Do you support or oppose capital punishment? Outline the arguments on both sides

Few issues inflame Americans’ passions as intensely as capital punishment. The views of both sides, often expressed through references to biblical passages they believe support their respective positions, typically reflect only the religious convictions of supporters and opponents alike, without regard for legal factors. While the “eye for an eye” cry of proponents and the “vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord” chant of dissenters might play well on the six o’clock news, such visceral responses do little to advance reasoned discourse on the issue. Rather, they simply illustrate the sheer emotionalism surrounding the states’ authority to take a human life.
One criminal justice professor offered three anecdotal examples, drawn from actual exchanges between students in his classes, that depict the degree to which this emotionalism inhibits reasonable discussion of capital punishment.
In the first instance, supporters argued that execution serves to deter crime. When opponents countered with statistical evidence disproving that position, the supporters rejected their opposition with the emotion-based argument that “It sure will deter the guy who was just executed!”
The second example involved a discussion of more than 300 cases of allegedly mistaken executions that have occurred since 1901. In each case, authorities reportedly discovered that the individual whose life they had taken was, in fact, not guilty of the crime for which he was executed. Not surprisingly, students opposed to capital punishment cited these events as proof that the law was wrong and called for immediate revocation of all capital punishment laws. They remained adamant even when it was pointed out that most claims of mistaken execution could not be supported with evidence.
In the third illustration, opponents cited the disproportionate rates at which minority offenders are sentenced to death. Death-penalty supporters responded that there are simply more of “them” committing crimes that warrant execution—“them” being the supporters’ word choice, not the professor’s. This is a shining example of the discussants’ tendency to dismiss findings supported by the data in favor of gut responses driven by blind commitment to their emotional positions.
Reasoned intellectual debate focused on the legal issues of capital punishment is needed in our society, but unless participants control their emotions, reasoned intellectual debate will be a rare event, indeed.