Mayor Ed Koch “Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life.”

Claim: I support the death penalty

Qualifier: for heinous crimes of murder.

Because

Reason 1: Justice requires adequate punishment for the crime of murder

Grounds
Other forms of punishment are inadequate (no proof as such, weight of examples of heinous murders. Mr. Willie, Mr. Shaw.
Resemblance argument to cancer (disease is injustice) Notice concession to resemblance argument.
Constitution does not condemn capital punishment (Point 6, pg. 397).

Reason 2: Huge U.S. murder rate justifies use of c. punishment as deterrent.
Grounds:
U.S. murder rate up 122% in given years
WW II example
NYC rate up 400%
Luis Vera quote (para 3).

Reason 3: Murderers will murder again; c. punishment guarantees they will not
Grounds
Lem Smith and multiple murders
NYC 1976-77 previous murderers
1976 Av. time served for murders: 10 yrs.

Reason 4: Capital punishment affirms the sanctity of life
Grounds
Resemblance argument with rape. If penalty were lowered it would show society did not value sanctity of one's right to one's own body. (No proof of this).
Torah,
6 th commandment

Reason 5: Capital appeals process is painstaking. No innocent will die.
Grounds
Adam Bedau (against c.punishment). The opposition shoots down own point.
7,000 cases fail to show one person executed by mistake (Point 3).

Reason 6: State sanctioned c. punishment is moral.
Grounds:
Torah, 6 th commandment, natural law, philosophers, founding father's (Point 6).

Warrant: Capital punishment will make society take more responsibility for justice and keep it safer from murderers.

Backing: Kitty Genovese. Discussion of state/individual responsibility

COR: The main points to which Koch replies.

David Bruck “The Death Penalty.”

Claim: I do not support the death penalty.

Qualifier: None

Reason 1: Barbaric, inhumane ritual

Grounds: U.S. had quit using it (pg. 400).

The execution of Shaw. >It does not affirm life. Just the opposite (pg. 400).

Governor Blease example of lynching and the electric chair (pg. 403).

Reason 2: We execute possibly innocent, mentally, or drug impaired people.

Grounds: Jeter example (which I believe is weak). Note use of “if”, “probably” qualifying Bruck's point.
Refutes Bedau example: 400 cases since 1900 found to be in error. (Yet these were not executed. (<weakens point)
Makes new stronger point; only in cases where the accused is alive can they be proven innocent.
Green execution (pg. 401).

Reason 3: It is discriminatory, arbitrary.

Grounds: Racial examples Knighton (pg. 401).
Distinction between types of crimes (premeditated and not).
Example of fisherman's cricket. No one cares which cricket is impaled on the hook. (Homey, folksy. Note the use of “impaled.” Do you find this example effective?
Note use of the rhetorical question. “Was it because he was black?” Why do you think Bruck uses this strategy?

Reason 4: Difficult and expensive to administer.

Grounds: Florida example (pg. 402).
Govt., Supreme Court, Spawning death agencies, death prison, 230 on death row.

Reason 5: Does not deter murder.

Grounds: Fla. death rate rose 5.1%
In other states (does not say which) death rate declined. No data,
Death penalty issue used by politicians as a sop for the public to keep them from being so afraid and outraged.

Warrant: Society, should promote true, not perverted, outdated forms of “justice.”

Backing:
“Sin of Kitty Genovese's neighbors wasn't that they failed to stab her attacker to death (402).
By Koch's logic we should rape rapists. (Resemblance arg.).
Example of lynching and electric chair.(This kind of “justice” belongs to the dark ages).

COR: Koch's main points and support..