Blake Invitational 1 Kamiak nb aff

K Legalism (Hasnas)

Any possibility of progress through the rule of law invests in a myth. The law is not neutral but inherently political; acceptance of the law’s right to total abolition makes them complicit in the state’s oppression.

Hasnas ’95 John Hasnas (associate professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University). “The Myth of the Rule of Law.” Wisconsin Law Review. 1995. http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

In his novel 1984, George Orwell created a nightmare vision of the future in which an all-powerful Party exerts totalitarian control over society by forcing the citizens to master the technique of "doublethink," which requires them "to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancel out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them." (3) Orwell's doublethink is usually regarded as a wonderful literary device, but, of course, one with no referent in reality since it is obviously impossible to believe both halves of a contradiction. In my opinion, this assessment is quite mistaken. Not only is it possible for people to believe both halves of a contradiction, it is something they do every day with no apparent difficulty. Consider, for example, people's beliefs about the legal system. They are obviously aware that the law is inherently political. The common complaint that members of Congress are corrupt, or are legislating for their own political benefit or for that of special interest groups demonstrates that citizens understand that the laws under which they live are a product of political forces rather than the embodiment of the ideal of justice. Further, as evidenced by the political battles fought over the recent nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, the public obviously believes that the ideology of the people who serve as judges influences the way the law is interpreted. This, however, in no way prevents people from simultaneously regarding the law as a body of definite, politically neutral rules amenable to an impartial application which all citizens have a moral obligation to obey. Thus, they seem both surprised and dismayed to learn that the Clean Air Act might have been written, not to produce the cleanest air possible, but to favor the economic interests of the miners of dirty-burning West Virginia coal (West Virginia coincidentally being the home of Robert Byrd, who was then chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee) over those of the miners of cleaner-burning western coal. (4) And, when the Supreme Court hands down a controversial ruling on a subject such as abortion, civil rights, or capital punishment, then, like Louis in Casablanca, the public is shocked, shocked to find that the Court may have let political considerations influence its decision. The frequent condemnation of the judiciary for "undemocratic judicial activism" or "unprincipled social engineering" is merely a reflection of the public's belief that the law consists of a set of definite and consistent "neutral principles" (5) which the judge is obligated to apply in an objective manner, free from the influence of his or her personal political and moral beliefs. I believe that, much as Orwell suggested, it is the public's ability to engage in this type of doublethink, to be aware that the law is inherently political in character and yet believe it to be an objective embodiment of justice, that accounts for the amazing degree to which the federal government is able to exert its control over a supposedly free people. I would argue that this ability to maintain the belief that the law is a body of consistent, politically neutral rules that can be objectively applied by judges in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, goes a long way toward explaining citizens' acquiescence in the steady erosion of their fundamental freedoms. To show that this is, in fact, the case, I would like to direct your attention to the fiction which resides at the heart of this incongruity and allows the public to engage in the requisite doublethink without cognitive discomfort: the myth of the rule of law. I refer to the myth of the rule of law because, to the extent this phrase suggests a society in which all are governed by neutral rules that are objectively applied by judges, there is no such thing. As a myth, however, the concept of the rule of law is both powerful and dangerous. Its power derives from its great emotive appeal. The rule of law suggests an absence of arbitrariness, an absence of the worst abuses of tyranny. The image presented by the slogan "America is a government of laws and not people" is one of fair and impartial rule rather than subjugation to human whim. This is an image that can command both the allegiance and affection of the citizenry. After all, who wouldn't be in favor of the rule of law if the only alternative were arbitrary rule? But this image is also the source of the myth's danger. For if citizens really believe that they are being governed by fair and impartial rules and that the only alternative is subjection to personal rule, they will be much more likely to support the state as it progressively curtails their freedom. In this Article, I will argue that this is a false dichotomy. Specifically, I intend to establish three points: 1) there is no such thing as a government of law and not people, 2) the belief that there is serves to maintain public support for society's power structure, and 3) the establishment of a truly free society requires the abandonment of the myth of the rule of law.

