Debate Intro Speech
Debate intro speach
Topic: Death Penalty
Have you ever been wrongly accused of doing something that you didn’t even do? Can you imagine what would happen if you were wrongly accused of a capital crime and ended up paying with your life—for something you didn’t even do?! That, among many other reasons, is why the death penalty should be illegal. One reason the death penalty should be illegal is that it’s actually more expensive for the government. This is true because people go through many more appeals if they are on death row, which means that the government is paying for all those court and lawyer fees and tying the courts up with extra appeals. In addition, it costs a lot to execute people. For example, California spends about $184 million dollars a year executing people, according to the Huffington Post. If they weren’t spending all that money on executions, they could put it into programs to help teens who are going down the wrong path or children in bad home situations so that we could eliminate the problem before it happens. Another reason the death penalty should be illegal is that it is unfair. Innocent people end up on death row all the time. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, 140 people have been released from death row because they were proven to be innocent. If it hadn’t been for new testing and things like that, all those innocent people were set to be killed. If we can’t be 100% sure every time, we can’t risk killing innocent people. Another reason the death penalty is unfair is because it is a racist policy. Although murder rates are similar between people of different races, many more black people get the death penalty. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union did a study that showed that in 82% of death row cases, race influenced the prosecutor, judge or jury. If race is becoming a factor in death penalty cases (which it is, according to these statistics) then we can’t execute anyone because now we’re
Topic: Death Penalty
Have you ever been wrongly accused of doing something that you didn’t even do? Can you imagine what would happen if you were wrongly accused of a capital crime and ended up paying with your life—for something you didn’t even do?! That, among many other reasons, is why the death penalty should be illegal. One reason the death penalty should be illegal is that it’s actually more expensive for the government. This is true because people go through many more appeals if they are on death row, which means that the government is paying for all those court and lawyer fees and tying the courts up with extra appeals. In addition, it costs a lot to execute people. For example, California spends about $184 million dollars a year executing people, according to the Huffington Post. If they weren’t spending all that money on executions, they could put it into programs to help teens who are going down the wrong path or children in bad home situations so that we could eliminate the problem before it happens. Another reason the death penalty should be illegal is that it is unfair. Innocent people end up on death row all the time. According to the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, 140 people have been released from death row because they were proven to be innocent. If it hadn’t been for new testing and things like that, all those innocent people were set to be killed. If we can’t be 100% sure every time, we can’t risk killing innocent people. Another reason the death penalty is unfair is because it is a racist policy. Although murder rates are similar between people of different races, many more black people get the death penalty. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union did a study that showed that in 82% of death row cases, race influenced the prosecutor, judge or jury. If race is becoming a factor in death penalty cases (which it is, according to these statistics) then we can’t execute anyone because now we’re