Plea Bargaining Ought to be Abolished in the United States Criminal Justice System

Thanks to Pro for the debate so far and apologies for using the incorrect gender pronoun. CON's CASEI. FrameworkExtend my framework, particularly my observation, which go entirely unaddressed. Pro should not be permitted to respond to these points in the final round, insofar as doing so would constitute a new argument. This is true for all dropped arguments moving forward. My observation shows that all I need to do to win is to show that plea-bargaining should be retained in one or more cases, and should thus not be abolished outright. I submit I have done so, by showing that plea-bargaining should be retained in cases where the victims would suffer severe trauma by testifying and in cases where plea-bargains would produce evidence which would secure convictions of other offenders. If you, as the judge, buy that plea-bargaining should be retained in even one of these situations, the resolution has been negated. II. Court ClogPro's case only refers to mandatory minimum sentences, not to "mandatory minimum to arrests. " I am unclear if Pro is means the same thing in both cases. I have addressed the mandatory minimum argument in several ways, all of which go unresponded to by my opponent. First, I argued for abolishing mandatory minimums, which we both agree are bad. Second, I argue that plea-bargains are a useful way to circumvent mandatory minimums by having defendants plead to charges below the trigger. Pro cites no source to corroborate any of his evidence, including the Alaska example. But even if the lack of supporting evidence weren't enough to void his example, "Alaska's criminal justice system is atypical. .. Alaska is thinly populated, and the volume of felony prosecutions is small. Only 2,283 defendants were charged with felonies over a 2-year period in the three main cities studied. " [1] Imagine trying to replicate Alaska's program in a city like Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, or any other major metropolitan area. These deal with significantly more criminal prosecutions. Also, Pro talks about plea-bargaining on a global level; the resolution is not global, it's national, pertaining to the (entire) US. Pro makes the frankly outrageous claim that in the plea-bargaining system 82% of all convictions are of innocent people. First, this is unsourced and, prima facie, defies credulity. Second, Pro's earlier numbers contradict this latest one. Pro earlier said that 95% of cases are settled by plea-bargaining, and also that 99.5% of cases result in accurate verdicts. How can it be that, if 95% of all cases are settled by plea-bargaining, and that 82% of them are false convictions, that somehow 99.5% of them are still settled accurately? This makes no sense at all. Third, cross-apply my (sourced) data from R2 (under "wrongful convictions") which refutes Pro's unbelievable 82% claim. Finally, Pro never challenges the fact that if court clog happens it will leave the state with 3 very unpalatable options to address it, increasing the harm caused by court clog. III. Solving Other CrimesMy opponent accuses me of cherry-picking, but ignores both common knowledge and common sense in doing so. It is common knowledge that prosecutors reach plea deals to secure additional evidence or testimony. It is also common sense. Pro, in focusing only on my example, drops the logic that plea-bargains can be utilized as enticements to seduce criminals into flipping. This logic never went responded to, and it's distinct from the example I used to illustrate it. Sure, it's one example, but this logic applies to literally thousands of cases where prosecutors are seeking additional evidence in their investigations. It is also ironic that Pro accuses me of cherry-picking, only then to resort to it himself in the case of Erma Faye Stewart. This anecdote is not only cherry-picked, it is primarily an appeal to emotion, not to logic. Consequentialism requires us to look at the evidence, not our feelings, however hard-hearted that might seem. Pro also reiterates his argument that only the guilty benefit from plea-bargaining. But merely repeating what he said earlier is not a defense against the attacks I made last round. I wrote: "it's wrong to suggest that plea-bargaining always comes down to horsetrading. To think that prosecutors will be lenient only if you have information to sell seems wrong; they will likely consider a variety of factors, including your past criminal history and the circumstances surrounding the crime. " Pro dropped this completely, and it's devastating for his argument, since his argument is predicated on the notion that the guilty benefit unfairly because pleas happen in some kind of marketplace where only those with stuff to sell make off with the cash. But conceiving of pleas as occurring within a marketplace is absurd, because prosecutors are not