In the meantime, here is my take:

For the worst crimes, life without parole is better, for many reasons. I’m against the death penalty not because of sympathy for criminals but because it isn’t effective in reducing crime, prolongs the anguish of families of murder victims, costs a whole lot more than life in prison, and, worst of all, risks executions of innocent people.

The worst thing about it. Errors:
The system can make tragic mistakes. In 2004, the state of Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham for starting the fire that killed his children. The Texas Forensic Science Commission found that the arson testimony that led to his conviction was based on flawed science. As of today, 138 wrongly convicted people on death row have been exonerated. DNA is rarely available in homicides, often irrelevant (as in Willingham’s case) and can’t guarantee we won’t execute innocent people. Capital juries are dominated by people who favor the death penalty and are more likely to vote to convict.

Keeping killers off the streets for good:
Life without parole, on the books in most states, also prevents reoffending. It means what it says, and spending the rest of your life locked up, knowing you’ll never be free, is no picnic. Two big advantages:
-an innocent person serving life can be released from prison
-life without parole costs less than the death penalty

Costs, a surprise to many people:
Study after study has found that the death penalty is much more expensive than life in prison. Since the stakes are so high, the process is far more complex than for any other kind of criminal case. The largest costs come at the pre-trial and trial stages. These apply whether or not the defendant is convicted, let alone sentenced to death.

Crime reduction (deterrence):
The death penalty doesn’t keep us safer. Homicide rates for states that use the death penalty are consistently higher than for those that don’t. The most recent FBI data confirms this. For people without a conscience, fear of being caught is the best deterrent.

Who gets it:
The death penalty isn’t reserved for the worst crimes, but for defendants with the worst lawyers. It doesn’t apply to people with money. Practically everyone sentenced to death had to rely on an overworked public defender. How many people with money have been executed??

Victims:
People assume that families of murder victims want the death penalty imposed. It isn’t necessarily so. Some are against it on moral grounds. But even families who have supported the death penalty in principle have testified to the protracted and unavoidable damage that the death penalty process does to families like theirs and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

It comes down to whether we should keep the death penalty system for the sake of the only two purposes its serves: retribution and revenge.

or just state your thesis very clearly. it will come up either way that you are against the topic.

Franky

if you don’t know what the topic is, it’s this:
Resolved: The abuse of illegal drugs ought to be treated as a matter of public health, not of criminal justice.

Oh i hate to help someone i could hit at a random tournament sometime this month haha jk.
There is a really good argument block i’ve found. People say we have to use PH because addiction is a disease. Even major debate evidence companies say this so what you can say is that everything they try to link into and every impact is void because Addiction is distinctly different than drug abuse.

http://www.healthyplace.com/addictions/main/difference-between-drug-abuse-drug-addiction/menu-id-1000/

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This is a sample Affirmative and Negative case on the above resolution with a sample round of arguments on each side.

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