The Death Penalty Should Be Replaced by Life Imprisonment

Thank you to Mall for accepting this debate.

I intend to demonstrate why the death penalty should be abolished through the following fronts:

There have been 200 exonerations since 1973. Even with the many appeals, the rate of error is estimated to be slightly over four percent, even with our advanced forensics technology human error is unavoidable. Though small, it's an unacceptable number when it comes to human life. The death of innocent people can be avoided all together with life imprisonment.

There is variation from state to state, but it's a widespread truth that the cost of the death penalty is several fold that of the life sentence. Due to the process of appeals the death penalty costs millions of dollars, which is about ten times as much as life imprisonment costs. The purpose of criminal justice is to defend the public, though the death penalty harms the public through unnecessary financial stress. Justice should save lives, not drain resources, but in this case, it drains resources and destroys lives.

3.) The Death Penalty is Hypocritical and Unnecessary
There is no reason an individual violating a rule of morality gives the government justification to also violate that rule. There are some cases where killing can be justified, as it was during the resistance of Hitler in WWII, however the death penalty does have a peaceful alternative that doesn't commit the very crime being condemned. We should not try to protect the sanctity and value of life through taking it away, we should not prove killing is wrong with more killing.

            

If we have a cheaper, safer, more humane and non-hypocritical alternative, why do we insist on keeping the death penalty?

The question raised here is good for the supreme court. I'm evidently by chance am not a supreme court judge. Can't answer for another person.

I'm going to start with this point as this is the bottom line where conflict comes into play and how I prove that there should be death penalties or obvious fatal executions.

Not even solely for crimes committed but for the safety of society. Now the truth is, the death penalty is not justice for the victims or the slain or fallen . The slain is gone. Nothing further can be justified for them.

But we can still orchestrate justice for those that it can protect and serve which are the living. This gives the basis for having prisons, right. The prisons are there to contain and restrain individuals from doing any further harm or damage to individuals undue it ok.

Now the question is, if the prison system fails and there is an escape, some type of an appeal or re-trial, whatever the factors are that enable the perpetrators to be free and the heinous crimes are committed again, what can you do if you have nothing to stop the perpetrator?

What do you do in perhaps a hostage situation when your choices are to allow the assailant to slaughter a victim or execute the assailant?

So if you're in favor of prison systems to stop individuals from committing crimes, cohesively and consistently to be without conflict you have to permit executions.

That's really the reality right there which is the truth which is the evidence.

I will say that the death penalty could be reevaluated, recalculated as to the parameters I've specified that could make a difference in expenses. However this would mean that the death penalty, fatal executions are still of reality. 

Now we ought to keep in mind of probabilities such as more and more repetitive successful prison breaks and any other factors legally or illegally, technicalities that prevent people from rightfully being imprisoned or being contained therein or people that are perhaps untouchable, legally immune that perpetuate crimes of harming, the serial undue slaying of others.

So basically if the recidivism problem can only be resolved by individual case with the execution of the individual, you have to allow for a capacity of the death penalty or death row in that measure for such individuals.

This will obviously be eliminated or be different with incorrigible individuals where prison systems fail to contain the repeat offender. A person that is not innocent and cannot be stopped unless the person is physically stopped, obviously fits the penalty, reaps the consequence of being ceased. Particularly, mortally stopped. The person has drew these ramifications upon him or her.

I don't consistently draw from films but I thought of this from the film "Lean on me". The main character's decision was to execute a ramification that is characterized as a permanent cutting off from education from the institution they've proven to be beyond redemption to receive.

So all in all, the opposing side has to reconsider that in order to push to still have prison systems in existence, it still requires a capacity for fatal execution.

It cannot replace it as imprisonment is insufficient on its own for its own purposes of confinement and containment. It has to remain as an ancillary compensatory defense where imprisonment will be deficit.

Mall put forward some good arguments on the fallibility of the prison system (which I will address later), though they didn't directly refute the arguments at hand. Since it stands uncontested I will extend these points.

The argument from Con here is that as prisons can be escaped from, therefore they risk the perpetrators repeating their crimes. 

You actually have to prove they didn't by offering counterpoints.

Repeated offenses , not " offensives ", but  repeated offenses are self evident that they're problematic. If they're not , then what does that say about the first offense? 

Being that the first one was problematic, why wouldn't the subsequent ones be? Do you see how that follows?

