Debate: Should America ban the death penalty?
Side: Let 'em live

"then give me their names."Sure:"DNA Tests Prove Justice Has Failed""Jeffrey Mark Deskovic, 33, spent nearly half his life in a New York prison for a rape and murder he did not commit. DNA testing cleared Deskovic and he was released Sep. 20 from prison.""In 2004, Ryan Matthew, convicted for the murder of a local convenience store owner in Louisiana, escaped the death penalty after prosecutors dropped all charges on the basis of DNA testing results.""Northwestern University School of Law's Centre on Wrongful Convictions (CWC) documented at least 38 executions carried out in the United States in spite of compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt since capital punishment was restored in the mid-1970s.""Moreover, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has documented 123 death-row inmates who, since 1973, have been exonerated and freed before their executions.""The staff of the CWC pioneered the investigation and litigation of wrongful convictions, relying a great deal on DNA testing. Their work proving the innocence of 11 men sitting on death row in the U.S. state of Illinois was a driving force behind former Governor George H. Ryan's decision to suspend executions in Illinois in January, 2001.""The Innocence Project, which worked to free Deskovic, only handles cases where post-conviction DNA tests can yield conclusive proof of innocence. To date, it has helped exonerate 184 people, proving that wrongful convictions are not rare."http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/ 0921-08.htm -In 1987, a study was published by the Stanford Law Review that found some evidence that suggested that at least 350 people between 1900-1985 in America might have been innocent of the crime for which they were convicted, and could have been sentenced to death. 139 "were sentenced to death and as many as 23 were executed.""Signs Grow of Innocent People Being Executed, Judge Says""'In the past decade, substantial evidence has emerged to demonstrate that innocent individuals are sentenced to death, and undoubtedly executed, much more often than previously understood,' the judge, Mark L. Wolf of Federal District Court in Boston, wrote in a decision allowing a capital case to proceed to trial.He cited the exonerations of more than 100 people on death row based on DNA and other evidence."http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/12/national/12DEAT.html -Northwestern University School of Law's Centre on Wrongful Convictions (CWC) documented 38 executions carried out since the mid-1970s where there was compelling evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt. Another 130 death row inmates were exonerated, instead of executed, between 1973-2008 due to emerging evidence, including DNA analysis. A smaller number of people have been exonerated posthumously. The Death Penalty Information Center estimates for every seven executions, one death row inmate is exonerated. "Innocence and the Death Penalty"http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty --------------------------------------------------------------------- "In the United States, guilty beyond reasonable doubt is an extremely high standard"...and yet dozens & dozens of people have already been PROVEN to have been wrongfully convicted of a crime that they NEVER committed."The founding fathers, were major supporters of the death penalty"...says who??"Its not really a matter of doing to criminals what they did to other people, its more a matter of giving them the maximum punishment for a terrible crime"...which is why I and many others favor life without parole, period."Some researchers have shown that the United States, a country with capital punishment, has a higher crime rate than Great Britain, a country without capital punishment. What has to be taken into consideration, though, is not that capital punishment increases murder rates, but that it is imposed because of higher murder rates."There's absolutely ZERO evidence that having a death penalty statute causes a lower crime rate, period. These kind of laws are NO deterrent!"In order to decrease crime, the government should decrease guns in circulation"We are in agreement here."If we assume that complete and utter protection for members of society cannot have a price, then it is accurate to say that the death penalty is priceless and worth much more than alternatives."At what cost do you put ONE human life that is snuffed out WRONGFULLY by the govt.??