Death Penalty

This is a debate about Death Penalty legalization. Con will be against legalization and Pro, for the death penalty. Parameters are to be set to be for California law, society, and culture.

Death penalty is applicable in this debate only for legal death through court proceedings.

First round is acceptance.

I accept this debate.

I thank Pro for accepting this debate. There are 2 points that strongly support my debate:

1. First and foremost, the Death penalty is an extraneous situation in which long and complex judical court processes proceed. There are other means to kill a person which would be much simpler than the death penalty.

2. The death penalty costs around $137 million every year with around $90,000 for each prisoner destined for death. This is exorbitant compared to other methods such as life-term prisoner condition (costs $11.5 million) or even putting a bullet through one's head (to put in straight terms). Therefore, it is a waste of important resources.

Sources:
http://tiny.cc...
http://tiny.cc...
http://tiny.cc...

There are many reasons why the death penalty is a much easier, cheaper, and overall, smarter way to deal with those criminals who, as an undisputed fact, need something harsher than a simple decade or two in jail.

1) First, the death penalty, contrary to the believe of some, is actually a relatively humane way to carry out an execution. We can all agree that the death penalty (like a lethal shot) is much more humane than a public hanging, or even a private hanging for that matter.

2) Also, the death penalty is a much less costly way to deal with criminals than a life sentence. A life sentence costs on average $1.5 mil while the death penalty costs $90000 per person. So, the death penalty is 17 times cheaper than a life sentence.

Pro has supported my position (Con). His argument contains several flaws:

Rebuttal 1: The word "humane" is a subjective term and justified only in one's belief. There is no definition for how "humane" something is. In addition, modern society does not include hangings which make the argument obsolete.

Rebuttal and Support 2: Pro has supported my argument in that death penalty is overly expensive by interpreting statistics incorrectly. Although each penalty costs over $8 thousand, there are usually only 150 deaths resulting from 22,000 homicides. Pro compares a SINGLE penalty cost to an ENTIRE YEAR of life imprisonment costs! $1 billion could be saved over 5 years if life sentence replaced the death penalty.

Sources: http://tiny.cc...

Con has several logical flaws:

ReRebuttal 1:The word humane is indeed, subjective, but the range of its interpretations is not very large. A standard definition would be "minimizing pain" and getting a lethal shot does indeed do so. Also, if Con states that death penalty is not the easiest way to kill some one, than what is?

ReRebuttal 2:The amounts that I stated were of a single person. One person, on death penalty, costs 90000 while life in prison would be 1.5 mil. So, it is actually Con who has interpreted incorrectly. Also, Con says than 150 deaths result from 22000 homicides. This is impossible. Homicides are killing of people, so how, from 22000 killings, there are only 150 deaths? This is incorrect.

Both my arguments remain valid.

As a conclusion I would like to clarify the debate:

1) Pro obviously doesn't know what homicides (murder cases) are. He thinks suspects sentenced to death penalty are equal to total deaths which is absurd. 150 people were sentenced out of 22,000 total deaths.
2) Pro ignored previous rounds where my sources clearly stated that $11.5 million is for an entire year of life sentences.
3) Again, Pro's defense has showed the subjective view of "minimizing pain" which isn't given specific boundaries.
4) Pro has NO sources which questions the validity of his statistics and "definitions" including the supposed "1.5 mil" life in prison.
5) Pro has only defended his argument but ignored Con's supports thus conceding to them.

Given these, vote Pro!

1)In defense to my misunderstanding, Con stated "150 deaths", implying 150 dead.
2)Con's arguments were the complexity and cost of the death penalty. For the complexity, no source is cited, so is invalid. Also, the cost of life sentence (average: 50 years) is undisputedly more than the death penalty (average: very quick). So, this argument is also invalid.
3)Minimizing pain is self-explanatory; its boundaries are common sense.
4)I am sorry for the late links, here they are
http://www.heartsandminds.org...
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...
5)I have nullified Con's arguments above.

Thank you everybody! Now, when voting, vote Pro, and I am very happy that my opponent, Con, agrees with me in voting for myself!