The perpetrator was imprisoned due to a problem caused by the individual in the law. So to ask me to prove how repeated perpetrations are an issue is redundant. It was already proven by the first perpetration. 

This is classic "duh".

The "very isolated, high security prisons" you mentioned are still not sufficient because you have not proven the impossibility of an escape. "High security" doesn't translate to impossible to break out of or not untenable.

This is just like people saying the "unsinkable ship". You can sell all the guarantees you can with the highly trained guards, high security, super tight prison systems you have. You have not proven that individuals cannot find ways to subvert the system with intelligence, outside/inside help and so forth and so on.

So because this is not absolute, you will require a capacity no matter how small, an allowance for  executions , a.k.a. death penalties.

Just reconsider your position to see the exception, make the exception and recant the topic statement.

This still does not eliminate the capacity for death sentencing in prisons and in hostage situations that leave no other choice. In imminent threat/danger of harm/mortality, keeps the fatal executions on the table.

Your argument is that we should disregard the issues with the death penalty because keeping the perpetrators alive means the possibility of escape, and that means the possibility they may commit another crime.  

A seemingly sensible claim, but the evidence just isn't there. Cases of escape are definitely real, but not nearly problematic as you make them out to be. 89% of escape cases are from non-secure custody. A minuscule 0.1% of the escapes are from high security institutions. A minority (36%) of escapees committed a crime whilst at large. Of those offenders, less than 0.1% of  those crimes were related to homicide. 

Also, keep in mind the rate of annual escape cases has been steadily decreasing. 

Your argument is about protecting the public from repeat offenses, though abolishing the death sentence would save far more lives than keeping it, not accounting for the lives of those sentenced.

The millions of dollars saved could go to delivering better healthcare, disaster response, and stronger law enforcement. All of which, though not specifically calculable, save lives.

As aforementioned,  some extent of human error is unavoidable. The 4% wrongful execution rate means the death penalty has taken far more innocent lives than it has saved, and this is something that will continue to happen. Your argument for keeping the death penalty is centered around protecting the innocent public, though the numbers show the death penalty kills far more than it saves.

I don't see why we're talking about hostage situations; this debate is about criminal sentencing.

https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/quick-facts/Escape_FY20.pdf   

Summary: https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/federal-escape-offenses?

Otherwise you'd have a contradicted position because your position supports restraint but you're totally against ultimate restraint to permanently resolve the situation  with the initial system that failed in the first place.

If you can't see this conflict, you won't be the only one. It's conventional versus non conventional.

Regardless of the percentages, logically speaking, it logically follows that you have to allow a capacity for death penalties if prisons fail. We must not pretend that these are impossibilities. Otherwise you have to prove that it's impossible for prison escapes. "High security" doesn't prove it. Superior trained guards don't prove it.

It doesn't really matter. To be logically consistent, it logically follows that you have to allow a capacity for death penalties if and when prisons fail.

It's like you're arguing just prison systems with no back up plan. We're talking about law abiding civilian lives here .

Let me ask, if the only way you could stop somebody from killing somebody was killing that someone, would you support it?

I already addressed this. If you didn't understand or missed it, let me know that, I'll reiterate.

"I don't see why we're talking about hostage situations; this debate is about criminal sentencing."

Ok well the judge can sentence the criminal to imprisonment and if the criminal is caught up in a hostage situation that brings on imminent death to a law abiding person as the cause of that criminal, the death penalty will be administered in the immediate situation. 

So therefore you have to concede to allowing penal executions to some degree. That's all it is. Whether it's in the electric chair, gas chamber, a lethal injection, or in the street, it's still the law executing a criminal possibly in the act so it resolves that "innocence" point.

You have to think of executions outside of conventional means. 

If you are against the death penalty, you have to be opposed to it all. 

Otherwise it logically doesn't follow.

Thanks to Mall for the debate.

Less than 1% of the crimes (not less than 0.1%) were related to homicide. The argument of course still holds considering it is 1% of the 36% of the less than 0.1%. This represents the odds of someone who is sent to a high security prison escaping and committing a homicide-related crime. 

Con's rebuttal to my arguments is to use the death penalty only in the extremely rare case of escape and repeated offenses. It's a good argument, but the topic of the debate is "The Death Penalty Should Be Replaced by Life Imprisonment," meaning I'm arguing life imprisonment should replace  all cases in which the death sentence is used. Importantly, this means con must argue the death penalty should be used in all the cases it is currently.

