The United States should substantially reduce or remove manditory minimum sentencing guidlines

"Perhaps the most known example of inequality based on race in legal proceedings is that of the law passed during the Reagan administration in regards to crack cocaine. The law ultimately made punishment for crack substantially higher than cocaine. Crack is the freebase form of Cocaine HCL, as in it is not the salt form of cocaine. The largest difference between the two is in the demographics of users. Cocaine was primarily used by privileged whites while crack was primarily associated with African Americans in poverty. In turn, it seems plausible that the methodology of the law was inherently racist." This is largely incorrect; the major difference between the narcotics cocaine and crack is their chemistry. You touched upon this but did not clearly differentiate, rather card-stacking the odds in your favor. It is not their clique of users deemed poor African Americans by my opponent, which is, ironically, border lining racism. Cocaine is a nervous system stimulant that inflicts euphoric effects on the brain and is sometimes used as a local anesthetic by licensed doctors. It derives from coca plant leaves and a tropane alkaloid. It can be administered in many ways due to its background in the medical world. On the contrary, crack cocaine is a solid, smokable form of its more hygienic cousin, cocaine. Since smoking allows for substances to be absorbed quicker and in larger amounts, the affects of crack are stronger and more detrimental than cocaine. Additionally, crack cocaine is made during the process of converting cocaine to a freebase form that typically includes the use of sodium bicarbonate and hydrochloride cocaine. "Jon Gettman, a public policy professor at Shenandoah University [sic] wrote a report suggesting that in Washington DC, African Americans were 8x [sic] more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than whites. Additionally, African Americans accounted for around 91% of the arrests [sic]" The correlation between a high number of people arrested for drug-related charges and a certain ethnicity or origin does not prove that associates' court cases are specifically linked to racism, let alone that their charges are heavily influenced by racism. Have you ever heard of lurking variables? The same statistical citation that you used to assume that racism is present could be used to show that more African American people participate in drug-related events, that there are more African American people in dangerous cities, that marijuana is the drug of choice, etc. Another important note is that you used the word, "suggested." This means that the source did not necessarily have to have stated what was intended by my opponent. Furthermore, many people working in areas of justice are also of the same African American ethnicity. "A law does not need to solve for all instances to be preferable. While racist cops may still exist, removing guidelines that largely seek to target minorities is preferable to the status quo." Here, my opponent is conceding that this law change will not solve the problems that have been presented. Pro is also indicating that a law does not need to be fully beneficial to be preferable, which, in some cases, contradicts other current laws. There are many other ways to benefit racial equality without jeopardizing existing judicial matters. "Poverty is uniquely destructive as it reduces one's value to life. Value to life should be the most important impact in the round, as if one's life has no value to it, it is worse than death as one lives without self-actualization or meaning." Minimal sentencing restrictions are in place to benefit those that are prosecuted, not to desecrate their lives. Poverty may be an issue, but it is not the only one. Regardless, this argument is irrelevant to the topic and especially to my claim. Race and financial standings just do not have any direct correlation to the issue of mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines, nor should they, which is where we both can agree. "Judicial trust by the public is low now [sic]...(a) The result of FEC v Citizen's United saw a large public backlash indicative of an increasingly dangerous trend of public mistrust in the courts." This statement is very vague and therefore useless. Elaboration would have been beneficial for the debate. "Plea bargaining acts as a coercive means of gaining convictions. Prosecutors are able to use threats to coerce people into pleading guilty to a lesser crime, even when in many instances they are innocent." Common sense would be that if one is aware that they are innocent and/or accompanied by a knowledgeable lawyer, they would refuse to plead guilty. Also, keep in mind that plea bargaining is not the same as minimal sentencing. In the cases you presented, mandatory minimum sentencing would actually act as a barrier for plea bargaining by restricting the amount of negotiation that can take place. "In removing unpopular and perceptually unjust facets of the law, one makes the judiciary more legitimate." What does popularity have to do with justice? This contradicts your entire argument, especially sections involving prejudice. How, exactly, are we defining, "perceptually unjust"? Are you implying that these issues only first appear unfair? This claim is rather shady on your behalf. "A working and trusted judiciary is key to a functioning democracy [sic]" Evidently, this has no clear link to mandatory minimal sentencing whatsoever.