Abortion is on the list of things I don't debate, and it's right up there with Israel. It wastes my time.
However, I think it's necessary to get some of the anti-death penalty arguments on the table.
1. Our system is not infallible; it's
possible for an innocent man to be executed.
2. It's likely that a few innocent people have been executed.
3. I believe that #2 is enough to get rid of the death penalty, however, it might be a price you're willing to pay.
4. It has been shown that application of the death penalty, our ulitmate punishment, is uneven. Humans can make mistakes, but more over, they can be inconsistent. There are places where if you shoot someone on the west side of a road, you're way more likely to get the death penalty than if you would have been had you crossed the street first(and entered another jurisdiction).
5. The death penalty has been applied unevenly to people of different races.
6. The death penalty doesn't deter crime.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arti...cid=12&did=167 States that reenact capital punishment see no decrease in crime. When canada abolished the death penalty, the murder rate actually dropped.
But don't listen to me. This website has a better summary than I could ever write.
http://archive.aclu.org/library/case_against_death.html