UA students debated abolishing the death penalty Wednesday night.

The discussion, one of two of the evening sponsored by the Arkansas Union Society, debated the proposition "This house would abolish the death penalty."

About 100 students, faculty and interested citizens listened as four student debaters argued in the Charles Hillman Brough Debating Chamber on the UA campus.

Steve Fox, leader of the side favoring the proposal, said the death penalty should be replaced by life imprisonment with no chance of parole.

He said there has never been a study that proved that the death penalty was a successful deterrent.

Texas has the highest number of executions in the country, yet since 1976, its violent crime rate has increased 46 percent, and Texas leads the nation in police officers killed each year, Steve Fox said.

The Congressional Accounting Office estimated the cost of one execution at $2.3 million dollars, three times the cost of imprisoning someone at the highest security level for 40 years, he said.

Steve Fox said of the 2,000 people on death row, 98 percent were at or below the poverty level and African Americans convicted of killing white people were 63 times more likely to be executed than a white person killing a black one.

"Only one white person has ever been executed for killing a black," Steve Fox said.

He also said the death penalty is immoral because, by ending a person's life, the judicial system was playing God. He quoted the Bible scripture, "Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath."

He said he was also taught, "Thou shalt not kill," Steve Fox said.

Ben Fox, chief speaker for the side favoring the death penalty, said 70 percent of Americans believe that the death penalty is true justice for murder.

Ben Fox said the death penalty was, "society's self-defense."

He said if life imprisonment was the maximum penalty, then prisoners who murdered other prisoners or a guard while in prison could not be punished any more.

Even if they escaped and murdered again, they simply would get another life sentence, he said.

"The death penalty insures true public safety," Ben Fox said.

He said the death penalty was legal because it has been upheld by the Supreme Court, and, according to the Justice Department, not one person had been proven innocent after they were executed.

Katrina Jewell, debater for the proposition, said because only 2 percent of convicted murderers receive capital punishment, the threat is too remote to be an effective deterrent.

She described the five different legal methods of executing people: hanging, firing squad, lethal injection, the gas chamber and the electric chair; she called all of them barbarous.

"Courts have been arbitrarily racially biased," Jewell said. "The killing of a white is treated much more seriously than killing of a black."

Women who commit 15 percent of the murders in America account for only 1 percent of the executions, she said.

Bryan Poe, supporter of the death penalty, said he had horror stories of his own and gave the examples of Jeffrey Dalmer eating his victims and the 13-year-old boy raped and murdered in Rogers.

He said that the methods of execution used are the most humane possible.

Poe said the racial bias of executions is a myth. He also said the punishment of death is called for by the texts of every major religion including the Bible, the Koran and the Torah.

At the conclusion of the debate, an oral vote was taken by audience members over whether they supported or opposed the proposition to abolish the death penalty.

The voting and the debate were declared a draw.

Anyone interested in more information about the Arkansas Union Society or upcoming debates can contact Bill Whorton, president of the society, by e-mail at whorton@comp.uark.edu.