Topic Analysis - Jan/Feb LD Plea Bargaining

By: Alexandra Mork

Introduction

The new LD topic for September and October is… Resolved: Plea bargaining ought to be abolished in the United States criminal justice system.

In terms of definitions, the largest area of contestation will probably be the word “abolished." Many definitions in the literature, including from court rulings, argue that the word “abolish” means to completely ban (rather than to ban only a subset of). Affirmatives that specify only abolishing certain forms of plea bargaining will have to address this. Affs that want to defend a subset should argue that the term of art "plea bargaining" allows for parametricizing.  

AFF Ideas 

In terms of philosophy affs, coercion arguments could be a good choice because defendants are often manipulated into taking plea deals out of fear. Another phil aff could be centered on rights by arguing that people should only be punished if they actually committed a crime, and pleas incentivize innocent defendants to take a good deal.

In terms of policy affs, public trust may be a popular choice because the secrecy surrounding plea bargains decreases trust in the criminal justice system, which has a variety of impacts. These affs can have a variety of different impact scenarios, allowing greater flexibility. 

There is also a lot of ground for soft-left affs. For example, affirmatives could argue that prosecutorial discretion lowers the bar for proof, resulting in mass incarceration, which disproportionately impacts people of color. Similarly, biopower affirmatives may argue that plea bargaining allows the prosecutor to use transparency and deliberation only when they see fit, which incentivizes massive state control.

NEG Ideas

In terms of phil NCs, one route may be to argue that abolishing plea bargaining destroys the autonomy of the defendant by prohibiting them from pursuing their ends as they see fit. 

In terms of policy arguments, negs could read a court clog disad because without pleas, many more cases would go to trial. Alternatively, because many states have empirically passed laws regarding plea bargaining, a popular negative strategy may be to read a 50 states counterplan with a politics disad.

Debaters may also read critiques of the criminal justice system, arguing that any attempt to reform an empirically racist system only serves to empower it.

A lot of the best neg ground will be reactive to the particular aff plan and subject area. So, when prepping debaters should anticipate common affirmatives and craft case negs based on those.