Resolved: In the United States, plea bargaining for testimony is unjust.

Value. We will use Justice, this is fine, I accept that it encompasses Govt Legit. I will show how the negative achieves this through the criterion. Also, extend my analysis about how nether side can achieve complete Justice, we are only looking for who better achieves it. The two arguments made against my value are made in other places, so if the arguments fall there then they fall here as well. Criterion. 1. My opponent misuses the value, claiming he has shown that the govt is not legitimate/justice has not been given to the people, and therefore social welfare has not been maximized. That is backwards reasoning, as we evaluate whether or not the value is achieved by looking at the criterion. If I show that social welfare has been maximized, then Justice and governmental legitimacy is achieved on the negative. 2. Extend the 3 justifications for my criterion, they are unaddressed. It is the best criterion because it is the most resolutionally specific, the governments obligation is to provide for social welfare, and individual claims of justice conflict. This is clearly the best way to evaluate the round, and as my opponent makes no arguments for why this is a bad criterion or why his is a better one, it is how we are evaluating the debate. 3. Even if you did use the Aff criterion, you still negate because organized crime harms far more rights than PB for testimony does, so the negative best maximizes rights and you would negate. Aff Case Off of I. 1. The only way you can have testimony is if it is presented at trial. An individual who accepts a plea bargain is forgoing a trial. It is therefore logically impossible for an individual to accept a plea bargain in exchange for testimony against themselves. Once they accept a plea bargain, there is no trial, and so there is no testimony to be given. The only way plea bargaining for testimony can work is if they are testifying against another individual. Any other interpretation is a highly abusive use of the resolution. If it was intended to be a debate about plea bargaining in general, the words for testimony would not be there. They are there to limit the debate to instances in which a plea is accepted in exchange for testifying against other individuals. I challenge my opponents definition of testimony. Wikipedia is not a valid source for a definition, it is impossible to know if the person who wrote that article is at all qualified. The counter definition, from the American heritage dictionary, is "A declaration by a witness under oath, as that given before a court or deliberative body" 2. Extend that innocent individuals cannot accept a plea bargain FOR TESTIMONY because they would not have anything to testify about if they were not guilty of criminal conduct. 3. What happened to Robert was tragic, but it is a result of prosecutors ignoring his constitutional rights and has absolutely nothing to do with plea bargaining FOR TESTIMONY. There is nothing in the evidence presented to indicate the plea bargain was offered in exchange for testimony. That means it falls outside the resolution and is IRRELEVENT TO THIS DEBATE. 4. Even if it does apply, it is only one example of one person harmed by plea bargaing. This is vastly outweighed by the negative, union corruption can directly affect over 15 million Americans and their families. Off of II. 1. Retributivism is but one theory of punishment, and if it is not a just one it is COMPLETELY IRRELEVENT if PB violates it because it is not a form of punishment we should be using anyway. Simply because we have used it in the past is not a reason that it is a Just form of punishment. If that argument is acceptable, then you automatically negate because plea bargaining has been used for a long time in the American justice system. 2. To say that we embrace that concept in the US is absurd, we do not rape rapists, torture tortures, or even kill most killers. 3. If my opponent is really presenting the categorical imperative as the "ends must justify the means" then you negate right here, for the negative vastly outweighs any harms with the benefits gained by dismantling organized crime. 4. The criminal is getting his due, there is no reason why that due is the maximum prison sentence. The individual did something bad, a crime, but they also did something good, they helped to bring other criminals to justice. They should be punished for the crime, and rewarded for the assistance. We reward them with a lesser sentence, this is what they are due, and it complies with Justice. Expert witnesses are treated the same way, except they are paid as they have no prison sentence to lessen. 5. Extend the turn, it is dropped. "If it is a categorical imperative to punish whenever the opportunity presents itself, we ought use plea bargaining for testimony because it allows us to punish both the individual testifying and individuals they are testifying against. It would be unjust to ignore a tool that would allow us to punish more individuals" 6. Extend the last argument, there is no impact to protecting rights so the entire argument is useless. Off of III. 1. A government changing their mind about a policy does not make the policy immoral, that doesn't follow. 2. The efficiency of plea bargaining is only the general plea bargain, where and individual pleads guilty for a lesser sentence, not plea bargaining for testimony, where the individual also testifies in another trial against one or more other individuals. 3. The prosecutorial misconduct was for plea bargaining in general, and you have not shown how it is applied in cases where it is plea bargaining for testimony, nor is there an impact to that argument so it is irrelevant. 4. There is NO WARRANT WHAT SO EVER for why the system will progress from using plea bargaining to chaos and lawlessness, my opponent drops my arguments for why that will not happen, and the turn still stands because plea bargaining may be the only way for the legal system to function, which means it is necessary to maximize rights, for without a legal system and a way to punish lawbreakers there is no reason not to violate anothers rights. It would also create a far worse society then with plea bargain, so it meets both criterion and you negate To my opponents attacks on my case. I will accept that the NC deals with a certain form of white collar crime, but it is important to realize that organized crime groups often deal in far more then just one form of crime. In response to the first piece of evidence. 1. TURN: John Jeffries Jrand the Honorable John Gleeson explain "many of these cases are nevertheless strong because multiple accomplices testify consistently about the criminal organization and the crime. In such a case, a murder charge may rest solely on consistent description of the details of the murder: the reasons for it, the order to commit it, the way it was done, and the disposition of the body." "It is not unusual for a RICO indictment to include several murders as racketeering acts. Three accomplices might be called to testify about one or more of the murders, corroborating each other as described above. If one of those accomplices can testify to a separate murder in which he and a defendant participated, that murder will often be included in the pattern of racketeering activity...The prosecutor can then argue that one of the reasons the jury should believe the sole accomplice on that charge is because the rest of his testimony is so well corroborated on the other charges. Additionally, the prosecutor can argue that an accomplice who is unaware of the other evidence (or the lack thereof) has a selfish reason not to fabricate testimony. If the accomplice makes things up, his testimony could conflict with other evidence, and the trial judge, who usually will determine the accomplice's sentence, will see that he is a liar and treat him accordingly." Continued in comments