 in 25) were wrongful, a "conservative estimate” according to the authors and twice the number of death row cases that were actually overturned."This means that a large number of people in the long run are going to be killed wrongly - and think of all the people we wrongly killed in the past. What happens when the mistake is discovered after a man has been executed for a crime he did not commit? What do we say to his children? Do we erect an apologetic tombstone over his grave? What good will that do?2. There is racial and economic discrimination in application of the death penalty: "About 99 percent of the death-row inmates are men. Of the 1,058 prisoners on death row by Aug. 20,1982, 42 percent were black, whereas about 12 percent of the United States population is black. Those who receive the death penalty still tend to be poor, poorly educated and represented by public defenders or court-appointed lawyers." This is a racist and sexist act that happens to frequently to be allowed.3. The death penalty gives some of the worst offenders publicity that they do not deserve: "While the death penalty undoubtedly deters some would-be murderers, there is evidence that it encourages others— especially the unstable who are attracted to media immortality like moths to a flame. If instead of facing heady weeks before television cameras, they faced a lifetime of obscurity in prison, the path of violence might seem less glamorous to them." This gives the people who least deserve publicity, publicity that they earned by commiting a crime. What kind of message does that send to our country?4. The death penalty involves medical doctors, who are sworn to preserve life, in the act of killing: In 1980 the American Medical Association, responding to this innovation, declared that a doctor should not participate in an execution - it is AGAINST A DOCTORS' OATH. When doctors use their stethoscopes to indicate whether the electric chair has done its job, they are assisting the executioner - dosen't this go against everythign what being a doctor is about? Saving lifes?5. It is hipocritical: Why are we killing people for killing people? Why are we doing the same thing we are punishing others for doing? That is obsurd.6. The death penalty is an expression of the absolute power of the state; abolition of that penalty is a much- needed limit on government power: "What makes the state so pure that it has the right to take life? Look at the record of governments throughout history—so often operating with deception, cruelty and greed, so often becoming masters of the citizens they are supposed to serve. "Forbidding a man's execution," Camus said, "would amount to proclaiming publicly that society and the state are not absolute values." It would amount to saying that there are some things even the state may not do." We are always complaning how the states are given too much power - why should they have control over killing people also?7. There are strong religious reasons for many to oppose the death penalty: "Mr. Viguerie wrote in a recent book, "that Christ would oppose the killing of a human being as punishment for a crime." This view is supported by the New Testament story about the woman who faced execution by stoning (John 8:7, "He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone"). Former Senator Harold Hughes (D., Iowa), arguing against the death penalty in 1974, declared: "'Thou shalt not kill' is the shortest of the Ten Commandments, uncomplicated by qualification or exception....It is as clear and awesomely commanding as the powerful thrust of chain lightning out of a dark summer sky." Even preists and strong religious figures are against it for clear reasons - why should we effect religions for others' wrong doing?8. There is a better alternative - life without parole: This sentence would make the criminals suffer every single day and be forced to think about what they have done. It is a more harsh sentence because they can not escape the negativity they created - they have to live with it each and every long, boring day. Killing the criminals is an easy way out for them - they will just think; "oh, if I kill people who I hate, then I will die and not have to deal with it." Wouldn't that encourage more criminals to act? This would make crime rates increase.9. We pay many millions for the death penalty system: "In 1995 the trials for three Washington County murder cases cost more than $1.5 million. One was sentenced to death. The two others, one of whom was found guilty of four murders, are not on death row. In 2000 a fiscal impact summary from the Oregon Department of Administrative Services stated that the Oregon Judicial Department alone would save $2.3 million annually if the death penalty were eliminated. It is estimated that total prosecution and defense costs to the state and counties equal $9 million per year." It costs much more to execute people then to provide for basic needs of life - why do we need to pay more money for people who did bad things? Why do we have to pay money out of our TAX PAYER MONEY to kill people? Why do we have to pay for criminals we have nothing to do with?10. Mentally ill people are executed: "One out of every ten who has been executed in the United States since 1977 is mentally ill, according to Amnesty International and the National Association on Mental Illness." This is discrimination and goes against the laws of our country.(I am looking forward to your opening argument and then we will start round 2 with counterarguments - so don't worry about my arguments just yet - use this round to present as much evidence to support your side as you can ~ Sara) Citations:http://www.procon.org......;http://americamagazine.org......;http://www.oadp.org......;

