Resolved: That anonymity should be granted to all people merely accused of a crime

I thank RoyLatham for an excellent response. There are several aspects to my approach in dealing with his case, as will become obvious as the headlines present themselves. === DEALING WITH RoyLatham's PREPARATORY ACCUSATIONS === Before moving on his main case, RoyLatham spent a paragraph on detailing three problems he has with the resolution. They were: 1) "Suppose the resolution were, 'The government should be allowed to arrest and try citizens in secrecy.' Pro's resolution is not that government merely be allowed to do that, but they be required to do that." This isn't a fair analogy. "Trying citizens in secret" implies a tyrannical, dictatorial regime that doesn't have any checks or balances upon its judicial system. This is clearly not true for the system that I'm proposing: I'm proposing a system where the justice system is transparent, fair and just - the only difference is that the identifying features of defendants should not be publicised. Calling the defendant "Mr. X" instead of, say, "John Smith" does not in any meaningful sense limit the transparency of the justice system. 2) "[T]he public cannot be warned of dangerous criminal suspects on the loose and the police cannot ask the public for aid in catching a suspect for arrest if the information given in any way allows the suspect to be identified." This is not true, for reasons that I will detail below. 3) "Freedom of speech is restricted, which in America would require an amendment to the Constitution." It isn't a good argument against my case to say that constitutional amendments would be required to enact my proposition. All I need to show is that my policy is fair and just: after all, if it is fair, then maybe America *should* amend the constitution accordingly... === CLARIFYING RoyLatham's MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF MY CASE === There are three major places in his argument where RoyLatham misunderstands what I made perfectly clear in my argument: firstly, what I call "trial by public opinion"; secondly, the role (or lack thereof) of juries in my case; and thirdly, my argument regarding Government complicity. (Indeed, RoyLatham completely ignores this last argument - hopefully, in later rounds, he will deal with it sustainedly.) To the first misunderstanding: RoyLatham argues that my "argument depends upon the notion that defendant is tried by 'the public.' That's not true, the defendant is tried by a jury." This completely ignores the whole point of my argument. I accept that defendants are tried by juries - indeed, I mentioned this fact in passing in my Round 1 definition of "merely accused" - and in this sense, the large proportion of RoyLatham's case where he argues for the usefulness of juries is irrelevant. What I was arguing - and what RoyLatham missed - is that, in addition to trial by jury, publicising details of the merely accused leads to an additional "trial by public opinion". It is this faux-trial which I deem to be unfair, and it is this that RoyLatham completely ignored in his rebuttal. Hopefully, he will deal with it in his next round. On the second misunderstanding - RoyLatham says: "Pro contends that the mere accusation of a suspect will prejudice a jury." This is simply false. Nowhere in my arguments (outside of my definitions in round 1) do I even mention the word "jury", or refer to anything of the sort. My entire argument refers to how the general public will perceive the naming of the accused - juries have played no part literally no part in my argumentation. Hopefully RoyLatham will recognise this in future rounds, and direct his rebuttal more accurately as a result. On the third misunderstanding - RoyLatham correctly quoted me when he said: "Pro grants, 'For even if 'whisper campaigns' take place, that is something that happens anyway and can never, unfortunately, stop.'" But he completely ignores my analysis that both follows and preceded this quote. I argued that, contrary to his unargued assertion, public suspicion would drop when we don't name merely accused people - after all, a lot of the suspicion surely only arises because they're named in the first place. If they weren't named, the problem in these cases would cease. The number of people viewed with suspicion would thus drop, thanks to my policy. But even when these whisper campaigns would still continue, I maintain that the Government should take a firm stance against such campaigns. Just because something is bound to continue, that doesn't mean the Government should allow it to continue: after all, the fact that murders (for instance) will always happen doesn't mean that we should just let it continue, and stop trying to prosecute and deter people from murdering. Until he deals with this point, RoyLatham has not successfully rebutted this part of my case. === DEALING WITH RoyLatham's SUBSTANTIVE CASE === Moving on from his misunderstandings, then, RoyLatham presented some new points. I will thus separate them out, and deal with them separately. Firstly, RoyLatham plays what I call "example tennis": he gives an example of where a false accusation of rape didn't lead to the accused being seen in a bad light, before implying that this example is proof enough of his entire case. Firstly, I'd point him to one example of my own where it clearly did cause damage - see my source [1] below. Specifically, see this particular part of that article: "Mr Cummings said he still had trouble from people close to where he lives in Fawley, Hampshire, who wrongly believe "there is no smoke without fire" and he cannot go into certain pubs." RoyLatham must do more than give one example after another to prove his case; he must argue from general principle towards specific, provable, harms, as I am. Secondly, RoyLatham made great play out the logical conclusions of absolute anonymity. Even so, none of these damage my case: Firstly, he said that "The public ought to both be warned of and able to assist the police in tracking down suspects." They can. All the police need to do is be subtle, and call it "eliminating people from our enquiries". If sufficient people are included in this list, perhaps due to their coincidental appearance on the same CCTV footage, no damage is done. Secondy, I point out that anonymity doesn't stop people going to appeal, or to the press with accusations of prosecutorial abuse. It's still possible for the press to run a "prosecutor/judge is unfair" story (as with the mafia, or with his quoted lacrosse case) without naming the defendant. All the press need to do is talk about "Mr/Mrs X". This alternative works for his concerns about the lacrosse case, about general potential issues of unfair judgments (e.g. for celebrities) and about potential Mafia bribes. Secondly, he mentions the number of criminals who have been caught on "America's Most Wanted". Firstly, I'd refer him to my "eliminating from enquiries" point already made. Even after this, though, RoyLatham can't successfully argue that just because a policy (i.e. the status quo) leads to more criminals captured, this is therefore a good policy. Taken to its logical conclusion, this would mean that we would be justified in imprisoning everyone - after all, this would surely capture every single criminal. But this clearly is not a good policy. Why? Because we must weigh up the good that a policy causes, versus the bad. RoyLatham doesn't do this. Finally, RoyLatham bemoans the alleged end to investigative reporting that will result from my policy. This argument, however, is morally flawed. If investigative reporting in certain cases damages the lives of innocent, law-abiding citizens, then yes - it should be restricted accordingly. Is this really a controversial statement? In conclusion, RoyLatham isn't successful in his attempted rebuttal, nor do his sustantative arguments hold much weight. Vote Pro. Source [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk...