In the pursuit of justice, due process ought to be valued above the discovery of fact.

If my opponent feels that they should apologize for taking so long to post their argument, I suppose I ought to as well seeing as I'm posting this with only a few hours left on the time limit. I would first like to comment on what my opponent said regarding what I said in the last round. I did say what I did say, but I kind of got the spirit of what I meant to communicate wrong. Obviously to a degree both due process and the discovery of fact must be valued. Have you only due process, you have no way to capture any criminal of any sort, as they are innocent until proven guilty. Have you only discovery of fact, you can arbitrarily throw anyone you want to in jail for no reason, because there is no due process stopping it. Therefore, I take the position that both must be valued equally. I will now address the points of my opponent. Point 1: My opponent asks a very interesting question "How does he know that the party is guilty without a conviction?". I know, because I said in the beginning that a guilty person was brought to trial. You are innocent until proven guilty under law, but that doesn't mean from an objective view (not that of a court or jury or other organization tasked with strict legal guidelines of the law) you can't be guilty. For instance, some guy shoots your neighbor and kills him, with you getting a perfect undisputable view of his face that you instantly recognize when you find him three yards down the street with a broken ankle that he got fleeing the scene of the crime. Is he innocent until proven guilty? Yes. Is he guilty? Yes. Now he starts out innocent under law, but he is, in truth, guilty and should be punished. This is one of the reasons that I think discovery of fact must be valued equally with due process. Point 2: I fully agree with my opponent that no justice system has ever been perfect, and I also agree that due process is good, but I don't think that we should just blindly follow it with no other options. Discovery of facts are important in any case as well, and placing due process above them can lead to people who are guilty getting off. While facts are not always perfect, neither is due process which is why both should be valued equally. A lot of the reasons facts might not seem perfect is because not enough effort is being put into discovering them, as the procedure is hampered by due process. Were enough energy put into discovering facts, they would surely exonerate an innocent person and convict a guilty one. Also I read up on Gideon v. Wainwright, and it is not true to say that the facts of the first case said he was guilty. It is more true to say that he was found guilty, which is different from the facts proving it. If these "facts" changed from one case to the other, then obviously they weren't facts and more emphasis on discovery of facts may have lead to actual facts surfacing. Point 3: My opponent says that "The only way due process stops evidence from being found is when that evidence can only be found by illegal means.". Well, what if illegal means are the only way to prove that a crime was committed? Due process doesn't lead to justice then. I would like to introduce the Supreme Court case Weeks v. United States. In this case, a man was suspected of a crime. Federal agents entered his home and found papers that proved him guilty. The case was thrown out of court because the agents didn't have a search warrant, leaving the evidence illictly gained. Now, in this case the only crime was gambling, but this was a man who broke a law and got away scot-free because of due process. Say he had been a more violent criminal. Who might have died before due process could conclusively prove him guilty? I will now respond to my opponent's claims that due process and discovery of fact should be valued equally. My opponent claims it to be impossible, but it is not as he truly claims. Even in the example that he presented, the police could always attempt to find a witness or plant someone to pretend to be a drug addict in order to find enough evidence to search for drugs. It's also incorrect to state that "You cannot hold due process and discovery of fact equally.". Perhaps due process in the United States cannot be held equally with discovery of fact, but "Due Process" was defined at the start of this debate as "An established course for judicial proceedings or other governmental activities designed to safeguard the legal rights of the individual.". Just because it's not possible in the United States doesn't mean that it's not possible at all, it just means it's incompatible with the current way of doing things, and certainly the current way of doing things isn't perfect. Sources: http://www.oyez.org...