Therefore, I am extending all arguments as con did not directly address them.

I don't believe con fulfilled their share of the BOP. The only reason they provided to keep the death sentence was cases of escapes and repeated offenses. The protection provided for the public from yet another escape and repeated offense is minuscule, more especially so when taking into consideration the 4% wrongful execution rate. 

Throughout this debate I utilized a variety of sources from established non profits and government reports. 

I just ask the opposite side, consider what I say. I know when we debate our views we tend to not consider or rebuttal but continue to press what we've already accepted. Minds made up.

That's why I asked the question I don't think was answered.

Whatever percentage it is, because one exists, what do you do when all else fails? How else do you stop a victimizer from further victimizing?

You eventually going to have to come to terms with utilizing penal executions .

According to the topic and this is where you have to understand your own language, whether you and audience sees it or not, you stated the death penalty.

The death penalty should be replaced. Does this mean some occurrences or any occurrence of the death penalty? It wasn't stated "some", it said the death penalty should be replaced so that's any instance of the death penalty should be replaced.

I'm arguing that it is not any instance so therefore it can't be replaced. Even if it is used in a miniscule amount of the time, it has not been replaced. So therefore that is all that is necessary to oppose your position. It doesn't have to be the current status quo. It just has to be opposed to you. Your position, the death penalty should be replaced with life imprisonment. That means whether you thought it out or not, no penal fatal execution at all. It has been replaced with imprisonment so even if that is the only way to stop or contain a criminal the way a prison cell was supposed to, according to your position, it can't be implemented because it was REPLACED with imprisonment. 

If the topic was , the death penalty should be mostly replaced, then I wouldn't have this position to counter you with. But you said replaced with a period after it .

If a convict continues to evade the system to offend and has been successful with a track record, there's no other way to stop the person than to execute.

Your arguments have been stopped with a question you did not answer.

When you don't answer questions in debates, you acknowledge that they will refute your position upon answering honestly.

If they don't, why not answer?

The question was, if the only way you could stop somebody from killing somebody was killing that someone, would you support it?

The opposing side evaded in answering this question as the answer would condemn the opposing case.

The opposing case is to support penal prison systems to contain criminals so the point is to contain and stop further offense .

In order to maintain this support, you would have to allow necessary penal fatalistic execution less you be found in contradiction rejecting your own position.

This is the non sequitur the opposing side has walked into. Instead of dealing with that, the opposing side ran to the claim of arguing for status quo penal executions.

It appears the opposite side did not consider this all the way through. The topic says death penalty. You can still have the "death penalty" without the status quo of it in its current extent , condition and parameters.

The death penalty is not just the way it's done from the sentence to prison to death row to the execution chamber. The execution chamber can still be used when prisons fail , whether inside the prison or outside . It's still a law or penal related death by law enforcement. Penal related mortal executions happen regularly particularly when necessary. Is the opposing side against that?

Whether these criminals have not been sentenced and convicted yet or made it to prison yet or death row or have escaped prison, in any scenario, when the law stops or contains the criminal by execution is the death penalty.

The opposing side did not challenge the justification of any of these scenarios. I won't speculate why but I just say over and over, you have to necessitate the capacity for killing criminals as another means to contain or restrained the offense. Confine the offense which in otherwise be an offense to other law abiding people .

The death penalty is not just in prison, it's an omnipresent work of justice. A criminal that is escaping for the third time that has committed murder twice while being a fugitive, would the opposing side support the death penalty executed before that criminal can hop over the prison fence/prison wall?

This is another question I suspect would be evaded. The prison staff can relocate the execution chamber to the wall or fence of that prison and administer the firing squad.

Is this not the death penalty? The opposing side was too broad with the language. Should of been more specific. A kind tip for future reference.

The opposing side's belief is false. So what if the offense is miniscule?

The opposing side has not addressed every counterpoint I've made because there is no counter, it's a forfeit. 

I've addressed this. No matter the percentage, because the percentage exists, simply because it exists, proves that you will need a capacity for penal execution to support .The opposing side did not counter this point. The opposing side knows this would negate the topic statement. It does. It makes no difference how much the percentage is. We both know that is irrelevant. But it's the best you can do for a counter .