Ignoring the rule of law’s violent underside fuels Eurcentric imperialism and the violence that comes with it – turns case.

Dossa 99 Shiraz, Department of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, “Liberal Legalism: Law, Culture and Identity,” The European Legacy, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 73-87,1

Law's imperial reach, it massive authority, in liberal politics is a brute, recurring fact. In Law's Empire, Dworkin attests to its scope and power with candour: "We live in and by the law. It makes us what we are" (vii). But he fails to appreciate that law equally traduces others, it systematically unmakes them. For Dworkin, a militant liberal legalist, law is the insiders' domain: legal argument has to be understood internally from the "judge's point of view"; sociological or historical readings are irrelevant and "perverse".2 Praising the decencies of liberal law is necessary in this world: rule of law, judicial integrity, fairness, justice are integral facets of tolerable human life. Lawfulness is and ought to be part of any decent regime of politics. But law's rhetoric on its own behalf systematically scants law's violent, dark underside, it skillfully masks law's commerce with destruction and death. None of this is visible from the internalist standpoint, and Dworkin's liberal apologia serves to mystify the gross reality of law's empire. In liberal political science, law's presumed, Olympian impartiality, is thus not a contested notion. Liberals still presuppose as a matter of course the juristic community's impartiality and neutrality, despite empirical evidence to the contrary.3 One consequence of the assumed sanctity of the judicial torso within the body politic, has been that law's genealogy, law's chronological disposition towards political and cultural questions, have simply not been of interest or concern to most liberal scholars. A further result of this attitude is the political science community's nearly total ignorance of liberal law's complicity in western imperialism, and in shaping western attitudes to the lands and cultures of the conquered natives. Liberal jurisprudence's subterranean life, its invidious consciousness is, however, not an archaic, intermittent annoyance as sensitive liberals are inclined to think: indeed law is as potent now as it has been in last two centuries in articulating a dismissive image of the native Other.

The alternate is embracing law’s indeterminacy. The rule of law only has coercive power when people think it objectively protects them. Objective law is a paradox with subjective application.

Hasnas 2 John Hasnas (associate professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University). “The Myth of the Rule of Law.” Wisconsin Law Review. 1995. http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

Let us assume that I have failed to convince you of the impossibility of reforming the law into a body of definite, consistent rules that produces determinate results. Even if the law could be reformed in this way, it clearly should not be. There is nothing perverse in the fact that the law is indeterminate. Society is not the victim of some nefarious conspiracy to undermine legal certainty to further ulterior motives. As long as law remains a state monopoly, as long as it is created and enforced exclusively through governmental bodies, it must remain indeterminate if it is to serve its purpose. Its indeterminacy gives the law its flexibility. And since, as a monopoly product, the law must apply to all members of society in a one-size-fits-all manner, flexibility is its most essential feature. It is certainly true that one of the purposes of law is to ensure a stable social environment, to provide order. But not just any order will suffice. Another purpose of the law must be to do justice. The goal of the law is to provide a social environment which is both orderly and just. Unfortunately, these two purposes are always in tension. For the more definite and rigidly- determined the rules of law become, the less the legal system is able to do justice to the individual. Thus, if the law were fully determinate, it would have no ability to consider the equities of the particular case.

PIC/DA Deportations / Immigration

CP: Plea bargaining ought to be abolished in all cases regarding sexual assault except for those involving deportation sentences against noncitizen defendants.

The net benefit is deportations.

