One point that seems to be referenced a lot here is the claim that it's cheaper to kill a person than to incarcerate them for life. I'm pretty sure this is false and that studies have shown that it is actually significantly cheaper to give a criminal life than it is to give him the the death penalty. This was a lincoln douglas debate topic, and though I'm not sure I actually argued this one, I think I have several arguments for both sides. I have to go soon, but if I have time I'll share them. One common anti DP argument I can remember is the "rehabilitation" argument - That killing a person blocks their potential to grow and change and repent for their crimes. There's a few holes in this logic though. First, a person faced with the death penalty will get life in prison if not the DP, so there won't be coming back to society rehabilitaed. Second, the U.S. essentially abandonned rehabilitation in prisons after the 1960's - We now essentially warehouse criminals in our prison system. Third, they may grow more violent and worsen in jail just as often as they improve themself. A common pro DP argument was one that I think has already been referenced: Deterrence. However, again studies have shown that the DP doesn't deter crime. Here's what I have in a block. Of course, the NY Times is a lousy source and I think I got called out for it in round, but I'm pretty sure the idea is true and can be verified with other sources. I can't find my cases (and I'm by no means a good debater) but I think on the Aff I basically argued that the DP is pointless/doesn't work any better than life in prison and gave some moral/economic impacts for why life in prison is better. On the neg, I basically argued that the criminal breached Locke's social contract and therefore his death was justified, but I think I struggled to find a reason why killing him was a better option than giving him life. I think I eventually just said that the only way to be 100% certain that the criminal doesn't harm society further is to kill him, which is really kind of a stupid argument in retrospect. More to come later, I have to go now.
the reason why it is cheaper is because of the legal costs assosated with sentencing someone to death. at least in virgina, if the verdict is the death penetly it is automatically sent to a high court for an appeal hearing, which takes lots of time and lawyers. and we all know LAWYERS + TIME = alot of money
Most of the stuff I did for this on debate is apparently missing, but I'll do my best to respond to some specific arguments. Recall that I'm not really sure what my opinion is on the DP. The U.S. legal system is legitimized based on a reasonable doubt standard. Obviously you can't ever be 100% sure about anything. Does that mean we just abandon criminal punishment completely? You may argue that death, no matter what, is much more severe than any other criminal punishment, but certainly for some life in prision or solitiary confinement is worse than death. (Of course, you could turn this argument by saying that the death penalty is even more ridiculous because, if life in prison is worse than death, we deter more people with life in prision than with the DP, but I digress) Generally, our legal system functions pretty effectively as far as correct verdicts go, and theoretically whenever there IS reasonable doubt we won't make any mistakes. Better 10 guilty go free than 1 innocent go to prision, right? One only needs to turn to OJ Simpson for an example of where the reasonable doubt standard functioned correctly. (Whether or not Simpson was actually the murderer is irrelevant - The point is that they couldn't prove it) One could argue that by killing him, we deter others from becoming murderers. Additionally, the government is justified in killing him because he's broken a clearly documented public law. And justified killing is far different than cold blooded murder. Was the U.S. government wrong when it sent troops to Europe to fight the Nazi's during WWII? Because they killed people too. On a more philosophical level, he violated the social contract. I think I've already discussed the likely fact that your first point is wrong - It's in fact cheaper to give a person life than death. As for your second point, it's not really a pro or anti argument as much as an observation. I think I'd agree with it, though I don't have any facts to back me up, but for a related reason. I think poorer countries would be less likely to value life because their citizens are more frustrated with it, whereas the citizens in a better off country are more optimistic about life since they've had more success. That's kind of a psychological point though, and I'm no expert in psychology. I'm just guessing. Kind of a spammy post, but I think the facts agree with you. The DP does not deter crime, at least as far as the statistics we have show. (Some would attack these statistics, however, because the use of the DP is so limited and infrequent in the U.S.) Your first point that I didn't quote about juries and intelligence is an interesting one, but I doubt you could pull that off. Would make for an interesting case. The rich people win because of good lawyers. It's not an easy problem to fix. I think small changes in the legal system, like allowing jurors to ask questions, could make a huge difference in the number of correct verdicts though. I don't think your point that "Earth is a better place with violent criminals absent from it completely" is a good one for two reasons. First, violent criminals are essentially out of society for all practical purposes when you give them life in prison, so there's no need for the death penalty. Second, many would argue that the legal system is liable to mess up in prosecutions, and the risk of putting an innocent person to death is simply too great. As a response to the following, "And I don't think the very vague "There's an off-chance that some innocent person might be wrongly sentenced to death and executed for a crime he didn't commit, and even if it did happen chances are we wouldn't know it." is even close to a good reason for doing away with the death penalty." Some would argue that we take a tremendous risk into our hands when we're dealing with human life, and by jeopardizing that life with an obviously imperfect legal system, we commit an immoral action. My views on this are as follows: I think our legal system works well enough that we can reasonably take that risk, but the DP is pretty much pointless anyway so there's no reason to take that risk, however low it may be. More to come later, maybe, if I'm not lazy.
