The amplified voices of Robin Kallman, OC ’80, and Matt Hellman injected a large Thursday night audience with their personal opinions of and justifications for and against capital punishment. Kallman, an attorney at the California State Public Defender’s Office, argued against the death penalty while Hellman, Ohioan Deputy Attorney General for its Capital Crimes Section, argued in its favor. Both candidates came with facts, figures and personal opinions to validate their positions.

The debaters’ first question, posed by moderator and philosophy professor Tim Hall, was for a clear-cut response to whether or not they thought the death penalty should be abolished. Kallman started her ten-minute response with the recent history of the legality of capital punishment.

Capital punishment, she said, was declared unconstitutional in 1972 in the Supreme Court case Ferman v Georgia, when the courts identified it as “arbitrary, discriminatory and capricious” and particularly unfair for people of color. In 1976, however, capital punishment was reinstated. Kallman said that in the 1970s, the death penalty’s problems were expected to be shortly corrected, but they still exist today.

Kallman attributed capital punishment’s blemishes to prosecutorial discretion, the disproportional number of black inmates put to death, ineffective defense council and police/investigator gamesmanship leading to unwarranted executions.

Human adulteration of the death penalty’s fairness, in addition to the grave implications of its results, contributed to Kallman’s conclusion that it should be abolished.

“It is a fundamental principle of justice, both in the abstract and according to the U.S. constitution, that punishment for a crime should be proportionate to events,” she said.

Kallman also illuminated the high costs of death penalty court cases in comparison to non-death penalty court cases. In Texas, for instance, the cost of a death penalty court case is “three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell with highest security for forty years.”

Hellman argued that capital punishment was more an issue of conscience than logistics, introducing his presentation with a graphic account of the rape and murder crimes of Glenn Benner, a recent Ohio convict on death row.

“There is no black and white when it comes to the death penalty,” he said.

Ultimately, Hellman emphasized that his support for capital punishment stems from his faith in the closure it gives to victims’ families and because, in his opinion, “it is just the right thing to do.”

An issue brought up later in the debate that proved to be contentious was the fundamental difference between life without parole and the death penalty.

“Life without parole is killing, just slower killing,” said Hellman, who attributed one’s loss of freedoms and rights as comparable to death. He added that LWOP inmates are more likely to commit more crimes without the incentive of clemency, which would theoretically inspire them to “behave.”

Kallman countered this claim by arguing that the crime factor was not supported by recent evidence that prisons are safer now than ever, especially “supermax” (super-maximum security) prisons. She concluded that not only is the person still physically alive, but keeping them alive allows potential mistakes in the judicial system to be corrected.

Hellman later argued that judicial mistakes were very rare.

“It has never been proven that an innocent person has been executed,” he said.

Though his argument offered few concrete facts and figures, Hellman frequently made references to resources that would include the statistical information his presentation lacked.

“If you’re going to put blinders on and not look at both sides there’s nothing I can do about that,” he said after suggesting students go to www.yesdeathpenalty.com to become better informed. “[Then] you’re only deceiving yourself.”