Plea bargains are increasingly being used as a tool to protect immigrants from forced deportation

Morefield 17: Scott Morefield, July 8th, 2017. “To Avoid Deportation, Some Prosecutors are Offering Special Deals Available Only to Non-Citizens”. http://www.bizpacreview.com/2017/07/08/avoid-deportation-prosecutors-offering-special-deals-available-non-citizens-511419. RW

In an effort to protect immigrants who might otherwise be lawfully returned to their home countries for crimes committed in the United States, an increasing number of liberal district attorneys are fighting the law an entirely different way – by offering lesser plea deals that won’t trigger deportation proceedings. According to a Wall Street Journal report by Corrine Ramey, advocates of the practice see it as a way to protect noncitizens from the consequences of an unfair law. The rest of us, including U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, understand that the underlying result ends up treating citizens and noncitizens unequally under the law. One of the at least six East and West coast prosecutors engaged in the practice, Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez, considers himself a promoter of public safety because “I saw what were, in my opinion, many miscarriages of justice.” Gonzalez’s office has even brought on two immigration attorneys to conduct staff training on ways to lower the impact convictions have on immigration status. In Santa Clara County, District Attorney Jeff Rosen says the policy’s critics have subsided as people get used to it. For Rosen, a Haitian man convicted of possessing crack cocaine who is now unable to return to the United States serves as an inspiration. Now, instead of a criminal possession charge like a regular citizen would get, a green-card holder might plea to a lesser charge like trespassing, which wouldn’t trigger immigration actions. Jeff Sessions said of the practice: “It troubles me that we’ve seen district attorneys openly brag about not charging cases appropriately under the laws of our country, so that provides an opportunity for individuals not to be convicted of a crime that might lead to deportation.” Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton considers the policies “dangerous and potentially unconstitutional.” “You don’t give people special treatment for prosecutorial decisions based on country of origin or immigration status,” said Fitton. “The logic here is American citizens might be prosecuted more harshly for the same crimes.” Largely only practiced in key California districts, such as San Francisco, until recently, the practice has now spread to other places including Baltimore, where Attorney’s Office employees were told back in April to take immigration consequences into account when they prosecute low-level crimes which are nonviolent. Manhattan is also considering implementing the policy: “I submit today that if two New Yorkers commit the same low-level violation, and the practical consequence for one of the New Yorkers is a ticket or a couple of days in jail, while the consequence for the other New Yorker is to be taken from her family and shipped off to a foreign country, that is not equal justice under law,” argues District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. In Santa Clara County, 300 to 400 pleas or sentences are modified every year, which amounts to around 1 percent of cases. How about treating all people the same, like the Constitution says we’re supposed to do, and letting the chips fall where they may?

Trump’s deportation agenda is aggressively racist and ensures massive rights violations

Hernandez 17: Kelly Lytle Hernandez, February 26th, 2017. The Conversation. “America’s Mass Deportation System is Rooted in Racism”. https://theconversation.com/americas-mass-deportation-system-is-rooted-in-racism-73426. RW

Over time, Congress and the courts placed several limits on what is allowable in immigration control. For example, the 1965 Immigration Reform Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of “race, gender, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence.” And several court rulings have added a measure of constitutional protections to deportation proceedings and detention conditions. But, in recent weeks, Trump and his advisers have tapped into the foundational architecture of U.S. immigration control to argue that the president’s executive orders on immigration control are “unreviewable” by the courts. As Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller put it: The president’s executive powers over immigration control “will not be questioned.” On Feb. 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit turned down the administration’s “unreviewable” argument regarding the so-called Muslim ban. But Trump’s immigration enforcement order still stands. This includes a provision that subjects even those unauthorized immigrants who are simply suspected of crime to immediate removal. It also denies many of the immigrants who unlawfully cross our borders the due process protections recently added to deportation proceedings. If implemented as promised – that is, with a focus on “bad hombres” and the U.S.-Mexico border – Trump’s immigration plan will exacerbate the already disproportionate impact of U.S. immigration control on Latino immigrants, namely Mexicans and Central Americans. U.S. immigration may no longer target Chinese immigrants, but it remains one of the most highly racialized police projects within the United States. Trump’s executive orders are pulling U.S. immigration control back to its roots, absolute and racial. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit pushed back against this interpretation, affirming the reviewability of the seven-country ban. But the decisions made during the Chinese exclusion era are likely to protect many of the president’s other orders from judicial review. That is, unless we overturn the settler mentality of U.S. immigration control.

