All Defendants Should Be Guaranteed a Reasonable Bail

My opponent brings up several points. I will address them in the order that they are presented. 1)Innocent until found guilty. There is no Presumption of Innocence Clause in the US Constitution. While our courts choose to do that and basically say that the BoP is on the prosecution to prove guilt, rather than the defense to prove innocent, the fact of the matter is objectively, the moment you commit a crime, you are at that instant, a guilty person. The only question is whether or not the court finds you guilty. As such, when there is damning evidence for a crime, and damning evidence that others will be in harm's way if the person is allowed to roam free, then denying bail is a reasonable action. 2)The 8th Amendment. Denying bail is not excessive bail, no more than saying something is not for sale is an excessive price. I would also like to point out that we are arguing if something is reasonable or not. Just because something is unconstitutional does not make it unreasonable. 3)Historical Context People in England were being prosecuted for political crimes, as such, the bail (and the act of arresting itself) was unreasonable. Unless my opponent wishes to argue that arresting someone for aggravated assault or attempted murder is unreasonable, than the two cannot be compared side by side. 4)Plain Language of the 8th This falls back to the 8th amendment, which falls back to reasonable vs constitutional. 5)Logical Analysis My opponent argues that "no bail" is more than "$500 trillion bail." This is inaccurate. As said before, if something is not for sale, that does not make it worth more than $500 trillion. My opponent is confusing "no bail" with "unlimited bail." These two things are not the same, as "no bail" is refusing to put a dollar amount to it, because it cannot be converted into dollars. Trying to force it into dollars anyway is illogical. Additional Arguments – There is no reason to assume that the only form of bail is to be in dollar amounts. For example, there is no reason to say that the courts cannot impose a bail of 30 days instead of $300,000 or something to that nature. As such, there is no reason to say that courts cannot impose a bail of X days, where X is the number of days until their trial. As when someone is then sentenced to jail, the days that they have already spent are deducted from their sentence (so if you spend 4 months while waiting for your trial, and you're sentenced to 12 months, you only have 8 months left), so the time spent waiting for the trial is then recouped (just like the money spent on bail when you show up). These criticisms hold through the other examples. As for the "Obama – Osama" slip up. I assure everyone that it was nothing more than a slip up, and not an attempt at a political jab. In summary – We see that constitutional =/= unreasonable, and even if it did, Presumption of Innocence Clause is not in the constitution. And there is no reason to assume that bail must be a dollar amount. My opponent states, "As for the public safety issues. It is the government responsibility to protect witnesses and the public at large," and that is exactly the reasonable reasoning for denying bail to certain individuals. Thank you,