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

In this final round, I will re-summarise my arguments, and look over the various other criticisms that Con has levelled against my case. === RE-AFFIRMATION OF MY CASE === 1) The principle of innocence until proven guilty is undermined under the status quo Con hasn't challenged this. His response has instead been to argue that such undermining - and the consequent suffering undergone - is "rare" and justified when compared to cases where guilty people get off on technicalities. Firstly, he hasn't argued why such suffering really is "rare", whereas I argued the contrary right from the beginning, in Round 2. Secondly, I have argued how appeals and retrials will sufficiently correct such actual miscarriages of justice: until such instances are proved as actual miscarriages, the mere potential that they may be so is not sufficient to justify ruining the lives of genuinely innocent people. 2) That anonymity makes a trial by public opinion more likely Con claimed that I "give exactly one example of ["no smoke without fire"] happening and then claim it is logical to generalize from that one case. " This is simply not true. A great deal of my argumentation in Round 2 was spent analysing why this problem of 'no smoke without fire' happens; it is Con who has asserted (without argument) that this is "rare", and provided a single example (the lacrosse case) to claim that his understanding of the status quo is more prevalent than my, thoroughly argued, one. I only gave my example to show that his example does not prove his case as a whole. If he wants to argue that his belief is more widespread than mine - especially when I have directly argued from human psychology why my principle holds - then he has to argue also from first principle, rather than provide solitary examples to the contrary. He hasn't done so. He did, nonetheless, argue that anonymity makes it impossible for mislaid suspicion to be refuted. But such suspicion could only ever remain without evidence and easily rebutted by the innocent party - after all, they've no criminal record and have never been convicted of a crime. Any public allegations to the contrary could be met with a watertight lawsuit of slander/libel from the innocent former-defendant, deterring people from making such allegations. Furthermore, Con claims that my burden is to show my principle to hold "in a substantial number of cases". This isn't true - it is to show that the current policy of non-anonymity both causes significant harms to those affected, and so should be prevented as far as possible, and that the current policy runs contrary to the commonly-accepted (and unchallenged) principle of innocence until proven guilty. After all, I wouldn't need to show that a "substantial" number of people are being murdered to show that murder is wrong and should be opposed. The same principle applies here. This is my burden, and I have met it. But even if one accepts Con's assignment of burden, I met it anyway, through my arguments in Round 2 (as mentioned above) on how my principle holds true in a general sense, which Con has not dealt with. So no matter whose statement of burden you believe, I have met them both, and therefore win this debate. === CON'S MISCELLANEOUS CRITICISMS OF MY CASE === There are a variety of other criticisms that have coloured Con's reaction to my proposition, and which I feel obliged to deal with in this final round. Clearly, though, character limits mean I cannot answer every such criticism: I've overcome this by dealing with the most pertinent ones, especially where my defence applies to other similar criticisms made. 1) Whether I identified the right problem In his original rebuttal, Con missed the entire point of my argument, assuming that I was talking about juries when I was arguing about the reaction of the public as a whole. This was not something that was "unclear" in my original case - it was instead Con rebutting what he thought I "should be arguing", rather than what I actually was. His response was that I had not identified a "serious concern". I have argued that the status quo leads to the lives of innocent people being ruined, as their reputations are destroyed through unproven accusations leading to the community in which they live believing them already to be guilty. Whatever one's opinion about how this concern balances against other relevant concerns, surely it's uncontroversial that this is a serious concern about which I have a right to be worried? 2) "Secret trials" For some reason, Con is convinced that my policy will lead to so-called "secret trials". I rebutted this idea in Round 3, when I made it clear that 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. " I also made it clear that the media could still report on prosecutorial abuse, which is another of Con's criticisms. The only difference is that the media would only be able to refer to the defendant as "Mr. X" rather than "John Smith", which would not significantly change the media's abilities to investigate and make such allegations, either through reporting the case of "Prosecutor Y", or by lodging charges with the police, having watched the trial unfold and knowing what took place. Nonetheless, this criticism repeated itself in Con's Round 4, where he simply repeated his previous argument. I don't understand how he can still be fearful of institutional "abuse", when I have clearly shown how trials could still have the same checks and balances as at present. After all, defendant anonymity does not equal anonymity of the judge or the prosecutor. Where's the secrecy? The potential for abuse? It is nowhere. My policy is perfectly consistent with a transparent justice system. 3) On 'eliminating people from enquiries' Con's rebuttal here was twofold: firstly, that such usage contradicts my resolution; secondly, that it leads to too many leads. On the first: publicising the images of multiple people (who may, for instance, be "sought as potential witnesses") clearly doesn't mean that people will assume them to be guilty. No "obfuscation" of published images would be necessary - there is clearly no problem under my argument when people identify who they believe to be witnesses and not suspects. Con misses this distinction in my argument. On the second: the police would already know who they suspect of the crime, and so wouldn't be mislaid by "false leads". In addition, they would clearly benefit anyway in knowing the identity of possible witnesses to the crime, and so the public's extra information wouldn't even go to waste. Where's the "problem" that Con alleges to exist? 4) Investigative reporting Con summarises my argument thus: "the greater good lies in protecting the reputation of someone falsely accused by the investigative reporter, rather than exposing crooked politicians, mafia bosses, and consumer swindles. " This is a false dichotomy. I'm not against exposing corruption or proven consumer swindles, as this entails that such guilt has been proven in court. If such cases really are as open-and-shut as Con is implying, then the trial will be quick and it won't be long before the paper can tell the world how they enabled the guilty verdict. Con takes refuge in the idea that defamation lawsuits will still be possible - but this ignores my entire argument on how the principle of "no smoke without fire" will hold firm in many people's minds. Where investigative journalism leads to such destruction and libel, the freedom of speech that Con values so uncritically is harmful in these circumstances and should be restricted, just as it is (despite the First Amendment) in cases of slander and libel already. In conclusion, my re-affirmation deals with Con's challenges, and his various criticisms don't succeed.