always going to reduce the process to horsetrading, and they will of course take into consideration other factors. The basic premise of Pro's claim is just off. Pro also drops that abolishing plea-bargaining harms innocent defendants by denying them a risk-minimizing option. This basically turns his second contention, which argues that plea-bargaining is harmful because it results in innocent convictions. Let's face it, it's better for an innocent person to take 2 years probation than 5 in the slammer; there's no guarantee they'll be exonerated at trial, particularly insofar as my data suggests that trials are less accurate than plea-bargains. IV. Helping VictimsMy opponent never denies that victims are re-traumatized by the trial process. For victims of rape, for the infirm, and for child sexual assault victims, testifying may actually do more harm to the victim than what they gain in the compensation they receive from pursuing the criminal to the fullest extent of the law. Pro's 38% number is irrelevant, because it talks about conviction rates, which aren't directly tied to plea-bargains. Moreover, a lower sentence for the offender may be tempered by registration as a sex offender, which is often a part of the plea agreement, and by the fact that the victim is not re-victimized by a judicial system which is meant to protect them. The trade-off here seems to favor pleas in cases where the victim is truly unable to testify do the emotional trauma they might endure. PRO's CASEI. Prosecutorial PowerPro's arguments here seem to make little sense. First, he says that I "must prove that prosecutors do not have all the power. " Pro then, in acknowledgment of my argument that judges can overturn plea deals, writes just a few sentences later that, "prosecutors have discretion that is LARGELY unreviewable by judges. " The use of the word largely implies that there are limits to a prosecutor's power, even if that power is extensive. Ergo, I have proven that prosecutors do not have all the power, and met my opponent's standard. On reform, Pro says that because the resolution calls on Pro to advocate abolishing plea-bargaining that I can't argue for reforming it. This is literally gobbledygook. Only in Pro's world must plea-bargaining be completely done away with. I am required to argue for keeping it, which doesn't preclude reforming plea-bargaining in any way. Since Pro never addresses the substance of my argument on reforms, extend it. Also extend my dropped turn on his case that, if you buy my second contention, the Con world is the world which best promotes uncovering the truth in criminal cases; my world will lead to more criminals behind bars. And, even if you buy none of the above, I have the following two cleanly dropped arguments on the flow: (1) if the prosecutors threats are not extralegal and I am indeed guilty of a more severe offense, it is not wrong to prosecute me for that offense; and (2) Pro gives no concrete data of how often prosecutorial discretion is abused. Pro's 7,125 number is not relevant because his calculations weren't specific to the plea-bargaining process. Just go up to R1 and read how he got those numbers--by looking at total convictions, irrespective of how those convictions were obtained. My study (R2, source 10) was specific to plea-bargaining, and found it less likely to result in innocent convictions than trials. II. Wrongful ConvictionsPro fails to engage with the logic I offered regarding why his world will produce more wrongful convictions. This argument is, in essence, dropped, and it's important to reiterate it. Because courts will have to become more "casual" to cope with an increased workload resulting from abolishing plea-bargaining, their error rate will increase. The less rigorous the process, the more room there is to make mistakes. Also, if you look also at my data about public defenders, you'll see that forcing them to go to trial may also result in a higher error rate because they lack the skills necessary to credibly defend their clients. III. Everything ElsePro literally drops everything else. He is no longer able to respond to these arguments, and this is going to be massively problematic for him moving forward, because my turns are generating offense for me off these arguments. My turns showed that (1) abolishing plea-bargaining would lead to more innocent people being convicted, (2) that public defenders, because they use the plea-bargaining system, get better results for their clients than more expensive attorneys who go to trial, and (3) that going to trial would harm defendants with substandard lawyers. These turns show that my world, a world which retains plea-bargaining, is actually better for poor and for innocent defendants. Pro also never directly responds to my source 10, which I have used here several times to refute some of Pro's more far-fetched numbers. SOURCE1 - . https://tinyurl.com...Thank you!