Qualified Immunity

In this round I will be responding to what Pro said in R4. This will be organized by corresponding contention headings, with my response to the argument written underneath. Thank you. DefinitionThe status quo of QI in the the US is absolute, unlimited QI. This means that if a police officer meets the qualifications for immunity—as defined in R1—he cannot be sued for damages. QI *is* what is defined in R1. By affirming a pseudo-QI, Pro is not affirming the resolution of the debate. Because Pro’s arguments depend on this pseudo-QI, Pro cannot win the debate. In order to better understand this, I will equate the situation with an example. Suppose that we are debating whether it should be legal for citizens that are over 18, have 3 siblings, and are of the male sex to join the army. A debater could not be allowed to change one of the qualifications, for that would change the resolution of the debate. I accepted the debate based on the qualifications presented in R1. For Pro to limit QI by changing qualifications does not affirm the resolution. Logically, Pro would reduce in quantity or extent QI by allowing more citizens to sue for damages against qualifying police officers. Pro has not presented a plan for which citizens would be allowed to sue qualifying policemen. Morality v JusticePro argues that I provide “no analysis to support his assertion that morality is commonly understood as something that allows us to decide what is just.” Morality is commonly understood as something that allows entities to determine what is just because the definition of just is “based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair.” (Google) Pro’s latter analysis here ignores what I said last round. I refer the reader back to what I said last round under the same heading. Role MoralityThe argument that Pro makes here is for a utilitarian court system: a system in which the verdict is not determined by whether one broke a crime but rather what the public wants the verdict to be. This perspective on the role of the court system in governance is immature. The purpose of a government is to ensure life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. A democracy is essential in suppressing tyrannous governments; and a democracy obviously entails majority rule. Yet this majority rule is not absolute. If majority rule were absolute then it would allow for fundamental human rights to be violated. This would therefore negate the purpose of a government existence. This is why absolute majority rule cannot justly exist when a government exists. A balance of “majority rule and minority rights” is necessary. As Alexis de Tocqueville writes in Democracy in America, “If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power by wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach? Men do not change their characters by uniting with one another; nor does their patience in the presence of obstacles increase with their strength. For my own part, I cannot believe it; the power to do everything which I should refuse to one of my equals, I will never grant to any number of them.”Now that it is established that objective minority rights must exist immune from majority rule, the role of the court system comes in. As courts naturally evaluate whether or not a right has been violated, court immunity from majority interest is necessary. For this reason, the public interest must not exist in a court system. A judicial system that places no value on the sanctity of law is an unjust one. This debate cannot be evaluated on Pro’s criteria. The argument about the court entering a social contract does not work because the conclusion that Pro draws is not necessarily true. Pro argues that citizens pay taxes to the government, and thus government entities must reciprocate. The conclusion is that courts must reciprocate in ensuring social welfare. This logic does not necessitate a court acting on a utilitarian basis though. If the courts must reciprocate, wouldn’t reciprocity be better paid in ensuring human rights against tyranny than in their temporal interests? I already explained why courts validate the existence of a government. A court would reciprocate society better in this role than in public interest. Pro’s own premises support my value.Catch 22This argument only has impact if Pro is allowed to change the R1 definition of QI so that it conforms to his plan. Pro cannot change the R1 definitions, thus this argument cannot have impact. Immunizing the GovernmentPro argues, “Hayd seems to concede that his logic would preclude all lawsuits against the government. Do not allow him to back track on this--otherwise he can unfairly shift the goalposts.”QI (or absolute immunity) already precludes all civil suits against most government agencies in the status quo. This is true in theory and in reality. Pro then gives three reasons for why criminal lawsuits are not good enough to check government wrongdoing. I will respond to each in turn. I. Pro first argues that in the case of criminal lawsuits, the government is policing itself. This is technically true, in that the Department of Justice—a government agency—evaluates police misconduct reports to decide if a wrongdoing occurred. But the DOJ is a separate agency. It is a part of the federal government, of the executive branch. Police departments are municipal governments. Separation of powers is an essential part of how the legal system checks corruption. There is not a need for civilians to check police brutality when the DOJ already does so. Pro has provided no reasons for why the DOJ would not successfully prosecute bad cops. The DOJ and local police departments don’t share any common goals or interests; no issues are evident. The DOJ is checked by investigation agencies that ensure that no corruption or wrongdoing takes place. Because there is no need for civilians to check police misconduct because of existence of DOJ, this point has no impact. II. Pro argues that civil trials have lower burdens of proof, and thus will lead to more convictions and greater deterrence. The problem with that is that deterrence only works if it convicts the right people. Having a low burden of proof allows innocent people to be convicted, which does more harm than good. Policemen risk their lives for the welfare of the communities they serve in. It is unjust to purposely convict innocent policemen on tenuous evidence in order to deter government wrongdoing that is already checked by the DOJ. III. The DOJ brings criminal lawsuits against all forms of substantiated misconduct. Thus this is still deterred on my side. “Hayd also never responds to the idea that suing even for non-monetary compensation (or even filing a criminal case) might be unfair to taxpayers, since their money would be going to pay for the government's legal fees.”I argue that judicial policy ought to operate based off of justice. I described justice as fairness, equality, and equity. It is unfair to punish taxpayers for the brutality of police officers, as one can only be justly punished for an action that they did. This is why the resolution must be negated. But Pro brings up a good point; taxpayers are also punished on my side in that they have to pay for the legal fees for a government to bring a criminal case against a police officer. This argument does not work for the reason that taxpayers are punished for this on both sides of the debate; Pro never made a plan to disallow criminal suits on his side. Although this violates justice according to my logic, this is not unique to my side; there is equal violation of justice on both sides. Yet, Pro’s side overall contains more violation of justice because it necessarily allows more punishment to the taxpayers (due to damages.) Because more justice is violated on the affirming side, the judges must negate. The only way that Pro can win this point is if he makes a plan not to allow criminal prosecution of police officers. He has not, thus this point is negated. ImpunityWhere is Pro’s source that legislatures allocate less funds for police departments who lose lawsuits? What reason do we have to believe that criminal lawsuits cannot fulfill this role just as well? This argument has no impact if it does not prove the prior link. It doesn’t and thus doesn’t work.Taxation and CharityBecause taxation is based largely on income tax, the amount of taxes collected is also susceptible to ups and downs. Feasibility and FramingYes, I did post the sources in the comments. My bad, the sources from last round are now contained in the debate as I post them at the end of this round response. I used no sources from this round, so those sources will correspond to last round. Abusive officers are still “shielded” in Pro’s world in that they don’t pay the compensation money to the victims. The police department does, which gets its money from the taxpayers. [1] http://www.usatoday.com...[2] http://www.cbsnews.com... [3] http://www.usatoday.com...[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com...[5] http://time.com...