Death Penalty should be abolished :/ My opponent has forfeited.Hopefully this will be a fun debate.==Arguments== C1: DeterrenceThe Death Penalty serves as a determent to criminals.There is a relationship between the death penalty and murder. The deterrent effect of the death penalty helps to save lives, ultimately resulting in the overall prevention of the loss of human life [1]. Multiple studies that have occured over time have demonstrated that the death penalty saves lives [1].Several professors of Emory University found in a 2003 nationwide study that each execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders [6].A 2006 study found that each execution results in five fewer homicides [7].Shorter waits on death row is connectted with increased deterrence. For every 2.75-year reduction of the time a death row inmate has to wait, at least one murder is deterred.The Emory group used nationwide data from 1960 to 2000,and discovered that 91% of the states had higher homicide rates after they suspended the death penalty [11]. On the other hand, 70% of the states had homicides decrease after the Death Penalty was put back in place [11].Furthermore, a study, from the Wall Street Journal found that the death penalty saves 74 lives by stopping possible murderers in the next year [12].C2: Bargaining ChipThe Death Penalty provides leverage and allows prosecutors to use it as a "bargaining chip" to obtain guilty pleas and plea bargains [2] [3]. The criminal justice system is sped up by the DP, which helps to prevent backlogging.Research has shown that 90% of cases in the US are resolved by plea bargains, with the guilty party admitting to all or part of the offenses charged in exchange for reduced/lenient charges [4]. This showsOne example is the case of 12-year-old Zina Linnick's disappearance. Even a remote threat of using the death penalty could give enough of an incentive for a person to confess [3].Another example would be serial killers Robert Yates and Gary Ridgway. The confessed due to the threat of the death penalty [3].Without a doubt, the death penalty allows prosecutors to get information quicker. This can even possibly save lives - such as revealing the location of an abducted person about to die.C3: AccuracyDNA testing and other modern forms of forensic science have allowed us to eleminate all doubt or suspicsion towards a person's guilt or innoncence. DNA testing helps to effectively prosecuting the guilty and protects the innocent [8].Furthermore, a jury of twelve have to unanimously decide that they have no doubt that the defendent is guilty in order to sentence a person to death. [9]Furthermore, the death penalty has nearly a 99.6% rate of accuracy.A person's average wait on the death row is 20 years [13]. This gives more than enough time for organizations such as The Innocence Project to determine whether or not they truly are guilty.C4: PopularityGallup polls have shown that the majority of Americans support the Death Penalty. Our goverment is based on a republic, and a republic at its heart, is ruled by the majority.Gallup polls reveal that:1) There is a consistant trend of the majority supporting the death penalty being used in cases where the guilty party is convicted of murder. In 2011, 61% supported the DP while only 35% was agaisnt it.2) Even over time, the majority of Americans believe that the Death Penalty is used not enough.3) The majority of people believe that the death penalty is currently being applied fairly.4) Furthermore, there is a tendency that most people believe that the Death Penalty is morally acceptable. 65% of people believe it is right, while only 28% believe it is wrong.5) OVer time, people have constantly shown that they believe when choosing between the death penalty and imprisonment for life (without parole), the death penalty should be used.The Gallup Poll(s) can be found at my 10th source.[1]http://www.heritage.org.........[2]http://sentencing.typepad.com.........[3]http://www.thenewstribune.com.........[4]http://www.thecrimereport.org.........[5] Joanna M. Shepherd, "Murders of Passion, Execution Delays, and the Deterrence of Capital Punishment," Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 33 (June 2004), pp. 283-321.[6] Hashem Dezhbakhsh, Paul H. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd, "Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data," American Law and Economics Review, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2003), pp. 344-376.[7]http://www.washingtonpost.com.........[8]http://www.forensicmag.com.........[9]http://crime.about.com.........[10]http://www.gallup.com.........[11]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org......[12]http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu......(ChronicleofHigherEd).pdf[13] http://www.usatoday.com...

