Con Speech

Resolved: In the United States, plea bargaining undermines the criminal justice system.

The Con side negates the resolution with the following contentions
1. Plea bargains keep court dockets running smoothly
• Sub point A- Efficiency
• Sub point B- Bans
• Sub point C- Budget Cuts
2. Plea bargains aid in the overcrowding of prisons

For the purpose of the debate we would like to offer the following definition:

Undermine- To weaken or ruin by degrees (Webster)

Contention 1- Court Docket Benefits

Sub point A: Our criminal justice system simply can’t function without plea-

bargaining. If you take away plea-bargaining the consequences will be dire. Chief Justice

Warren Burger, quoted in Time Magazine in 1978, went so far as to say that “even a 10%

reduction in plea bargaining would double the number of trials.” David Burnham, co-

director of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University,

which tracks data on federal law enforcement, said the Justice Department could not

significantly reduce plea bargains "without collapsing the entire court system." Plea

bargains "are a necessary thing," Mr. Burnham said. "Plea bargains have been used

historically because the courts don't have time to have trials. Charges are reduced to

encourage prisoners to avoid going to trial, and we just don't have enough judges to do it

differently. If you force everyone to go to trial, you'd have to hire a lot more judges." Not

only are plea bargains efficient, they have been deemed by the Supreme Court as

“essential”. In Santobello v. New York the Court held “The disposition of criminal

charges by agreement between the prosecutor and the accused, sometimes loosely called

"plea-bargaining”, is an essential component of the administration of justice. Properly

administered, it is to be encouraged. If every criminal charge were subjected to a full-

scale trial, the States and the Federal Government would need to multiply by many times

the number of judges and court facilities.

Sub point B: Bans on plea bargains show just how efficient, when in place, plea

bargains are and how vital they are. This claim was validated by the Bronx County Bar

Association when, in 1992, the Bronx District attorney banned plea bargains. As the

association themselves said, according to the New York Times, “Plea bargaining, while

not a panacea, has proven to be a necessary tool in the constant struggle to keep the

system functioning against difficult odds.” The same article goes on, “Many defense

lawyers have criticized the new policy because they say that without plea bargains the

criminal justice system will not function. They fear that more cases will go to trial,

overburdening prosecutors, judges and jails and raising the possibility that some

defendants will be set free under the state's laws requiring a speedy trial.”

Another ban, in Westminster County, had similarly dire consequences. “Orange

County public defender Carl Holmes said one of the immediate effects of the plea-

bargaining halt has been a 400% increase in the number of cases requiring preliminary

hearings, mini-trials at which witnesses give testimony,” reported the LA Times.

Sub Point C- Budget Cuts

Budget cuts to judicial and attorney’s office really puts a strain on the criminal justice

system to try cases and put away guilty criminals. And the sad fact can be seen

throughout the United States in Arizona, Iowa, Arizona, Oklahoma, and New York. Iowa

alone is planning on cutting 105 judicial jobs, leaving them 21 judges short to handle

cases loads. In some cases budget cuts are forcing prosecutors into giving plea bargains
or letting criminals walk. Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said the

percentage of cases going to trial had decreased since budget cuts began three years ago.

Of more than 100,000 misdemeanor cases last year, he said, only 300 went to trial. Only

about 10 percent of felony arrests in Manhattan reach a courtroom, he told the City

Council's Committee on Public Safety.

Daniel M. Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney, said: ''The problem is, you have

the most junior assistants handling over 100 cases. They are forced to accept sometimes

pleas that if they had half of the caseload we would never consider.''

Contention 2: Prison benefits

While plea-bargaining can help prosecutors catch more criminals, it also aids with

the critical problem of overcrowded prisons, by reserving jail time only for those cases

where it is truly necessary. A recent CNN article in 2009 reports Federal judges

tentatively ruled that California must reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded

prison system by up to 40 percent to stop a constitutional violation of prisoners' rights.

Implementing the court's ruling would result in up to 58,000 prisoners being released

despite their sentence, by allowing convicts that have not served their full sentence to

reintegrate into society threat to public safety. Another overcrowded prison problem can

be found in Georgia, where over 5500 state-sentenced prisoners are housed in county jails

instead of state prisons. Plea bargains can be a key tool is help relieve the load of the

overcrowded prisons across the country. Kenneth R. Tapscot, in “Plea Bargaining Pros

and Cons,” says, “In terms of jails and prisons plea-bargaining can also reduce the

amount of inmates entering the facilities as jail time may have been suspended as a

condition of a plea bargain.”