Mass deportation tanks the economy and spills over to cause global downturn

Soergel 17: Andrew Soergel, March 10th, 2017. Economy Reporter. “The Hidden Cost of Deportations”. U.S. News. https://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2017-03-10/mass-deportations-could-hurt-the-economy. RW

Though only a little more than a month into his tenure as commander-in-chief, President Donald Trump has made quick work of directives and executive orders aimed at curbing immigration into the U.S. – both legal and otherwise. Only days after being sworn in as America's 45th president, Trump signed an executive orderdesigned to "deploy all lawful means to secure the nation's southern border, to prevent further illegal immigration into the United States and to repatriate illegal aliens swiftly, consistently and humanely." READ: DHS Cites Big Drop in Illegal Migration Additional efforts to restrict travel from certain Muslim-majority countries and to rein in the issuance of H-1B visas to skilled immigrants have peppered Trump's opening days in the White House – effectively stymieing options for those entering the U.S. None of Trump's immigration actions to this point veer very far from what he promised out on the campaign trail, when he at times advocated for a complete removal of all 11 million residents believed to be living in the U.S. without legal status. The president appears to have backed off of this all-or-nothing strategy, saying in a November interview with "60 Minutes" that he hopes to "get the people that are criminal and have criminal records – gang members, drug dealers" out of the country first and to then "make a determination" on law-abiding immigrants without legal status "after the border is secure and after everything gets normalized." But he estimated he could still end up deporting between 2 million and 3 million immigrants – a move that would not be insignificant to the U.S. labor market. For comparison's sake, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement estimates it deported a little more than 240,000 people in fiscal year 2016. Over the past eight fiscal years, ICE estimates fewer than 2,750,000 people were deported. "The rhetoric suggests a deportation uptick. … I don't think we're going to be talking about mass deportations, but the momentum will likely shift over time," says Andrew Selee, executive vice president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "Clearly, they will get somewhere by simply increasing the discretion that officers have to arrest people, to detain people. They should be able to increase the number somewhat." But Selee questioned Trump's 2 million to 3 million benchmark, noting the numbers appears to have come from a 2013 Department of Homeland Security report indicating there were "1.9 million removable criminal aliens … in the United States today." That tally includes green card holders and those who are in the country both legally and illegally. Selee notes that Trump "can deport people of legal residency who commit criminal offenses." But "if you're talking about just going after unauthorized, you're talking about 800,000" people, he said. And if you're looking to specifically target those without legal status who have committed felonies – the "bad dudes" Trump has railed against – the number to be deported is believed to be just 300,000, according to the Migration Policy Institute. "I think there's an actual limit to the number of people who can be deported over time, because there aren't enough agents and there aren't enough immigration judges," Selee says. "The reality is that once you take out immigration specific offenses, immigrants commit many fewer crimes, obviously, because these are often people who don't want to draw attention to themselves." But estimates of the immediate economic impact of deportation upticks vary. The Center for American Progress estimates "a policy of mass deportation would immediately reduce the nation's GDP by 1.4 percent, and ultimately by 2.6 percent, and reduce cumulative GDP over 10 years by $4.7 trillion." OPINION: Donald Trump's Global War on Tourism Still, workers who are in the country without legal status are unevenly spread across occupations, with the group representing 26 percent of farming labor and another 15 percent of construction workers, according to Pew. Considering agriculture products serve as significant exports for the U.S. economy and homebuilding and road and bridge repair depend on construction worker availability, both industries are expected to suffer in the event of widespread deportation. "The situation with our labor continues to get worse because of the slowdown in foreign workers coming over here to work in the United States," says Tom Nassif, the president and CEO of Western Growers farming advocacy group who briefly