The Death Penalty The Death penalty should be abolished for the following reasons - The risk of killing the innocent - It violates human rights - Its morally wrong, taking someone's life is wrong no matter what - Most murderers aren't afraid of death, they'll never suffer remorse, which is actually helping them - It completely ignores alternatives, for example Jail life without parole - The so called "painless injection method" is getting very costly - The mentally ill are executed, rather then getting the help they need - The "painless injection" collapses your lungs before the person can scream, therefore showing signs on pain - There is no evidence that it reduces crime rates - Racial discrimination

The Death Penalty should be kept and enforced. I see your argument completely. I understand the point you are trying to get across. That criminals should be sentence to the death penalty, if they in fact commit murder. That is, in my opinion, barbaric. I do not believe one death should result in another, one sadness in another, one eye for another. That is a way of the past that we should abolish. The death penalty doesn't always JUST kill criminals. Innocent people are tried for crimes and may be convicted even if they didn't commit said crime. Then they are put to death. Now, not all people who are sentenced the death penalty are innocent, many are guilty of said crimes, but what crimes here are appropriate? You want statistics, here are mine: 7 countries have the death penalty for being gay (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc...) Countries have the death penalty for rape, robbery, drug possession or trafficking, adultery, treason, etc... How about some of the inhumane ways it is carried out: Hanging Firing Squad Beheading Public Stoning to death This is the barbaric truth about what the death punishment is. And the fact is it shouldn't be allowed. No human should be subject to this. Life is valuable and should not be left to the hands of the judicial system to decide. My final argument is that mistakes are made. Innocent people are killed, and was it really worth it? All of those lives ended because you couldn't just settle for locking them up for life? http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org... http://www.youtube.com...

Resolved: The death penalty should be abolished. Death Penalty: “Execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. Capital punishment should be distinguished from extrajudicial executions carried out without due process of law. The term death penalty is sometimes used interchangeably with capital punishment, though imposition of the penalty is not always followed by execution (even when it is upheld on appeal), because of the possibility of commutation to life imprisonment.” [1]Essentially, the death penalty and capital punishment are the synonymous, and I will use them interchangeably throughout this debate.What Crimes Result in the Death Penalty?“The capital offenses include espionage, treason, and death resulting from aircraft hijacking. However, they mostly consist of various forms of murder such as murder committed during a drug-related drive-by shooting, murder during a kidnapping, murder for hire, and genocide.” [3]Allow me to move to the crux of the round.Morality Argument:The first and foremost problem with is the morality of such an issue. Though lawmakers and politicians push for such a system, claiming it gives justice to the criminals, it simply isn’t moral. The ideology behind the death penalty, and the mindset that is required to sentence and carry out the death penalty creates deadly cyclical killing. The simple reality is that the advocates for the death penalty assume that killers must be killed. But that formula is flawed. Allow me to demonstrate.A. All who kill must be killedB.a killed bC.x must now kill a to preserve the ideology.From there, y has the obligation to kill x, z must kill y, et cetera. This deadly cycle (literally) goes against any moral groundings of killings, and the laws of our land. If murders must be punished for killing, executioners must be punished for killing. If continuing with this problematic strategy, a never-ending cycle of murder will ensue, causing harm not only to the original family affected by murder, but continuing along the chain. If murder is a crime (which it is) the death penalty goes against predetermined laws; thus, leaving of the death penalty in action causes hypocrisy and contradiction of the law. Moreover, “Allowing our government to kill citizens compromises the deepest moral values upon which this country was conceived: the inviolable dignity of human persons.” [9]Inhumanity Argument:Along with being simply immorality, the death penalty is inhumane. Besides the fact of looming death, capital punishment is often painful for victims, as there are multiple forms of the death penalty. Even though many would argue that lethal injection is the best and least painful form of capital punishment, a study shows criminals can and have been conscious throughout their death. This study comes from the British Journal, The Lancet, where they explain, “43 percent had concentrations of anesthetic in their blood — as measured by medical examiners during autopsies — that would indicate consciousness rather than sedation during an execution.” [4] Dr. Leonidas Koniaris, chairman of surgical oncology at the University of Miami asks us the decisive question, “As a society we need to step back and ask whether we want to torture these people or not.” The answer is that we SHOULDN’T torture these people.“Worthy” Crime Argument:Studies have shown that the DP has deviated from the previous standards of only SPECIFIC crimes resulting in capital punishment. As of only last year, governments are using the death penalty to punish to combat crime and terrorism as well. A study done by Amnesty International documents, “An alarming number of countries used the death penalty to tackle real or perceived threats to state security linked to terrorism, crime or internal instability in 2014.” [5] What we see is that these penalties are being given for reasons that deviate from the primary and regulated reasons.These crimes can also give capital punishment to minors, such as George Junius Stinney Jr., who was 14 when he was executed. “Stinney, the youngest person to receive the death penalty in the last 100 years, was executed on June 16, 1944. At five feet one inch and only 95 pounds, the straps of the electric chair did not fit the boy. His feet could not touch the floor. As he was hit with the first 2,400-volt surge of electricity, the mask covering his face slipped off, ‘revealing his wide-open, tearful eyes and saliva coming from his mouth.’” [6] The article further explains that Stinney was never actually guilty of the crime with which he was charged.Innocence Argument:We see cases where individuals are not guilty of the crime they supposedly committed, and in serious cases, we see executions when the “criminal” is guilty. In fact, a study from the University of Michigan Law school shows, “a conservative estimate of the proportion of erroneous convictions of defendants sentenced to death in the United States from 1973 through 2004, [is] 4.1%.” [7] Because capital punishment is death, errors are vital, and very important. Justice systems cannot accurately be described as just when they convict and murder innocent individuals. Thus, without conclusive evidence, governments execute innocent individuals and are not just.Deterrence Argument:Though it is a common argument, little credible evidence even suggests that capital punishment deters crime. In fact, the evidence points the other way. In a study published by John J. Donohue and Justin Wolfers, they back up the claim that the death penalty doesn’t deter crime. “Sociologist Thorsten Sellin’s careful comparisons of the evolution of homicide rates in contiguous states from 1920 to 1963 led to doubts about the existence of a deterrent effect caused by the imposition of the death penalty… the National Academy of Sciences to issue a 1978 report which argued that the existing evidence in support of a deterrent effect of capital punishment was unpersuasive… We find that the existing evidence for deterrence is surprisingly fragile.” [8] In reality, deterrence is not a result of capital punishment, and the evidence that supports it is not credible. In fact, “a University of Florida researcher’s new study shows 90 percent of the nation’s top criminologists say killing people to deter violent crime is an immense waste of time and money.” [2]Cost:The death penalty costs too much. "A study found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of imprisonment for life (Cook & Slawson. 1993). On a national basis, these figures translate to an extra cost of over $700 million dollars spent since 1976 on the death penalty." [10]These reasons explicitly explain why the death penalty should be abolished.Sources: [1] http://www.britannica.com... [2] http://news.ufl.edu... [3] http://deathpenalty.procon.org... [4] http://www.chron.com... [5] https://www.amnesty.org... [6] http://www.rawstory.com... [7] http://www.pnas.org... [8] http://users.nber.org...(SLR).pdf [9] Prejean, Helen. "Executions Are Too Costly--Morally" Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States. 1993. Rpt. In Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Ed. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston: Bedford St. Martin's, 2002. 584. [10] http://www.uvm.edu...

The Death Penalty/Capital Punishment should be eliminated There are several reason to keep the Death Penalty. 1) The death penalty gives closure to the victim's families who have suffered so much 2) It creates another form of crime deterrent 3) Justice is better served 4) Our justice system shows more sympathy for criminals than it does victims 5) It provides a deterrent for prisoners already serving a life sentence 6) DNA testing and other methods of modern crime scene science can now effectively eliminate almost all uncertainty as to a person's guilt or innocence. 7) Prisoner parole or escapes can give criminals another chance to kill. 8) It contributes to the problem of overpopulation in the prison system. 9) It gives prosecutors another bargaining chip in the plea bargain process, which is essential in cutting costs in an overcrowded court system. 10) It's cheaper then keeping the SOB's in prison.

The death penalty should be legalized I’m looking forward to it! I will begin by presenting my opening arguments, and then I’ll wait for Con’s in the next round. I specified that the arguments must not be restricted to any jurisdiction, so Con is welcome to use any contextual references given that they constitute the norm and not the exception. The Judicial Argument In law, there are a few core purposes of sentencing, including (but not limited to): punishment, deterrence, reformation, protection, and reparation. (Source 1) I will begin by examining how the death penalty works in relation to these. A criminal judgment punishes an offender for his unruly conduct by pronouncing on him a sentence proportionate to the gravity of his crime. Here, the death penalty works. This punishment is reserved for the most serious of crimes, including murder, kidnapping, genocide, espionage and treason. This is, in essence, a form of “justice” for society, which has suffered as a result of the crime. A criminal judgment aims to deter the rest of society from committing similar crimes. The death penalty captures what many people fear tremendously – death, and thereby disincentivises them to commit such a crime. There is little evidence to suggest that this has achieved success in many Western countries, which practice long and drawn out death row processes. However, countries which practice the death penalty in a quick and sure way have seen much greater success, as their citizens are more likely to treat the threat of death seriously. A criminal judgment aims to reform the criminal, or ensure that he/she does not commit the crime again. Here again, the death penalty succeeds. The death penalty is reserved exclusively (with a few cases falling through the cracks) for criminals who display zero remorse and zero potential for reformation. Coupled with the severity of the crime, optimal social safety can only be achieved by taking his/her life. A criminal judgment aims to protect the rest of society. While many may argue that this can be done in jail, the state has a duty to safeguard other criminals as well, who have been temporarily deprived of their liberty. The death penalty is the surest way to know that a criminal cannot recommit an act of comparable severity against a civilian or a fellow inmate. Finally, a criminal judgment aims to provide some form of reparation to the victim(s). Criminals facing the death penalty have usually commited a crime that deprived their victim(s) indefinitely of life or liberty. A judge therefore attempts to offer their victims and/or their families some form of reparation for their suffering. Now, it is important to note that while judges aim to fulfil as many of the above criteria as they can, it is unnecessary for all them to be fulfilled in pronouncing a sentence of death. A judgment may instead be focused on any one of these. For my opponent to successfully prove that the death penalty should be made illegal, therefore, he has to prove that none of these are worthy reasons to deliver such a sentence. The “plea bargain” argument Plea-bargaining is used in many countries, wherein a criminal is encouraged to cooperate with police investigations in return for a more lenient sentence. When the punishment at hand is death, the criminal has the greatest possible incentive to help the police. The benefit this provides to society is immense, because it enables the police to crack down on the roots of the problems. This is especially effective in dismantling criminal organizations, including drug rings, vice rings and the like. As a result of this, many deep-rooted problems can be resolved. The “dignity” argument Several people have argued that the death penalty fails to accord life with dignity, simply because the state is taking a life. However, the death penalty fundamentally honours human dignity by treating the criminal as a free moral actor and holding him accountable for his decisions. It must be noted that criminals who were not in sound mental state at the time of the crime have mitigated sentences. Society works on the principle that each person receives what is due to him. This order is disrupted by criminals. It is therefore a direct consequence of a rational person’s actions that he faces the death penalty. The state has no obligation to forgive someone who took someone else’s life or liberty in a “moment of weakness” or for any similar reason. The argument of “inhumanity” Several people have argued that the death penalty is an inhumane, brutal punishment in practice. For all who are proponents of it, however, it must be accepted in practice as well. If the practice is found to be too brutal, we have to find ways to mitigate its brutality. Several jurisdictions are already in the practice of doing so, by finding more painless ways to end the lives of criminals. I have, thus far, presented some arguments in favour of the death penalty. I look forward to those of my opponent. P. S. 18Karl, I have had to make sudden plans (as recently as last night) to travel overseas as a result of a mixture of circumstances. During this trip, I may not have access to Internet and so may not be able to upload my argument in time. If that is the case, I apologise most sincerely, and hope that we can re-continue this debate when I return. Of course, I hope that it does not get to that. All the best! Sources: 1. . http://www.legislation.gov.uk... 2. . http://sixthformlaw.info... 3. Response letter to the New England Journal of Medicine regarding an article titled "When Law and Ethics Collide — Why Physicians Participate in Executions," by Atul Gawande, MD July 6, 2006 4. "Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice," OrthodoxyToday. org Aug. /Sep. 2004 5. District Attorney of Clatsop County, Oregon "The Myth of Innocence,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Mar. 31, 2005

Debater's Choice Yes i will argue : The death penalty should be allowed implementation in certain circumstances. and yourself ;there should be no death penalty,

The Death Penalty Should Be Eliminated Summary of the debate:I have presented my arguments and explained why we should keep the death penalty:- Death Penalty is Just: It's not revenge, but a fitting punishment for the ones who committed horrendous crimes.- Death Penalty deters crimes: I've shown several studies showing that the death penalty deters homicides.I have also refuted Pro's points:- We can't outlaw something just because we personally don't like it. Morality is subjective and can't be used as a basis to change the law.- The death penalty is not a cruel and unusual punishment. Therefore it does not violate the constitution.- Innocent people on death row is a thing of the past. Current methods help us easily find out whether someone is the true culprit.In conclusion, the capital punishment should not be abolished, in order for justice to prevail and innocent lives to be saved.

Death Penalty Should be Banned Hi! Thank you for accepting. The Oxford Dictionary defines the death penalty as "punishment by execution" (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com... penalty). I would also like to clarify the Con's doubt about the death penalty by stating the fact that the death penalty, or capital punishment, is always provided by the court of law (http://www.britannica.com...). What 'goons and moneylenders' do is known as murder and not death penalty. I believe that the death penalty should be abolished from all the countries of the world. Argument 1 Innocent People are Killed The death penalty is irreversible. According to a study, at least 4.1% of all defendants sentenced to death in the US in the modern era are innocent (http://www.theguardian.com...). It puts innocent lives at stake. There have been many cases where innocent people have been executed and are later found out to be innocent. A great example can be Cameron Todd Willingham who was executed in 2004 and was later found out to be innocent (http://www.innocenceproject.org...). There have been many other decisions in other countries where innocent people were given this 'ultimate' punishment. Examples can be Weiqing An, Teng Xingshan, Mahmood Hussein Mattan, etc (http://en.wikipedia.org...). Argument 2 It is a violation of the human rights All humans on the earth have human rights, which include the right to life (http://www.un.org...). The right to life is one of the basic human rights. Giving someone capital punishment is a violation of that right and is thus wrong. Argument 3 Death Penalty does not deter the rate of Murder and other crimes Many supporters advocate that the death penalty deters the rate of crimes. But statistics show that the countries that have abolished the death penalty have always had lower murder rates as compared to the countries that had not abolished it (http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...). A July 2009 study titled "Do Executions Lower Homicide Rates: The Views of Leading Criminologists" by Michael L. Radelet and Traci L. LaCock, demonstrates that the death penalty does not add deterrent effects to crimes rates (http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu...).

Death Penalty The Death Penalty - is murder, which is morally wrong. It is not the government's place to murder people without war. - Nobody is afriad of the death penalty so it is ineffective. People are afriad of prison. You never hear, "I would but I don't want to get the death penalty." You do hear, "I would. I don't want to go to jail." - It kills people instead of allowing them to pay for their crimes. - The appeal process is too great for a death penalty person. They can get acquitted any time wrongfully. - Capital punishment is cruel and unusual, violating the constitution. Next, we will get rid of freedom of speech, religion, etc. It is destroying American values. - The death penalty is used disproportionately against the poor, who cannot afford expensive legal counsel, as well as racial, ethnic and religious minorities. - The death penalty is applied arbitrarily and inconsistently. - Wrongly convicted, innocent people have received death penalty sentences, and tragically, were killed by the state. People are released from jail constantly for crimes they did not commit. Imagine if you were suddenly murdered for a crime you did not commit. - A rehabilitated criminal can make a morally valuable contribution to society. - Financial costs to taxpayers of capital punishment is several times that of keeping someone in prison for life. - The endless appeals and required additional procedures clog our court system and make speedy trials impossible as well. - We as a society have to move away from the "eye for an eye" revenge mentality if civilization is to advance. - It sends the wrong message: why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong. Should we rape people who rape people? Speed toward who speed? Kidnap people who kidnap? It teaches no lesson. This is exactly what law is trying to get away from by allowing the government to punish instead of allowing people to get personal revenge. - Why kill people who kill people to show killing is wrong. Should we rape people who rape people? No lesson is learned. - Other countries (especially in Europe) would have a more favorable image of America. And we could have more help in our military and economic ventures. - Most jury members are reluctant to convict if it means putting someone to death. Letting murderers roam free. - The prisoner's family must suffer from seeing their loved one put to death by the state, as well as going through the emotionally-draining appeals process.

Capital Punishment Should Be Allowed There is a better way to help the families of murder victims. Families of murder victims undergo severe trauma and loss which no one should minimize. However, executions do not help these people heal nor do they end their pain; the extended process prior to executions prolongs the agony of the family. Families of murder victims would benefit far more if the funds now being used for the costly process of executions were diverted to counseling and other assistance. Capital Punishment also goes against almost every religion. Although isolated passages of the Bible have been quoted in support of the death penalty, almost all religious groups in the United States regard executions as immoral. Mentally ill people have also been executed. Many mentally ill defendants are unable to participate in their trials in any meaningful way and appear unengaged, cold, and unfeeling before the jury. Some have been forcibly medicated in order to make them competent to be executed.