Instigator / Pro
7
1485
rating
91
debates
46.15%
won
Topic
#332

Resolved: Plea bargaining ought to be abolished in the United States criminal justice system.

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
4
2
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
1
2

After 2 votes and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
12
1697
rating
556
debates
68.17%
won
Description

--Topic--
Resolved: Plea bargaining ought to be abolished in the United States criminal justice system.
--Definitions--
Plea Barganning: an arrangement between a prosecutor and a defendant whereby the defendant pleads guilty to a lesser charge in the expectation of leniency.
Ought: indicates moral desirability
--Rules--
1. No forfeits
2. Citations must be provided in the text of the debate
3. No new arguments in the final speeches
4. Observe good sportsmanship and maintain a civil and decorous atmosphere
5. No trolling
6. No "kritiks" of the topic (challenging assumptions in the resolution)
7. For all undefined resolutional terms, individuals should use commonplace understandings that fit within the logical context of the resolution and this debate
8. The BOP is evenly shared
9. Rebuttals of new points raised in an adversary's immediately preceding speech may be permissible at the judges' discretion even in the final round (debaters may debate their appropriateness)
10. Violation of any of these rules, or of any of the description's set-up, merits a loss
--Structure--
R1. Pro's Case; Con's Case
R2. Pro generic Rebuttal; Con generic Rebuttal
R3. Pro generic Rebuttal; Con generic Rebuttal
R4. Pro generic Rebuttal and Summary; Con generic Rebuttal and Summary

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

First of all, conduct. Pro made very little contribution to the debate. All of his arguments were very short, consisting mostly of quotes. In both the second and third round he openly admitted that he wouldn't say much, since he didn't have time to do so. The third round was particularly bad, being almost entirely quotes from his sources and virtually no explanation of what the reader is intended to extract from those quotes. Conduct to Con.

Arguments were moderately good on both sides, but Con obviously approached this with a strategy that caught Pro off guard. Pro built a (rather small) case for why he felt he was right. Con, rather than attempting a directed rebuttal or refutation, instead focused on building the opposite case first, before returning to poke holes in Pro's case near the end of the debate.

Pro's case effectively revolved around four points (one of which didn't seem to appear until his conclusion). 1. Innocent people are sometimes "forced" to plead guilty. 2. Plea bargaining is to the benefit of those who are guilty. 3. Alaska had some benefits from banning plea bargains in their state. And 4, banning plea bargains would "restore faith in the criminal justice system."

While each of these main points had some minor merit to it, I felt the overall argument being made here was rather weak. Pro never demonstrated that anyone is "forced" to accept a plea bargain, so although innocent people may sometimes do so, they do so by their own choice. His claim that they are "forced" to do so comes of as hyperbole. Additionally, his statistics about Alaska are great, but Alaska is a very unique situation and he offers no guarantee that other locales with drastically different social and criminal elements would experience the same benefits, so that struck me as a claim which needed a lot more backing to be taken seriously. And his claim that banning plea bargains would "restore faith" in the criminal justice system didn't seem to make any appearance until the final round, with no actual support for the idea that anyone had lost faith in the criminal justice system.

Con initially veered away from a direct rebuttal and instead began building his own case. Firstly, he points out the necessity of utilizing plea bargains as an incentive to persuade informants to give information on more serious criminals, such as organized criminal groups. As one example, Con cites the Mexican Drug Cartels and their aggressive (and often grotesque) methods of intimidating witnesses, making plea bargains advantageous when dealing with such an organization. In following rounds, Con also provided an authoritative source which listed an extensive list of reasons why plea bargains are advantageous (forgive me if I don't quote the entire government report here). Lastly, Con stated that the strongest reason why his case was right and Pro was wrong is that if plea bargains were to be removed from the system, then it would eliminate any reason for guilty parties to EVER plead guilty. Based on basic logic, this makes a lot of sense, because if you have no material benefit to plead guilty, you may as well claim innocent and hope the prosecution flubs the case somehow.

Pro's rebuttals were absolutely terrible, not just because of their brevity, but because they were just plain bad. For one thing, Pro tried to criticize Con for using a source from Australia, which Con accurately pointed out was hypocritical when Pro used a source from Japan. Pro also tried to claim that "Mexico is irrelevant" because he is apparently unaware that the Mexican Drug Cartels are a huge criminal threat to the United States with direct ties to many organized crime groups in the U.S. This made Pro seem really ignorant and unaware of basic criminal justice facts. Pro's only remotely useful rebuttal was pointing out that informants sometimes point the finger at innocent parties, but that one effective rebuttal hardly made up for the awful mess which was the rest of his argument. Yikes!

Pro's conclusion tried to claim that Con "dropped" his original four arguments, but Con addressed this in his conclusion by responding to each one of those four points and showing how his arguments either override or rebut each of those issues.

If Pro's opening arguments had just been the first volley in a larger assault, he may have won this... but it seems his opening argument was really all he had and everything after that mainly just served to expose his own lack of knowledge about criminal justice and organized crime threats within the U.S. Con alternatively provided a valid explanation of the benefits of plea bargains as well as the potential consequences of banning them, while displaying a greater knowledge of the topic. Hence, argument goes to Con.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

RFD in comments.