served in an advisory capacity to Trump during campaign season. "We're hoping that agriculture is a low priority when it comes to enforcement and when it comes to the immigration laws." Indeed, Pew estimates there are slightly more than 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status. That's down from the 2007 peak of 12.2 million, driven primarily by a drop in such immigrants from Mexico. In 2014, Pew estimates there were 5.8 million Mexicans in the U.S. without legal status. Back in 2009, that number was 6.4 million. "We've already seen a wave of Mexicans coming back to Mexico. Not as many Central Americans yet, but Mexicans started coming back about 10 years ago to Mexico, mostly voluntarily," Selee says. "They felt the Mexican economy was doing better." And with fewer immigrants coming into the U.S. to work fields, Nassif says "we're basically exporting agriculture jobs, because we don't have a sufficient labor supply." "Believe me, those people who've been working for us have been invaluable for us to harvest our crops," Nassif says. "If you shut down our ability to harvest our crops, you send more and more of our jobs to other countries. And that's something I don't think the president wants to see happen." Nassif says he spoke briefly with then-candidate Trump back in 2016 and discussed, among other things, "what do you do with those who are here illegally." "Even though they pay state and federal taxes and pay into Social Security, which they'll never see, there has to be a penalty. That can be a number of things. It could be a probationary period. It could be a fine," he says, though he noted that straight deportation was not a desirable outcome for the agriculture industry. Meanwhile, Julie Taylor, the executive director of the National Farm Worker Ministry, says more readily available H-2A visas and possible paths to citizenship for law-abiding immigrants would go a long way toward helping agriculture workers who she says have at times been taken advantage of with threats of deportation. "In some ways, employers have relied on what's been cheap labor for them, and in some cases they have exploited those individuals with issues of wage theft and stuff like that with the threat of deportation," she says. "But now, when it seems like perhaps they won't have the human power to bring in their crops, they're concerned about it. There's a little bit of a dichotomy there." But Taylor and Nassif note the contribuions of immigrants in the country without legal status extend beyond the agriculture sphere. The Social Security Administration. for example, estimated in 2010 that these immigrants and their employers paid $12 billion into the trust funds that finance the Social Security system. "Thus, our projections suggest that the presence of unauthorized workers in the United States has, on average, a positive effect on the financial status of the Social Security program," the report said. A separate report from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, however, estimated "illegal aliens pay in about $7 billion per year into the Social Security Trust Fund." That same study projected immigrants without legal status were ultimately a net drain on government resources and that their presence in the U.S. costs federal, state and local governments $113 billion each year. Still, deportation efforts don't come free of charge. The American Action Forum in 2015 estimated the federal government "would have to spend roughly $400 billion to $600 billion to address the 11.2 million undocumented immigrants and prevent future unlawful entry into the United States." Deportation costs alone were estimated to cost between $103.9 billion and $303.7 billion. Selee also says the U.S. would lose out on "micro-businesses" and small business start-ups often founded by immigrants if deportation efforts increase significantly. "There are a lot of people who move into entrepreneurial niches in the American economy who might not have done so in Mexico or Central America," Selee says. "It doesn't mean that everyone's starting Google. A lot of people, including people who can't work legally, are starting their own little micro shops. It's the whole range." And although he says it's often looked over, Selee notes more aggressive deportation efforts would throw an influx of potential workers into already stressed economies in Mexico and Central America – potentially exacerbating downturns abroad. "There's a lot of fear in Mexico and Central America about labor markets that are already pressured having more people looking for work. There's a lot of concern about students coming in who need places at universities," Selee says. "There's a lot of fear about how increased deportations to Mexico and Central America would disrupt the economy and impact the school system."

