In today’s round, capital punishment is justified, we are obligated to make a comparison between capital punishment and the other key method of punishment: imprisonment. As the negative, I will prove that while capital punishment is unjust, the other method—imprisonment—is justified. The difference between these two punishments will be made both in the idea and implementation of each throughout my case, and through the comparisons made, I will negate the resolution. We must look at the idea of punishments in order to understand both capital punishment and its justified counterpart, imprisonment. I will now present a few definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary. Capital punishment is "the death penalty," and justified is "consistent with moral right; fair; equitable."

My value today is justice. I will prove that a society without capital punishment is not justified both in its very idea and its implementation. My criteria for this value will be reform. After all, a reformed criminal is better than a dead one. With this value in mind I will present three contentions that will uphold my value of justice.

CONTENTION 1: Capital punishment shifts the power to control life to the government. When we use capital punishment, we give any government the right to take a life for various reasons, but no matter what the reason—whether it be the social contract, distributive justice, or any other theory—that government now has the power to take a life. It is when a government can take a life that the problems begin. Hitler’s regime had the power to take a life, to use capital punishment, and as a result millions of people were killed. If capital punishment did not exist, then he would never have had the power to manipulate life in the first place. Capital punishment unjustly gives any government the right to take life, which devalues all of humanity and therefore does not uphold justice.

CONTENTION 2: Capital punishment assumes continual guilt. A criminal who commits a capital crime, under the idea of capital punishment, will die through the death penalty. The death penalty assumes two functions as a punishment: first, it deters crime for the criminal himself, or stops recidivism. Yet this very idea destroys any chance of rehabilitation. A criminal who is reformed would die regardless of the fact that he won’t commit a crime. The death penalty thus accomplishes nothing in the way of a reforming punishment because it automatically assumes that any criminal will commit another crime and thus he must be stopped. This slows the growth of the society as a whole by the very fact that it won’t allow reform. Capital punishment denies reform because it assumes continual guilt. This is unjust.

Capital punishment truly is unique; it provides the government with the power to control, manipulate, and take life; capital punishment kills mercilessly because it assumes continual guilt; and with capital punishment, rehabilitation can never occur and thus a grave injustice has been done not only to the criminal but to the surrounding society. Unfortunately, these "unique" qualities of the death penalty are exactly the reasons why I negate the resolution, "capital punishment is justified." I will now move on to my opponent’s case in light of the arguments that I have just made.