Wow, I'm very impressed with the depth and thought that has gone into many of these responses, no matter what side everyone is on. Just a quick question, has anyone watched Twelve Angry Men? It's a very very good film about juries and the role they play in deciding life or death cases (and, it made me cry). I think it's a musical now or something. LOL.
*With the bringing on of quotes from external sources with integrity though quoting, dotdenz realises this debate is now out of his league and retreats into the night* And shit, look at those inter-board quotes, its half the damn page.
Saw it in 8th Grade, its a very good movie.. I enjoyed how they all started to believe that he was innocent.
Yeah, 12 angry men is a classic for anyone curious as to how our legal system is supposed to work. Unfortunately, that's often not how it works. In a real life scenario where a split jury is confronted with a situation like that in 12 angry men, jurors sometimes will compromise on a sentence, which obviously is wrong but doesn't stop them from doing it to save time.
My opinion is very similar to yours. If we are okay with the killing of others, we are just as bad as them, acting as 2nd degree murderers. I don't think anyone deserves or can be judge to die, because really, only God can say that. Imprisonment is vital because it allows for them to not harm anyone else, and give them the opportunity to somewhat rehabilitate. What can we do
a 30 second google search also can show you a very biased view of lethal injections. Google, just like your local news, never wants to show the good points of a controversial subject, the good points don't sell, so on google you will find the points that do sell, all the mistakes or the home lethal injection failures. I just this year did a research paper on euthenasia which is performed with the same procedure and chemicals as the death penalty.The thiopental potassium isn't administered in a shot like most people might think, niether is the pancuronium nor the potassium chloride. They drip thiopental potassium via an IV into one of the patients arms at a rate that gives the patien, if he/she doesn't die in the appropriate time range, an ungodly amount of extra time. This thiopental potassium is administered until about halfway through this 3 minute procedure. At about 30 seconds into the procedure the introduce the pancuronium into the patients body via the same IV as the thiopental potassium. Pancuronium is a mustle relaxant which relaxes every muscle in your body including your heart, lungs, and diaphragm. If left in this state the patient will die from suffication because the lungs and diaphragm will not supply oxygen. Now the patient no longer feels anything from the thiopental potassium which the full dosage has been administered and will last about another 1 and a half minutes and their body is completely relaxed. About 15 seconds after the pancuronium is administered they introduce potassium chloride. This is the pure salt that is left over from a reaction between potassium and chlorine(I might have the wrong chemicals for the reaction) As soon as this is introduced into the body every muscle in the body siezes up. This sounds painful without the above information but if you keep in mind that the thiopental potassium will last for about another minute it will change your view. This quickly reaches you're heart and kills you withing miliseconds of reaching your heart. If for some reason you survive this procedure you have about another 58 seconds of thiopental potassium in your blood stream. Even if the potassium chloride doesn't kill you as fast as it should it will kill you within the approximate 58 seconds of thiopental potassium left in your body. So like i said before, google will provide you with a very biased view of lethal injection. google wants to keep traffic running through their site so they will show you the topics that sell; death, sex, mistakes in lethal injection, etc., before they show you the the facts for lethal injection. Yes! if the procedure is performed incorrectly it leads to a very painful death, but the professionals that perform these procedures make these mistakes every 1 in a billion patients. They must go through EXTREME testing and are not allowed to go near this practice without the proper training. The only real thing people have against lethal injection is the moral tolls it puts on the professionals, but this is covered up with garage failures of people who tried to perform this technique without any medical background, or doctors who broke the law and performed this procedure without the proper training. So obviously i'm all for the the death penalty :yup: As for deciding when it should be administered i go with the old saying "an eye for an eye" only i would like to adjust this a little "an eye for 2 or more eyes" meaning if a person commits a double homicide or higher the death penalty should definately be an option that is considered. Also about people who are falsely accused... there's no real way to determine if a person is falsely accused or not. Any person in their right minds would beg and plea if they found out that premature death was in their future, so how would you know a homicidal killer from a normal civilian who has been framed? Even today people are falsely accused and falsely considered guilty. The big thing with this though is that our police and CSI labs are getting better with newer technoligies that help tell if a person was framed or not. One last thing i believe tmeporary insanity or just insanity in general has become a defense attorney's common barricade. "My client pleads not guilty because of temporary insanity" even though that is used many times over juries become biased because of that statement. Half the people who pleaded not guilty and the jury considered not guilty because of temporary insanity weren't insane at all near the time of the crime or any time after the crime(i don't have facts to back this up, so i'm sorry for stating my opinion here). Also this is going to sound childish but just because the person was "temporarily insane" doesn't change the fact that the victim/s have suffered and the offender caused it. Ok last thing this time . Killing the person that has killed before will not bring back life to the victims, but niether will locking up a cold blooded killer. Why risk the lives of many more by allowing the killer the possibility of escape when you can remove that whole option of escape with death... nobody can escape death.