Decline causes Trump diversionary war

Foster 16: Dennis M. Foster, Washington Post. December 19th, 2016. “Would President Trump Go to War to Divert Attention From Problems At Home?” http://inhomelandsecurity.com/would-president-trump-go-to-war-to-divert-attention-from-problems-at-home/. RW

If the U.S. economy tanks, should we expect Donald Trump to engage in a diversionary war? Since the age of Machiavelli, analysts have expected world leaders to launch international conflicts to deflect popular attention away from problems at home. By stirring up feelings of patriotism, leaders might escape the political costs of scandal, unpopularity — or a poorly performing economy. One often-cited example of diversionary war in modern times is Argentina’s 1982 invasion of the Falklands, which several (though not all) political scientists attribute to the junta’s desire to divert the people’s attention from a disastrous economy. In a 2014 article, Jonathan Keller and I argued that whether U.S. presidents engage in diversionary conflicts depends in part on their psychological traits — how they frame the world, process information and develop plans of action. Certain traits predispose leaders to more belligerent behavior. Do words translate into foreign policy action? One way to identify these traits is content analyses of leaders’ rhetoric. The more leaders use certain types of verbal constructs, the more likely they are to possess traits that lead them to use military force. For one, conceptually simplistic leaders view the world in “black and white” terms; they develop unsophisticated solutions to problems and are largely insensitive to risks. Similarly, distrustful leaders tend to exaggerate threats and rely on aggression to deal with threats. Distrustful leaders typically favor military action and are confident in their ability to wield it effectively. Thus, when faced with politically damaging problems that are hard to solve — such as a faltering economy — leaders who are both distrustful and simplistic are less likely to put together complex, direct responses. Instead, they develop simplistic but risky “solutions” that divert popular attention from the problem, utilizing the tools with which they are most comfortable and confident (military force). Based on our analysis of the rhetoric of previous U.S. presidents, we found that presidents whose language appeared more simplistic and distrustful, such as Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and George W. Bush, were more likely to use force abroad in times of rising inflation and unemployment. By contrast, John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, whose rhetoric pegged them as more complex and trusting, were less likely to do so. What about Donald Trump? Since Donald Trump’s election, many commentators have expressed concern about how he will react to new challenges and whether he might make quick recourse to military action. For example, the Guardian’s George Monbiot has argued that political realities will stymie Trump’s agenda, especially his promises regarding the economy. Then, rather than risk disappointing his base, Trump might try to rally public opinion to his side via military action. I sampled Trump’s campaign rhetoric, analyzing 71,446 words across 24 events from January 2015 to December 2016. Using a program for measuring leadership traits in rhetoric, I estimated what Trump’s words may tell us about his level of distrust and conceptual complexity. The graph below shows Trump’s level of distrust compared to previous presidents. As a candidate, Trump also scored second-lowest among presidents in conceptual complexity. Compared to earlier presidents, he used more words and phrases that indicate less willingness to see multiple dimensions or ambiguities in the decision-making environment. These include words and phrases like “absolutely,” “greatest” and “without a doubt.” A possible implication for military action I took these data on Trump and plugged them into the statistical model that we developed to predict major uses of force by the United States from 1953 to 2000. For a president of average distrust and conceptual complexity, an economic downturn only weakly predicts an increase in the use of force. But the model would predict that a president with Trump’s numbers would respond to even a minor economic downturn with an increase in the use of force. For example, were the misery index (aggregate inflation and unemployment) equal to 12 — about where it stood in October 2011 — the model predicts a president with Trump’s psychological traits would initiate more than one major conflict per quarter. Of course, predictions from such a model come with a lot of uncertainty. By necessity, any measures of a president’s traits are imperfect. And we do not know whether there will be an economic downturn. Moreover, campaigning is not governing, and the responsibilities of the Oval Office might moderate Donald Trump. The psychologist Philip Tetlock has found that presidents often become more conceptually complex once they enter office. Nevertheless, this analysis suggests some cause for concern about the international ramifications of an economic downturn with a President Trump in the White House.

DA Court Clog (Food Shortage !)

AFf leads to mass court clog

Go to Trial: Crash the Justice System

By MICHELLE ALEXANDER MARCH 10, 2012

If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Not everyone would have to join for the revolt to have an impact; as the legal scholar Angela J. Davis noted, “if the number of people exercising their trial rights suddenly doubled or tripled in some jurisdictions, it would create chaos.”

