Briefs for arguments
gentle_gentHiba Atallah
Com 2110
Young, A.
Brief Assignment
I. (Blame) Death sentences in the U.S. have dropped dramatically.
Amnesty International USA Headquarters, Death Penalty Trends, 2010, http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/us-death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-trends, 12 February 2015.
“Annual death sentences in the U.S. have dropped dramatically since the year 2000. In the last four years the number of death sentences has been lower than any time since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976.”
II. (Ills) Capital punishment has advantages in the U.S.
A. Racial discrimination is not true in all aspects.
James Fieser, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee, 2008, From Moral Issues that Divide Us and Applied Ethics: A Sourcebook, http://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/160/7-cap-pun.htm, 12 February 2015.
“A criticism of this argument is that the real bias appears to be against white killers (who typically kill whites), and not against black killers (who typically kill blacks). Typical black killers get the lighter sentences.”
Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Rebutting the Myths About Race and the Death Penalty, 150, http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/osjcl/files/2012/12/6.-Scheidegger.pdf, 12 February 2015.
“The data may be suspect. Some of it may be just plain wrong. Sometimes
there are missing data for some points in the study. More fundamentally, the
concept we are really interested in may not be a simple number or a yes/no, as the technique demands. The simple point here is that mathematical modeling
not magic. Just because the numbers come out of the computer with lots of statistics and graphs does not mean we can depend on the conclusion being true. A lot can go wrong, and studies need to be challenged by someone with the incentive and expertise to do so.”
B. Protections exist to guard innocent people being put to death.
Bradbury, Michael D. "The Death Penalty Affirms the Sanctity of Life." The Death Penalty. Ed. Mary E. Williams. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 5 Feb. 2015
With the advent of DNA evidence, the chances of an innocent person being convicted and executed have been virtually eliminated in almost all cases where DNA evidence is available.”
Michigan State University and Death Penalty Information Center, Executing the innocent is a rare but acceptable risk of death penalty, 2000,9, http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/teacher/c/about/arguments/arguments.PDF, 12 February 2015.
“There is no proof that any innocent person has actually been executed since increased safeguards and appeals were added to our death penalty system in the 1970s. Even if such executions have occurred, they are very rare. Imprisoning innocent people is also wrong, but we cannot empty the prisons because of that minimal risk.”
C. The death penalty is administered correctly.
Robinson, Bruce, Bachelor of Science, Capital Punishment: All viewpoints on death penalty,2009, http://www.religioustolerance.org/execute.htm, 12 February 2015.
“New lethal injection method may be tried: Kenneth Biros is scheduled to be executed on DEC-08. A new method is expected to be used: a single injection of thiopental sodium.”
Nathanson, Stephen. An eye for an eye?: The immorality of punishing by death. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2001.
“We have seen that although killing is generally immoral, there are certain kinds of killings, which are justifiable, and one of them is killing in self-defense or in defense of others. Executing a murderer is not itself a case of killing in self-defense, but if death penalty advocates could show that the practice of executing murderers strongly resemble defensive killing in morally relevant ways, that would be an argument for including it on our list of justifiable exceptions. In other words, if there is some property possessed by defensive killings which makes these killings morally right and if executing murders possesses this same property, then executing murders would likewise be morally right.”
III. (Cure) Abolishing the death penalty will affect the system.
A. The death penalty has no effect on racism in the criminal justice system.
B. Abolishing the death penalty will make people think that they can escape extreme punishments.
Polsby, Daniel D. "The Death of Capital Punishment? Furman v. Georgia." The Supreme Court Review (1972): 37.
“Furthermore the alleged increase in crime in this country today is pointed to as a direct result of the leniency of modern criminal law. Too much false sympathy a mistaken humanitarianism is looked upon as responsible for the growth in criminality. In particular the failure to apply more rigorously the death penalty is held to be disastrous in that it has lead the murderer to believe he can escape the extreme punishment hence an increase in the crime of murder in the United States.”
IV. (Cost) Capital punishment would help the society.
A. Capital punishment deters crime.
Dr. Paul Connors, Ph.D. Economist with focus on the analysis of crime, 2007 (“Capital Punishment Does in Fact Deter Crime,” Greenhaven Press) Current Controversies. Rpt. from "hearing before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security of the Committee on the Judiciary House of Representatives." 2004. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 3 Feb. 2015.
“First, research shows that capital punishment deters every kind of murder that has been studied. This includes many kinds of murderers like terrorists who might not seem to be deterrable. My own paper found the death penalty has a deterrent effect on all categories of murder including crimes of passion and intimate murders that many people think are undeterrable. Second, capital punishment could have an overall deterrent effect on terrorism even if many terrorists are not influenced by capital punishment. To give a deterrent effect, all that is necessary is that a small fraction of terrorists are deterred. Obviously, the death penalty does not deter all murders, but it does deter a small important fraction of them. Third, although there are exceptions, news accounts ... are replete with accounts of alleged terrorists who fight strenuously in court to get life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. These terrorists obviously view executions as a worse penalty than life in prison. If executions are a harsher penalty, then some terrorists should be deterred by them.”
Michigan State University Comm Tech Lab and Death Penalty Information Center,2001, http://deathpenaltycurriculum.org/student/contact.htm, 12, February 2015.
“Since society has the highest interest in preventing murder, it should use the strongest punishment available to deter murder”
B. Life without parole costs more than the death penalty.
James Fieser, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee, 2008, From Moral Issues that Divide Us and Applied Ethics: A Sourcebook, http://www.utm.edu/staff/jfieser/class/160/7-cap-pun.htm, 12 February 2015.
“Detaining criminals in prison for life is very expensive, and society should not have to pay those costs for murderers.”
Full Name, Qualifications, Title of Article of Book, Title of Journal/Magazine/Newspaper (if needed), the date of publication, page number or web address, the date accessed on the web.