Instigator / Con
42
1677
rating
24
debates
93.75%
won
Topic
#771

Resolved: In the US, plea bargaining ought to be abolished

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
18
6
Better sources
12
10
Better legibility
6
6
Better conduct
6
6

After 6 votes and with 14 points ahead, the winner is...

blamonkey
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
28
1485
rating
91
debates
46.15%
won
Description

Round Structure. I will cede the first round so that Pro can go first.
I will offer my constructive, and then we will alternate between Pro and Con until the final round, in which Pro is required to waive.

Other than that, standard rules apply.
In other words, don't post new args in the final round. Don't be a di**.

That's about it.

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

Both sides ask me to weigh their respective policy/status quo by the consequences.

Pro, somehow immediately starts talking about justice and setting up a debate partially on the premise of justice.

In general, the argument pro makes is fairly intuitive: people being forced to plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit is necessarily bad. For guilty people, pros position didn’t seem entirely clear in terms of how it fit into the weighting he asked for. Sure there are impacts on the guilty people, but there’s no tying back to that premise.

Con rounds out his argument here, by arguing, effectively that the criminal justice system depends on plea bargains due to amount of time spent in the court system, prison overcrowding and that the innocent would end up spending more time in prison due to relying on public defenders.

Pro could have offered a counter plan, I felt his argument that without plea bargains - prosecutors would be more selective, and that drugs crimes would be lessened in penalty necessarily.

This argument feels intuitive, while con is arguing the negative side from the point of view of individuals, pros argument makes it feel that the governments side would suffer as well, and pros second round hashes some of these out.

If this had been included within pros initial plan (and thus have the fiat), this would have been pretty reasonable but con goes basically points out that cons implication that this would necessarily happen is not guaranteed. In fact much of cons argument in round three around the evidence and justification for why pros claimed mitigation may not happen: the public support for example is excellent

At the end of this, both sides of this ask me to vote on consequences: I felt that neither side really gave me much in the way of establishing the overall consequences on balance of both side. Whilst one possible outcome from pro was better justice and potentially not crippling the CJS, the mitigation’s pro offered did not seem well enough hashed out, compared to cons issues.

Neither side felt well anchored to the way I was told to vote: injustice vs crippling the system. I wanted to go for pros intuitive arguments; but there was not enough there, and con did just enough to cast doubt on their possibility.

As a result, I have to go with the most substantial and solidified consequences.

Arguments to con.

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

I am a US citizen who considers plea bargaining to be legal blackmail- essentially, make our [prosecutors, judges] jobs easy or we will increase your punishment. Nevertheless, this voter finds that Pro’s case fails to persuade.

Pro’s opener is problematic.

*Waiting six months in jail for a trial is a major consequence. Few defendants who fail to make bail have a chance to retain present employment over that kind of time. This claim needed lots of stats but got none.

*31 innocents convicted of major crimes some time before 2009 is a clear and specific miscarriage of justice but that statistic by itself conveys no sense of the scope and scale of the problem. If Pro only offers 31 miscarriages of justice than perhaps the problem isn’t as bad as this reader assumed.

*When Pro does get down to stats, errors really harm the impact: 95% felony plea bargains seems true but not substantiated by any of Pro’s sources, 18% of exonerated pled guilty is also not substantiated by Pro’s sources but seems plausible (my research came up with 11%), 83% of DNA tests point to other perp (what? That can’t be true. What set of DNA tests are we talking about? Neither Pro or Pro’s sources elucidate.)

*as a voter who finds most drug sentences too onerous and nonproductive, stats that show that plea bargains reduce drug sentence is counter-persuasive.

*Pro’s defense (won’t clog courts) was minimal but fine.

Con’s opener was better.

Increased costs of public defense

Increased costs of incarceration

Clogged courts

I consider the clogged courts arguments a wash- Alaska vs. El Paso, Pro depends on Drug decriminalization which remains a fairly wild variable, Con depends on a status quo response to clogged system which seems unlikely.

This voter considers the harm of jailing innocent far more consequential than the harm of increased justice system costs. However, we have to weigh these consequences with a strong sense of scale- is a handful of unjust imprisonments worth substantially fewer costs? Pro really needed to give this voter a sense of the scale of unjust imprisonments to a degree sufficient to outweigh the costs of public defense and increased incarceration that were well established by Con and barely contested by Pro.

Arguments to Con.
All other points equal for what amounts to a grown-up contest reflective of actual policy decision-making. Nice work.

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

Kiss my goddamn ass.

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

I could go either way here.

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

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Mwn5fqefLFhv_dlBxBhm9ET0ABqX7MhN9OTSIpXYCzI/edit?usp=sharing

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

I'm evaluating this premise by premise. I'll start with Pro's and then do Con's.

Pro's C's:

C1: Plea bargaining prevents justice

Pro argued that plea bargaining forced innocent's into a sentence that they did not deserve and the guilty to get lighter sentences. Con's only rebuttal is that the alternative would be public defenders entering into trials with barely any preparation for the case at all. Pro's only defense is that Con did not respond to the many statistics that he cited.

This was a very disappointing contention. Pro started it out very well, but Con barely rebutted it. Furthermore, Pro didn't even address what Con said, instead resorting to simply point out what Con didn't do.

Overall, defenders not being able to be prepared is a safe reason for them to get plea bargains for their clients, so I have to award this point to Con because Pro did not respond to it.

C2: Plea bargains are unnecessary

Pro argues that guilty pleas are still going to be used, and cites Alaska as an example. Con rebutted quite a bit by showing how plea bargains still continued in Alaska, plus the fact that Alaska barely had any felony convictions. He also gave an example of El Paso, where plea bargains were banned and courts were clogged. Pro did not even attempt to defend his source, so because of that, this point goes to Con as well.

Now I will do Con's contentions.

C1: Increased Reliance on Public Defenders

Con argues that public defenders are currently being swamped and that plea bargains help them lift the load a bit better. Pro rebuts by saying that guilty plea rates will still stay the same, so defenders won't be that swamped. Con defended by pointing back to his El Paso source which showed that the caseload doubled when plea bargains were abolished. Pro didn't respond, so this point goes to Con.

C2: Worsens Prison Conditions Due to Overcrowding

Con argues that prisons become worse because they are more crowded since there are more trials due to a lack of plea bargaining. Pro rebuts by saying that various reforms through the government would nullify this. Con then correctly points out that Pro gave no evidence that the government would make those reforms. Because of this, he gets this contention.

C3: Court Clog

Con argues that courts would be clogged with trials if there were no plea bargains. Pro's rebuttal is that the government will make reforms that nullify this, but Con defends extensively by showing how the government has an incentive not to make these reforms and also by showing sources that say that not all of America is on board with those reforms. Pro didn't respond, so Con gets this point.

Overall, this was a disappointing debate. It started out amazing (I didn't even know this was a topic up for discussion), but after each party rebutted once, they defended just a little and ended. I expected a lot more clashing and defending.

That said, Con did a better job of critiquing Pro's points, as well as of defending his own, so I'm giving Con arguments.

Sources:

Con uses a ridiculous amount of statistics to back up his points. Although Pro did use some too, Con critiqued them very well, and Pro never disputed Con's. Pro also cited whole passages from his sources, which I consider to be wrong. Sources should be used for verification of facts, not for whole arguments. I'm giving sources to Con.

Good job to both debaters. :)

*Tied In All Other Categories