Such chaos would force mass incarceration to the top of the agenda for politicians and policy makers, leaving them only two viable options: sharply scale back the number of criminal cases filed (for drug possession, for example) or amend the Constitution (or eviscerate it by judicial “emergency” fiat). Either action would create a crisis and the system would crash — it could no longer function as it had before. Mass protest would force a public conversation that, to date, we have been content to avoid.

DA is also unique - courts aren’t clogged now

Bates 15 (John, United States District Judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, “Annual Report 2014,” USCourts.gov, http://www.uscourts.gov/statistics-reports/annual-report-2014

Judge John D. Bates. It was a great privilege to be only the second judge to serve as Director in the 75-year history of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO). As of January 2015, I relinquished my duties as Director to take on additional judicial duties at my court, the District Court for the District of Columbia. I return better informed about judicial administration and with a renewed appreciation for the excellence that exists in both the AO and the courts. I am grateful to the Chief Justice for placing his confidence in me, and I greatly appreciate the tremendous support I received from judges, and from court and AO staff. It may seem trite to say that I am proud of our success in keeping courthouse doors open and cases moving. However, it took great coordination and planning to begin the recovery from the severe funding reductions we endured during sequestration. In many ways, this rebuilding process was our greatest accomplishment in 2014. We were exceedingly fortunate that, when a funding bill finally was enacted, Congressional appropriators treated the Third Branch as a priority in both Fiscal Years 2014 and 2015. I believe that our cost containment efforts continue to demonstrate that we are serious about using taxpayer money prudently. We also have in place numerous broad accountability controls, ranging from audits and program reviews to required stewardship training for senior AO and court managers. Our strong commitment to the highest fiscal and ethical standards helps assure that the limited resources available are carefully managed and properly spent. Much of our cost-saving focus has been on court space. We have scoured our rent bills; courts have developed space management and reduction plans; and our integrated workplace initiative will enable courts to use space in a flexible and efficient manner. We also are reexamining staffing formulas, using less costly and easier ways to reach prospective jurors, and replacing our aging legacy accounting system with a new, centralized financial management system. As Director, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in conferences, advisory councils, workshops and other meetings involving judges and court staff from across the country. While I delivered news from Washington and the Administrative Office, I also absorbed a tremendous amount by listening and observing our courts in action. I learned that we are uniquely skilled problem solvers on both a local and national level. As one example, the District of Nevada developed an automated system for processing and managing vouchers submitted by lawyers appointed to represent indigents under the Criminal Justice Act. Through a collaborative effort, the system, known as eVoucher, is being adopted for national use and shared with courts throughout the country. On a broader scale, the national roll out of the Next Generation of our Case Management/Electronic Case Files System has begun in the courts of appeals. It will increase chambers’ and clerks’ office efficiency and, when fully implemented, will provide for a single sign-on for public users. Testing in district and bankruptcy courts will begin in 2015. The strength of the federal Judiciary lies in our ability to work together to confront the challenges that come our way. While I will remain a committed member of that team, it was a unique honor to serve in a leadership position as Director. The AO plays a central role in helping courts function smoothly. I benefitted greatly from Judge Tom Hogan’s fine work before me. I am also proud of what we have accomplished and know that Director Jim Duff, with his accomplished leadership skills, will continue the tradition of excellent public service.

Court clog undermines the ability to make effective and predictable intellectual property rights decisions – that ultimately hurts technological investments due to business uncertainty since no investor is going to allocate funds to an unpatented good.

Michael K. Kirk ‘6 (), 3-24-2006, American Intellectual Property Law Association, http://www.aipla.org/Advocacy20Shared20Documents/TES_2006-03-24_109C_ImmigrationBill-Specter-Kirk.pdf AHS-DM, 10-13-2016

