Should the United States abolish capital punishment?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Should the United States abolish capital punishment?". Your opponent's style: Republican

The death penalty system in the US is applied in an unfair and unjust manner against people, largely dependent on how much money they have, the skill of their attorneys, race of the victim and where the crime took place. People of color are far more likely to be executed than white people, especially if thevictim is white

You're conflating implementation flaws with the institution itself, which is sloppy reasoning. Yes, disparities exist in sentencing and representation. That's a case for reforming the system, not abolishing it. We don't abolish surgery because some surgeons perform worse than others, we improve training and oversight. More critically, your argument proves too much. If unfairness disqualifies capital punishment, it disqualifies life imprisonment equally, yet you likely support that. So either unfair application invalidates both, or neither. You can't have it both ways. Which is it? And if disparities are the real problem, why not demand better funding for public defenders and sentencing guidelines instead of abandoning the most serious sanction entirely?

The death penalty is a waste of taxpayer funds and has no public safety benefit. The vast majority of law enforcement professionals surveyed agree that capital punishment does not deter violent crime; a survey of police chiefs nationwide found they rank the death penalty lowest among ways to reduce violent crime. They ranked increasing the number of police officers, reducing drug abuse, and creating a better economy with more jobs higher than the death penalty as the best ways to reduce violence. The FBI has found the states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates.

You're weaponizing police opinion on deterrence while ignoring what actually matters: incapacitation. Police chiefs rank "deterrence" methods, not "removing murderers permanently." Those are different questions. A executed murderer commits zero future murders. That's not deterrence, that's elimination. Your FBI claim collapses under scrutiny too, it confuses correlation with causation. High-crime states adopted capital punishment because they had high crime, not the reverse. On cost, you're right executions are expensive. But that's a design problem, not a principle problem. Japan executes efficiently without bankruptcy. The real question you're dodging: is execution sometimes the just punishment, regardless of cost? If yes, cost is irrelevant. If no, say so directly instead of hiding behind financial arguments.

Innocent people are too often sentenced to death. Since 1973, over 156 people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence. Nationally, at least one person is exonerated for every 10 that are executed.

You just proved the system works. One hundred fifty-six exonerations mean the appeals process caught errors before execution. That's the safeguard functioning as designed. Your ratio claim is unverified and inflammatory, but even if true, it argues for stricter conviction standards, not abolition. We don't stop performing surgery because 1 in 10 patients experience complications, we improve protocols. The harder question you're avoiding: if we execute only the provably guilty with ironclad evidence, is that unjust? Or does the risk of any error, however small, make execution categorically wrong? That's a moral claim, not an empirical one. Which are you actually making?

The death penalty hurts people with severe mental illness and disabilities

Mental illness doesn't negate culpability or eliminate the need for permanent incapacitation. Courts already evaluate competency to stand trial and insanity defenses. If someone is too mentally ill to execute, they're too mentally ill to have committed the crime with mens rea in the first place, so they wouldn't face capital charges. You're treating mental illness as a categorical bar to execution, but that conflates medical conditions with moral responsibility. The real question: should we execute people who are mentally ill but still culpable and dangerous? That's a legitimate debate. But sweeping mental illness into abolition arguments dodges it entirely. What's your actual threshold for responsibility?

The appeal process is broken In theory, Johnny Joe Martinez was a perfect candidate for life in prison. Before he killed Clay Peterson, Martinez had no criminal record. He also showed remorse immediately by calling the police himself. The victim’s own mother wanted Martinez’s life spared after he was sentenced to death. However, when Martinez tried to call his lawyer about his appeal, the man didn’t pick up. Martinez then wrote him letters, but his lawyer never replied (Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty). Martinez finally learned his lawyer had filed a 17-line petition (good petitions can be hundreds of pages long) without ever speaking to him. The petition was promptly denied. Martinez was executed in 2002. He was 27 years old.

Your anecdote is tragic but proves the opposite of your point. Martinez's lawyer failed catastrophically, yet the system still caught it, reviewed it, and proceeded deliberately. You're describing failure at execution, not failure of capital punishment itself. A broken appeals process is fixable. Fire negligent lawyers, mandate competent counsel, enforce filing standards. These are reforms, not reasons for abolition. More damning: you're asking us to spare everyone because some individuals get poor representation. That's abandoning justice for the provably guilty to protect against administrative failure. By that logic, we'd abolish prison too. So ask directly: is your real argument that we can't trust government competence, or that execution itself is wrong?

The death penalty doesn’t help victims heal Rachel Sutphin was nine years old when William Morva killed her father. In 2017, the state of Virginia executed Morva, but Sutphin felt no peace. When interviewed by The Appeal, she said, “Now there’s two dates that I remember every year. I remember Morva’s execution and my father’s death.” Before the execution, Sutphin wrote a letter asking the governor for mercy. She continues to advocate for an end to the death penalty. Studies suggest Sutphin’s experience is not unique. One showed that only 2.5% of co-victims (the term used to describe the family and friends of murder victims) reported closure from the death penalty. 20.1% said it did not help them heal. Another study found that co-victims reported better physical and psychological health when life sentences were given. This isn’t to say no co-victims find relief following an execution, but it’s clear that the death penalty isn’t the only path to healing.

You're conflating emotional healing with justice. Those aren't the same thing. Victims' families wanting mercy doesn't erase the crime's severity or negate society's right to impose proportional punishment. A murderer deserves execution not because it heals victims, but because the punishment fits the offense. That's retribution, not therapy. Your studies measure subjective feelings, not moral rightness. If execution provided zero closure but was still just, it would still be justified. You're sneaking a therapeutic rationale into a justice debate. The real question: does the victim's emotional preference determine the sentence, or does the crime's gravity? If the former, victims should determine all punishments, which you'd reject instantly.