DDO OT Semifinals: Jury Nullification

According to Rule 4, drops are concessions. My opponent may not have new responses to the dropped arguments in his next speech. Horowitz My opponent concedes Horowtiz. He tries to turn this by saying that subjectivity is a good thing and brings up a case in which a criminal felt remorse and says that the jury can give a reduced sentence. There are four problems. He’s strawmanning Horowitz by changing what Horwitz means by “sympathetic”.Imabench is pretending that he’s talking about nuance in the study, but that isn’t true. The second Horowitz quote, which was dropped, clarifies this. It says, that juries with nullification instructions “spent less time deliberating about the evidence and more time discussing the defendant, personal attributions, and anecdotes“. The sympathy is irrelevant to the case; it’s referring to external factors like character instead of the evidence. His turn is thus invalid and you extend Horowitz for the neg. He’s ignoring the fact that unsympathetic defendants, like promiscuous college students or people who have been convicted in the past are harmed by this because things other than the case are being discussed. This is unfair to them; they need to be judged on the facts. The jury can’t even take nuance into account because it doesn’t assign sentences; it only releases a verdict. Nullification would allow the bank robber in his example to go free, not get a lighter sentence. The law already accounts for nuance by allowing the judge to take these things into account when delivering sentences. Judges aren’t constrained rigidly; they have guidelines but also have leeway. This person could get a lighter sentence anyways. Nullification is not needed for this. Fair Trial and Subjective Rulings He brings up the adultery example. Keep in mind that the resolution is about the U.S.; adultery laws are unconstitutional. He says that the right to a fair trial includes protection from absurd laws. This isn’t true; the right to a fair trial, according to the Constitution, includes right to a trial by jury, protection from double jeopardy, and no ex post facto. The Constitution does not give protection from absurd laws. Second, absurd laws have been struck down in higher courts, meaning the government can try you under them and can also get rid of them through other means that don’t unfairly jeopardize trials. One example is the sodomy law in Lawrence from my last speech. He then says that some people might like subjective juries. I’m sure a charming murderer would, but that doesn’t mean he should get subjectivity. Trials have to be objective in order to be fair to the state, the victim, and the defendant. He also asserts that nullification is only used in unconstitutional cases. This is absurd. Extend the dropped/conceded Emmett Till/KKK example and the Horowitz evidence, which both prove that nullification can occur in any scenario, not just constitutional cases. Equal Protection I noted that defendants deserve equal protection; it’s unfair to convict a defendant for a crime and let another one go just because their juries subjectively disagree on whether the law is good. This was cold dropped and thus conceded. Extend it. It will have important implications. Undemocratic He rejects this because it’s hypothetically possible to select jurors a different way. Ok, but this resolution specifically says “In the United States”. In the United States, they aren’t selected that way; a pool is selected at random and then the lawyers in the case cherrypick them in the voir dire process. His argument is completely irrelevant. There’s no reason to buy it because we’re talking about the US. He also drops/concedes the part that notes that juries are unaccountable since the decisions are made behind closed door and only a verdict is announced. It’s unfair to let an unelected and unaccountable body make these legal decisions and determine to whom the law applies. He can’t change the status quo and make arguments from a utopian fiat; that’s not fair. Reform, Prohibition, and Supreme Court He asserts that it doesn’t stifle reform without evidence. I provided two warrants as to why it does. The first was that it reduces pressure on the legislature to reform by slightly mitigating the impact in a haphazard way. He doesn’t respond to the analytic, so extend that. I gave the example of Prohibition. He says that there were other factors. I agree; but a major contributing factor was the fact that so many people went to jail for a stupid law and they spent so much money trying to enforce it. He gives evidence of that by noting the phenomenal costs and the drain on jobs. Turn that against him; it proves my point. Imagine that nullification had been more widespread against it. Some people would have gone to jail and others wouldn’t have, so equal protection, which he dropped, would have been violated and these impacts which caused the reform would have been less prominent. His evidence flows to my side. Against the idea that cases need to reach higher courts, he says that the Supreme Court only accepts a few cases. Ok, but it’s not the only court overturning bad laws; lower circuit courts, lower state courts, and lower appellate courts do this as well. There’s plenty of opportunity to overturn bad laws through appeal. Plus, the courts themselves actively seek these types of cases, so there’s no reason to believe the cases won’t go higher. He lastly discusses the idea that this is a “Plan B” when reform isn’t possible. He cites the example of marijuana. First, reform is always possible; you just have to mobilize the electorate. Marijuana was recently legalized in Colorado, for example and will spread to other states. Second, this violates equal protection. Marijuana is a contentious issue; a lot of people don’t want it legalized because of the impact of drug dealers. It’s unfair to convict some people for using it and not others based on the juries’ personal feelings; people deserve equal protection. Assassination and Terrorism I note that just because something is a check doesn’t mean it is just. I gave the examples of assassination and terrorism. He says that this is because those kill innocent people. That’s entirely false. You can use them to target people who have done wrong. For example, you could assassinate corrupt leaders who take bribes or give contracts to friends or embezzle taxpayer money. Also, this is just a bad argument. Even if it were true, nullification can be unjust for different reasons than the one he provided, and it is. It’s unjust because it violates the right to a fair trial and equal protection under the law (which was dropped). Nullification can also be used to free evil, guilty people like Emmett Till’s murderers. Usurpation of Powers I pointed out that the jury is usurping powers from the judge; it’s place is only to determine guilt or innocence and not whether or not the law is unjust. He says that it’s open to interpretation. That’s not true. The jury instructions that are read by United States judges explicitly define the purpose of the jury, and explicitly state that they are not to make their own interpretations about the justness of the law or how it should be applied; they only evaluate facts: http://courts.uslegal.com... Death Penalty Example He says that jurors who have issue with the law can be excluded. Ok, turn, because that means that jury nullification is basically useless in all cases since the government can manipulate the jury to prevent it from becoming a factor. That means he has no solvency to protect against constitutional infractions. His whole case becomes meaningless right here. If he says that people can lie, then turn that against him because he’s contradicting himself. Extend all of the other dropped attacks on his case, specifically the one with regards to the right to freedom of expression. He basically drops the idea of j.null being a protest.