All Defendants Should Be Guaranteed a Reasonable Bail

My opponent brings up several points. I will address them in the order that they are presented. 1)Innocent until found guilty. There is no Presumption of Innocence Clause in the US Constitution. Whoa there cowboy. The Con must be living in another country. See 1894, Coffin vs. U.S. A lower court had refused to instruct the jury that "The law presumes that persons charged with crime are innocent until they are proven by competent evidence to be guilty." The Con should understand that most of the American legal standards are derived from Supreme Court decisions. While there is nothing is explicitly in the Constitution that mentions that a person is innocent until proven guilty--Coffin vs. U.S.A made it just as constitutional. Thus, I have proved that the person in the example has a constitutional guarantee that he is indeed innocent until proven guilty. However, the Con is correct that the government can still require bail, but not excessive and that the focus must remain on whether denying bail is unreasonable. 2)The 8th Amendment. Denying bail is not excessive bail, no more than saying something is not for sale is an excessive price. The analogy fails because there is no constitutional right attached to the sale of an item where there is with bail. For instance, if older people were being charge excessive amounts of cancer drugs in the United States, the people might authorize an amendment that forbids excessive prices for cancers drugs. In this instance, I would argue that the government (provided it was universal health care) could not deny a person from purchasing the drug unless it was unavailable. The purpose of the statue is to prevent the government from overcharging citizens for cancer drugs. Denying citizens from purchasing drugs would not be consistent with that purpose. 3)Historical Context People in England were being prosecuted for political crimes, as such, the bail (and the act of arresting itself) was unreasonable. The excessive bails and the length of time the accused had to wait for the trial was the main concern. The Con must understand that a tyrannical government can detain innocent persons for political reasons but still arrest them for aggravated assault and attempted murder with trumped up evidence. Again, innocent until proven guilty. 4)Plain Language of the 8th I will address this in my closing argument. 5)Logical Analysis My opponent is confusing "no bail" with "unlimited bail. It seems that my opponent is a little confused. His own definition implies that bail is a condition for a person awaiting a trial that may include a requirement of cash. Thus, no bail means that there is no condition that could satisfy court for the accused release. I have no idea as what unlimited bail could mean. I address my analogy more directly when responding to your additional argument section below. Additional Arguments" There is no reason to assume that the only form of bail is to be in dollar amounts. Primary focus on cash The argument listed above does not invalidate my logic whatsoever. It simply correctly points out that there are other conditions for bail other than cash. More specifically a bail could be contingent on days, restrictions to release or the requirement of a cash amount. I must point out to the Con that I am not concerned with days or other restrictions as conditions required for the accused temporary release. This is not to say that the excused could not argue that the conditions for release are excessive, however in both instances the accused will be release from jail. I am only troubled when the accused remains detained indefinitely while awaiting trial. This occurs only when the accused cannot raise cash necessary to make satisfy the bail requirement or when he or she is denied bail completely. Thus, I only compare those two because those may lead to the bail being unreasonable. My original analogy is still valid, but I will make the point without converting no bail in cash terms. Analogy Any reasonable person would have to agree that imposing a 500 trillion dollar condition for release would be excessive and unreasonable for several reasons. One, the person is presumed to be innocent. Two, the court can impose strict conditions for release which can include 24 hour supervision of the accused--if public safety is at issue. Third, 500 trillion dollars would exceed all available money in the United States. How can such an amount ever be unreasonable? If one believes that the 500 trillion dollar bail is excessive and unreasonable then they must also agree that denying bail is excessive and unreasonable as well, since the latter is more harsh than the former. As I have noted, the Federal Reserve might print 500 trillion for the accused and therefore he or she might go free. Not likely. However, when the court denies bail there is no possible condition that could satisfy the court for his or her release. Summary It is unreasonable to deny bail because [1] 1. Everyone in the United States is presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law see 1894, Coffin vs. U.S. A. Denying bail presumes that the defendant is guilty prior to a trial which the Con believes is perfectly fine. If one agrees with the Con then they should vote with him now. However, such a justice system is inherently unfair since the government who has unlimited resources would not be required to bare the burden of proof. A citizen would be require to prove his or her innocence in a court of law. An indigent defendant would not only have to rely on a public defender (which in most cases a travesty of justice) but also will have no way to pay for expensive DNA tests, crime scene reconstruction, experts or whatever evidence that might be needed to prove their innocence. Moreover, the government would really have no need to offer bail, since of course the defendant is assumed to be guilty. This is a very scary preposition indeed. [2] The 8th amendment has historical significance that dates back to England. The primary concerns were citizens being required to post excessive bails, remaining in jail with no court dates scheduled and being subject to cruel punishments once found guilty. The Constitution was designed to prevent those injustices in the United States. Denying a person any condition for release renders the 8th amendment as it relates to not permitting excessive bails useless with no practical purpose. If the government can impose no condition to satisfy a bail release then what could possibly be excessive. No condition for bail no matter how excessive (even if its a 500 trillion dollar condition) can be worse than not permitting any conditions for bail at all. [3] The purpose of the 8th amendment was to prevent the government from imposing excessive bails. Permitting the government to deny bail completely is not consistent with the intended goal. For the various reasons listed above, it is never reasonable to deny a person any condition for his or her release before a trial. If the court believes that a defendant is guilty and poses a significant flight or public safety risk, they can impose very strict conditions for his or her release. The court could make a condition of the bail that requires the accused to remain home. They could then place police officers outside his or her house 24-hours a day. The bail can be revoked if the accused violates any condition of the bail. The founding fathers believed that requiring an excessive condition for a person accused release, regardless of the crime charge with, was unreasonable. I happen to agree with them. The question is do you?