Negative Case: November/December 1998

Rolando Cruz spent 10 years on death row. He was charged with the rape and murder of a ten-year-old girl. Shortly after he was convicted the police arrested a repeat sex offender named Brian Dugan confessed to the crime. He had unknown details about the crime and matched the DNA sample. Still, Rolando Cruz spent the next ten years on death row for a crime he obviously didn't commit before he was finally let out. It is incidents such as this that lead me to negate the resolution which states Resolved: Capital Punishment is Justified.

[ I would like to challenge the affirmative on the following definitions:
* capital punishment- the infliction of the death penalty for the commission of certain crimes.
* justified- to demonstrate to prove to be just, right, or valid.]

The value that I will support in today's round will be that of societal good. Societal good is what is the best or most practical thing for society. Capital punishment is not good for society because it is inefficient and devalues human life.

I will support my value through the criteria of pragmatism. Pragmatism is defined as a philosophy based on the conception that the truth of a doctrine is to be judged by it practical consequences. Capital punishment doesn't have any practical results because it is inefficient and devalues human life, therefore, it is not what is practical for society.

I will oppose the resolution with two contentions: capital punishment is inefficient and capital punishment devalues human life.

Let's first direct our attention to CONTENTION ONE: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IS INEFFICIENT.
It is inefficient because it is not a deterrent, costs more money, and it sends the wrong message. First, it is not a deterrent to crime. About 20,000 homicides occur in the United States every year and fewer than 300 convicted murderers are sentenced to death. Richard Samp of the Washington Legal Foundation once said, "We have so few executions that it really is not possible to say definitely that the death penalty is a deterrent." With so few executions, how could such long odds be expected to deter crime? Also, capital punishment is inefficient because it costs so much. According to a May 1998 Issue of Issues and Controversies on File, executing a single prisoner ranges between $2 million dollars and $3.5 million dollars compared with a maximum of $1 million to imprison a criminal for life. With costs like these, it would be more practical for society to give them life in prison because society has to pay for the executions with their tax dollars. Also, capital punishment is inefficient because it sends the wrong message to criminals because it encourages dealing with problems in a harsh manner. Having capital punishment would be like a parent hitting a child because the child hit another child. Jack M. Tuell, a bishop of the Portland Area for the United Methodist Church, once wrote, " If we deal with persons who have "brutally killed" someone by killing them, we encourage dealing with all human problems in this harsh and summary manner." Capital punishment is not only inefficient but it devalues human life which brings me to

CONTENTION TWO: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT DEVALUES HUMAN LIFE.
It does this because it leaves life to chance and lowers respect for life. First life is to fragile to chance to human errors. A recent issue of U.S. News and World Report stated that one of every 7 cases involves faulty eyewitness identifications and a seventh involves false confessions. As Jack M. Tuell once said, "The imperfect methods of human justice through which we seek to ascertain guilty or innocence are far too fragile to dare to support the imposition of death, the irrevocable penalty." Also according to U.S. News and World Report, for every 7 executions 1 other prisoner on death row has been found innocent. Can we really take the chance of innocent people being executed? Gerald Kogan once said, " If one innocent person is executed along the way, then we can no longer justify capital punishment." It also lowers respect for human life. How can you have respect for life when you make it something that can be so easily taken away? As Governor Hugh Carey once said, "We cannot foster respect for human life while giving the state the license to destroy it."

[ I will now move on to my opponents case.]

In conclusion, I have given you two reasons for negating the resolution which were: capital punishment is inefficient and capital punishment devalues human life. I would like to leave you with one final thought: Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?

I am now open for cross-examination.