I am in debate. Can you give me an argument either for or against captial punishment.?

Answer 1

Yes, the most all governments punish people for taking life. Who gives a government an authority to punish people for taking a life ? Capital punsihment is a legalized murder. It gives a government too much authority . Not enough checks and balances.

They are not the creators of life / therfore they have no right to take it.

Answer 2

Against:

1. Capital punishment has never been shown to be a deterrent. It serves no purpose except vengeance, which is should not be the purpose of govt. crime policy.

2. Capital punishment is actually MORE EXPENSIVE than life in prison without possibility of parole, because of the cost of mandatory appeals.

3. CP is unfairly meted out. 98% of the people on death row are indigent and had to rely on court-appointed public defenders. If the defendant has any money or power at all, the prosecution goes for a lighter sentence or a plea bargain.

4. In the last 20 years several HUNDRED people have been cleared of crimes by DNA after being convicted and spending as much as decades in jail. Many of these people, several dozen, were on death row. Nobody knows how many innocent people have been executed because after a criminal is executed all the trial evidence is destroyed.

5. "'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' is the quickest way to an eyeless and toothless society." I'm not sure who said that, it might have been Gandhi

Answer 3

Here's one against from an old Cop:

The Death Penalty is a joke!

The only reason to have punishment is to deter potential offenders from offending. If you make the punishment so benign as to take the threat out of it, you make it impotent and it no longer serves as a deterrent.

The way it's done today is akin to putting down a favored pet who was injured or ill. Trial, appeal, further appeal, years in prison, candlelight vigils, prayer meets, needle in the arm, anesthetics, finally "going to sleep" WHAT A CROCK!

If you want to make it a deterrent, it has to be distasteful, rude and public. Kill someone, we'll hang you, or we'll shoot you, or we'll garrote you or whatever, and we'll televise it on every channel so everybody gets an idea of how distasteful it is, and then maybe it'll cause potential murderers to rethink the matter.

Face it, that ain't gonna happen, so, you want a punishment? Take a look at Super Max in Florence Colorado. 23 out of 24 hours in a concrete cell that's 4' by 12' with a concrete toilet, sink and bed platform, including a wonderful view of nothing. The 24th hour you get to spend in another 4' by 12' room without the bed, etc. so you can like do push ups or whatever. Anything can be taken away from you, writing materials, books, TV privileges, phone calls, visits, whatever. The guards are instructed to refrain from any sort of interaction with you. No sympathy there.

How's that for deterrent? I'm surprised they don't publicise it more. That's where Robert Hanssen, Richard Reed, Eric Rudolph, Sonny Gravano, Zacharias Moussari and a few others are serving their life sentences.

Wouldn't you consider that worse than death?

Check it out on Google Earth.

Answer 4

Some of the countries in Europe have the right idea, Saddam was a very good example. If the appeal trial holds up the conviction of the first trial the execution must take place within 30 days. None of this sitting around for 10 to 20 years like here in the States.

Answer 5

FOR: The justice system exists in order to mete out orderly justice and prevent vigilantism and blood feuds. The system works by people's consent as long as it perceived to be just. Capital punishment is justified if people feel that it is in some cases required for justice.

(revenge or deterence really have nothing to do with it)

AGAINST:

1. It is inevitable that errors will be made by the justice system. At least without the death penalty it may be possible to correct or compensate some of these errors when they are found.
2. With the disproportionate minority representation on death row, America has shown that it is a mature enough society to deal in death penalties.
3. Life in prison without parole may be deemed to be "justice enough", making the death penalty unnecessary.
4. The cost of interring prisoners for decades should not figure in the equation of justice. If you want justice, you have to pay for it. The decision to kill someone cannot come down to bean-counting.
5. Who gave the State the right to kill people? It is certainly not Constitutionally mandated.

Answer 6

Our court system is inherently imperfect because it is run by imperfect human beings. Therefore, it is inevitable that people will sometimes be wrongly convicted of a crime. If we execute someone, and discover their innocence later, we cannot undo what we have done.

In our current justice system, capital punishment is handed out unevenly. If you are a racial minority, you are much more likely to get the death sentence than if you are white. Some of this may have to do with economics. In general, the better the lawyer you can afford, the more likely you are to get a lighter sentence or not be convicted in the first place. We shouldn't even begin to contemplate so final a punishment given our current lopsided justice system.

Answer 7

Several dozen people have had to be freed from death row over the last twenty years, because it was demonstrated that they did not in fact commit the crimes for which they had been duly convicted; either through DNA evidence or false informant's testimony being recanted or refuted.

Here's my solution: only impose the death penalty in those cases where the prosecutors, the judge and jury all agree to themselves be put to death if it is ever demonstrated that they condemned an innocent person.

I don't think very many people would be sentenced to death if we had that requirement.....

Answer 8

properly, i'm for Capital Punishment and listed under are the excuses why. a million) Why ought to we (taxpayers) pay to feed, homestead, entertain, and supply legal representation to serial murderers, baby killers, murderers, rapists and different violent criminals for something of their lives? 2) I help the attention for an eye fixed. I see the different facet that all of us have sin as properly, yet i'm no longer speaking approximately capital punishment for the guy who kills his spouse while he catches her cheating. i'm speaking approximately those like Joseph Duncan who kidnaps little ones and rapes and tortures them and kills them, or slices them to bits and eats them or worse. This type of individuals -- Evil - straight forward. 3) i do no longer understand what states help Capital Punishment, yet each and every state ought to have an convey lane like Texas does or faster. 4) Race performs 0 place interior the loss of existence penalty. i do no longer see that as a valid question even. No race card to tug. White, blue, yellow, the crime is an analogous. 5) the fee of conserving, outfits, housing, supervising, astonishing and so on prisoners is astronomical. upload the fee of their protection over two decades and that's for the period of the roof.

Answer 9

I am for capital punishment, but only for second offenders of murder, for two reasons. One, you may be executing an innocent man, and once he is dead, you can't reverse the execution if new evidence exonerates him. Two, if a murderer is given a sentence of life imprisonment, what sanction do you have over him to prevent him from killing again. Another life term? No, you must have the threat of the death penalty to deter convicted murderers who are serving life terms from killing again.

Answer 10

If you call out the dogs... the dogs will eventually turn on you.

To me, law is simple. All you have to do is ask yourself how YOU would like it if the law was acting on YOU.

Everything is fine when somebody else is suffering. But when it's YOU on the hot seat, it's a whole other matter.

You have to make an assumption that someway, somehow, it could be you facing the music.

So that's how I make my argument. I'm against it because I wouldn't want it to happen to me.