1. Anti Death Penalty<br />IDENTIFY REASONEXPLAIN REASONPROVIDE EVIDENCE e.g Many innocent people have been executed The major problem with the death penalty is that once such a sentence has been carried out there is no going back. If new evidence later comes to light, then the wrongly accused person has already been killed – therefore there is no opportunity for them to be cleared of their crime in any meaningful sense. Every legal system in the civilized world accepts that it can make mistakes, which is why they have an appeal system. If this is the case, then why do they refuse certain people the right to be proven innocent at a later date?According to the American Civil Liberties Union, research has shown that 1 in 7 sentenced to execution in the US are later found to be innocent. Since 1973, 130 people have been released from death row having been wrongly convicted of murder (Amnesty International)quot;
I cannot support a system which, in its administration, has proven so fraught with error and has come so close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life..’ – Governor George Ryan of IllinoisExecutions are more expensive than lifelong sentence sans paroleUS$2 million. That’s how much it costs to sentence someone to death. Well, 2 million versus US$ 500,000 for lifelong prison sentence. Not only that, but appeals and therapy are free. Think of all the money the government can save.Death penalties are not a deterrent: crime rates have not decreasedJust because the criminal knows that the death penalty may be enforced on them, it doesn’t mean that it will stop them. USA (country with DP) has 5 times the crime rate of Australia and 6 times the crime rate of Britain (countries without DP)Texas and Oklahoma have historically (in US) executed the most number of DR inmates, yet both their murder rates are higher than national average.Life in prison guarantees no future crimesIf a criminal is held in prison for the rest of their lives, how can they do any more crime?Some religions forbid death penalty: Catholic, Presbyterian, Quaker, Amish, Mennonite.Violates international human rights laws.Against what all UN countries have promised to do when they agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.Respecting the value of human life: quot;
It is by exacting the highest penalty for the taking of human life that we affirm the highest value of human life.quot;
(Edward Koch).No longer practiced in most sophisticated societies.Killing is not sophisticated. We should be able to find other solutions.It promotes killing as a valid way to solve problems.By sentencing a criminal to death, isnt the country promoting killing as a way to solve the problem.Death sentences are handed down arbitrarily, not in a fair manner.Sometimes the judges/jury are biased. Why sentence an innocent person to die because of a prejudice, an incompetent lawyer who feels he/she deserves better or a mistake.Unfairness: The mentally ill, poor, males, and racial minorities are over-represented among those executed. One pilot study of over 2 dozen convicted criminals on death row found that all had been so seriously abused during childhood that they probably all suffered from brain damage. Women convicted of murder are almost never executed; that is a penalty that is almost entirely reserved for men. A 1986 study in Georgia showed that persons who killed quot;
whites were four times more likely to be sentenced to death than convicted killers of non-whites.quot;
8,9,10 The Texas Civil Rights Project issued a report in 2000-SEP which was critical of the justice system in Texas. <br /> HYPERLINK quot;
http://www.antideathpenalty.org/reasons.htmlquot;
http://www.antideathpenalty.org/reasons.htmlhttp://www.prodeathpenalty.com/<br />