We kill people in wars because our enemies present a threat to our society. Are dangerous criminals any different? I would think not. I don't know that much about lethal injection so I don't have much to say on the matter, although I do have to respond to the insanity point. Of course the fact that the criminal was "temporarily insane" doesn't change the victims sufferring, but that's not why we punish people. Utilitarians would argue that we punish criminals so that they don't cause further harm to society, and retributivists would argue that we punish criminals because they deserve punishment, but either way we aren't punishing people as some sort of vengeance to alleviate the victim's suffering. Additionally, a foundation of our criminal law system is that a criminal must have both the actus rea and mens rea. That is to say that the criminal must have both committed the act and have had the proper mental state at the time of the act's commission. When I took a semester long law course, I can recall the teacher saying that there were only four mental states, Purpose, Knowingly, Recklessness, and Negligence. It would be essentially impossible as far as I can imagine for an insane person to achieve any of those mental states. Thus, temporary insanity is a legitimate criminal defense. However, I was checking my facts on wikipedia and I noticed that they had a 5th mental state listed - Strict Liability. From a legal perspective, I'm not sure how that works since we never discussed it and I'm not sure how that factors in with these insanity defenses. Your second point about the possibility of further damage to society was a point I used to justify why the DP was a better punishment than life in prison, but really I'm not sure how often that happens and how realistic a threat that actually is.
Ok you learn something new every day i didn't know that part about how temporary insanity worked i guess it was just my opinion to me it just seemed like temporary insanity became the scapegoat of defense attorneys... and i guess i didn't really word it correctly when i said it doesn't change the fact that victims suffer XD it made sense in my head when i typed it but sometimes you have those moments where you can't really word what you're trying to say XD i'm still not sure how to word it to make it mean what i want it too XD lol and really? it makes me mad at my english teacher for saying my point about criminals(my paper kinda wandered into the DP a little XD) wasn't a reaonable argument no i can tell her that she's wrong > although you're right about the likelyhood of it happening it is very slim but still our prisons aren't 100% escape proof
One bullet in the head = much cheaper than incarceration. Conversion of criminals into fertilizer = giving them a chance to contribute something positive to the world. I'm not really for the death penalty as it is in the U.S. now. From what I've read and heard, it seems it's rarely effective. But really - is there much correction going on in these correctional facilities? No. Is a lifer anything but a drain on the finances of a society they want to destroy? No. We can rack our brains and drain our resources trying to figure out what's wrong with these psychos, we can listen to every mamby-pamby soy hot dog-eating bird-watching twit that feels fully justified protesting any violence even though to them violence is an intellectual exercise rather than a reality, or we can go my route. I don't feel I have anything in common with a murderer or rapist. Not even humanity. If I'm a human, then Gary Ridgway is an insect. If he's a human, then I'm a god. So get him off my planet and stop him from breathing my oxygen. And determining the sanity or insanity of a serial rapist or killer is itself insane. No sane person would do these things. Their actions scream insanity. And what difference does the why make anyway? If a kid's being beaten by his dad every day, when Child Protection comes in they don't ask why, they take the kid away. Jesus this world has problems. They make stricter gun laws because of criminals... when by definition a criminal is someone who does not abide by the law. I must be the Catcher in the Rye.
It's a fact that the DP as it exists in the U.S. is more costly than incarceration for life. You can't argue with it, no matter how simple you think just killing a person is. I agree with your second point. The U.S. justice system for all intensive purposes gave up rehabilitation of these most dangerous criminals in the 1960's when they realized it wasn't working. We essentially warehouse these criminals for life now. As far as your insanity point, I highly doubt every murderer is insane. Some are motivated by money, anger, revenge... That doesn't mean they're actually mentally insane. These people have the ability to assess a situation, and they assess in the way that makes the most logical sense to them, but they assess in a way contrary to our moral standard. These peoples' problem lies in their moral standard which is contrary to our own and NOT their ability to act logically. Other murderers actually have a legitimate physical condition that impairs their ability to judge sensibly. The legitimatly insane's moral standard is not wrong. The fault lies in their ability to actually assess a situation and apply that standard. I understand there's a fine line here, but there also needs to be a distinction, especially since our legal system takes into account intent/excuses/mental states. I agree with a previous poster though. Lawyers probably overuse the insanity defense where it doesn't apply. However, that's their job.
I am pro-death sentence. I once wrote a long paper on it for my law class, and I thought it was one of my best essays ever. XD
I think the death penalty is right. If they killed someone..they deserve to be killed. If they are disgusting enough to do something like that..wipe them out.
i think solitary confinement is already a evil type of punishment, and i think they should just stick to that