Tony,

Even in Devil's advocacy mode, the argument of the cost of incapacitating a murderer by life imprisonment versus that of the death penalty is a strawman, as you probably know also.

Devil's advocacy is good because it provokes the opposing viewpoint to be voiced, with which you actually agree.

I remember those devil's advocacy viewpoints that I was forced to voice back in my student daze during role plays in French - they usually got me higher marks than the others because I had the balls to voice them against my better judgement.

I still only landed a 2:2 though

Bt then I was a lazy bastard student.