Cameras shall placed in courtrooms so that criminal trials can be puclically televised

I thank dasamster for his response. Upon reading it, it seems that this debate will turn largely into an analysis of the arguments that dasamster originally made in Round 2, rather than new arguments being presented by him and rebutted by me (and vice versa) in every round. Accordingly, I will not present any new substantive matter in this round, and will instead focus on re-affirming both my substantive case and my rebuttal to his arguments, and on showing why his counter-rebuttal is not successful. If, in a later round, dasamster presents new arguments for his case, I will re-consider my approach to this debate accordingly. === ON THE REBUTTAL AND COUNTER-REBUTTAL === As befits the way I set out my rebuttal, dasamster's counter-rebuttal can be read under the headings that I originally presented; I shall thus deal with them in that order: 1) On the question of the improvement of public confidence Dasamster's dismissal of my rebuttal here is based on, frankly, an entirely false assumption. He asserted that TruTV doesn't show court trials. The falsity of this claim is betrayed by his wording later on, when he asserts that the station has "almost" abolished publicly broadcasted court trials. "Almost" is better than "completely", but still not entirely correct. As the official TruTV website states in its Q&A section: "Q: Are you still covering trials? A: Absolutely. Our trial coverage will air under a separate name, IN SESSION, to make this important part of the day stand out from truTV. IN SESSION will be on from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (ET) each weekday. The truTV portion of the day will start at 3 p.m. (ET) and continue into the primetime hours and overnight." [1] Clearly, there is still a full 6 hours of airtime given on this station to the coverage of court trials. Therefore, contrary to his opposite assertion, dasamster really does – if he wishes his argument to be successful here – need to provide evidence that public confidence in the U.S. justice system has increased... and even if the above were not true, there certainly was court coverage during Court TV's period on the air. So even then, this question of public confidence would not be mere speculation, and requires evidence from dasamster that public confidence increased during Court TV's showing of court trials. I have already shown evidence to the contrary. Until/unless dasamster can contradict and refute this evidence, his argument here fails. 2) On the unrepresentative image of the justice system in the media His counter-rebuttal here entirely misses the point of my rebuttal. Dasamster's original argument was that courtroom cameras could counteract the current negative portrayal of the justice system in the media, and in response I argued that such negative portrayals are going to happen anyway, regardless of whether there are cameras in the courtroom or not. I specifically analysed how, even with cameras in the courtroom, the general public would have little time or inclination to actually watch trials in their entirety; thus, their understanding of trials would be reduced to edited highlights at best, which are selected and put forward by media stations. Media stations being just as likely to distort this information as put it forward accurately, the problem of misrepresentation is just as likely to happen with cameras than without. He has not substantively dealt with this criticism. His response was to say that: "many people would have liked to be in the know as to what occurred for Bernie Madoff's embezzlement trial." [Round 3, Pro] "People wanting to know the outcome of trials" does not equal "people having a right [or, indeed, wanting] to watch the trials themselves". Indeed, we already know what happened to Bernie Madoff – he was sentenced to 150 years in prison. We already know the key evidence that was presented against him, and the general way in which the trial proceeded. [3] As I said in my rebuttal, to which dasamster has not yet responded: "the general public only have a right to know the salient details: broadly speaking, the key evidence presented, the verdict given, and the reason behind the verdict." [Round 2, Con] My further response to this point falls also under my response to point 3), and so I shall move straight on to it. 3) On the ability of lawyers to remain up-to-date I am simply amazed at dasamster's argument here. He appears to be seriously suggesting that the only way for a lawyer to learn information about the law and court proceedings is to watch a video of such trials taking place. I feel the need only to re-iterate what I believed I had made perfectly clear in Round 2: that videos of court trials are by no means necessary to improve the knowledge and abilities of lawyers. As I said: "Full transcripts of what transpired in the courtroom are already typed up by stenographers in the court, the reasons behind the judge's verdicts are already publicised and used in law classes, and many law schools have mooting and advocacy practice sessions to prepare the student for public speaking in the courtroom. Plus, after all, the law student will surely be able to supplement this already-extensive experience through actually watching a trial from the public gallery in their spare time." [Round 2, Con] I add to this, that whilst they are practising, lawyers are (by virtue of it being their job) obliged to keep up with the latest facts and developments in the legal system. If they are not doing so already, I hardly understand why dasamster believes that providing them with video-recordings of trials will make them any more likely to be doing the research that they should be (and are) doing already. With his treatment both of this argument and of 2), dasamster seems to be labouring under the belief that only through actually watching an incident can one gain true knowledge of it. Applied to other contexts, this would seem to suggest that media reports are never satisfactory - that it is impossible for me to know that Barack Obama (for example) is U.S. President. The only reason I believe this to be true is because of media reports, both online, on TV and in newspapers...but such media would not be enough for dasamster, if he wishes to be consistent in the application of his argument. Re-applied to the issue of court proceedings and trials: media reports, court transcripts and judge verdicts provide more than sufficient detail of a trial. I ask again: why is this extensive provision not enough? Indeed, not only are there no benefits to dasamster's proposal, but there also exist significant harms that need to be considered before deciding whether it is a good idea to put cameras in the courtroom. I shall now move on to dasamster's consideration of my substantive argument accordingly. 4) My substantive Dasamster is correct to point out the witness protection that exists in the U.S. at present thanks to the U.S. Marshalls. This does not, however, significantly affect my case – after all, as dasamster himself made clear, the U.S. Marshalls only provide protection to government witnesses. This leaves completely untouched the greater problem that arises with other, potentially more common, crimes: street-level gang warfare, rape, domestic abuse, and so on. These crimes are just as likely to have coercive criminals involved, and just as likely to have witnesses scared out their minds about retribution. Putting their testimony, and appearance on the witness stand, in the public domain, can only serve to increase the likelihood that witnesses will not want to testify. My previous analysis also to this effect still stands. For all of these reasons, I think it is clear why dasamster's arguments fail to convince. Vote Con. Sources [1] http://www.trutv.com... [2] http://amsir.home.isp-direct.com... [3] http://www.guardian.co.uk...