I am writing to you on behalf of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) regarding the pending immigration reform legislation that would transfer jurisdiction over immigration appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. We believe that such broadening of the Federal Circuit’s jurisdiction would seriously hinder the court’s ability to render high quality, timely decisions on patent appeals from district courts, and patent and trademark appeals from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. This runs directly counter to the present efforts of Congress to otherwise reform and improve this nation’s patent system. We take no position on other specific elements of the legislation or on the underlying need for immigration reform. Our concern focuses solely on the proposed shift in appellate jurisdiction, which we believe will do more harm than good. AIPLA is a national bar association whose approximately 16,000 members are primarily lawyers in private and corporate practice, in government service, and in the academic community. AIPLA represents a wide and diverse spectrum of individuals, companies, and institutions involved directly or indirectly in the practice of patent, trademark, copyright, and unfair competition law, as well as other fields of law affecting intellectual property. Our members represent both owners and users of intellectual property, and have a keen interest in an efficient federal judicial system. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit was established in 1982 after more than a decade of deliberate study and Congressional consideration. The Hruska Commission (chaired by Senator Roman Hruska) conducted a study lasting nearly three years before recommending to Congress the establishment of a national appeals court to consider patent cases. It took two Administrations, several Congresses, and a number of hearings in both the House and Senate before legislation establishing the Federal Circuit was finally enacted. Over the past 26 years the Court, through its thoughtful and deliberate opinions, has made great progress in providing stability and consistency in the patent law. Removing immigration appeals from the general jurisdiction of the twelve regional Courts of Appeals and centralizing it in the Federal Circuit is an enormous change. Leaving aside the impact, both pro and con, on the affected litigants, the Federal Circuit is simply not equipped to undertake the more than 12,000 requests for review of deportation orders that twelve courts now share each year. The Federal Circuit currently has no expertise or experience in the field of immigration law. While the legislation envisions adding three judges to the twelve currently on 2 the Court, we have serious concerns whether this increase will be adequate. Judge Posner has calculated that, even with the three additional judges proposed in the legislation, each of the fifteen Federal Circuit judges would be responsible for about 820 immigration cases per year, on the average—an incredibly large number that we believe will have a significant adverse impact on the remainder of the court’s docket. It seems inevitable that the proposed legislation will have a dramatic, negative impact on Federal Circuit decisions in patent cases and appeals from the USPTO. Such an increased caseload will necessarily delay decisions in these appeals, which in turn will cause uncertainty over patent and trademark rights and interfere with business investments in technological innovation. Beyond mere delay, the Federal Circuit's ability to issue consistent, predictable opinions in patent cases will be complicated by an increase in the number of judges. If conflicts in panel opinions increase, the inefficient and often contentious en banc process will have to be used more often, further adding to the overall burden on the court. Business can effectively deal with decisions, positive or negative, but it cannot deal with protracted uncertainty caused by inconsistent opinions or long delays in judicial review. Demand for reform of the patent system has been the topic of considerable public debate of late. Congress held extensive hearings on this subject last year, and more are scheduled in coming weeks. The House is currently considering legislation that would dramatically change the patent statute, and we understand that patent reform legislation may soon be introduced in the Senate as well. It would be unfortunate for Congress to inadvertently compound the challenges facing the patent system by weakening the ability of the Federal Circuit to give timely and consistent consideration to patent cases.

Effective intellectual property rights enforcement is key to agricultural biotech since it provides an incentive to private corporations to create agricultural inventions.

David L. Richer 2k (), 2000, "Agricultural Biotechnology and the Poor: SECTION NINE: PROTECTING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS: Intellectual Property Protection: Who Needs It?," No Publication, http://collections.infocollections.org/ukedu/en/d/Jh2176e/11.1.html AHS-DM, 10-13-2016

Intellectual Property Protection: Who Needs It? - David L Richer The world is faced with an unprecedented explosion in technology. Not all of this is universally welcomed - the irritation of mobile telephones on public transport comes immediately to mind - but the new technologies affect every area of our lives. Nowhere is this more true than in agriculture. Changes in farming proceeded slowly but steadily for thousands of years, but accelerated during the last two centuries as scientists and other observers came to understand the farming process, the need for particular nutrients and rotations, and the nature of pests and diseases. Further acceleration followed after the 1950s with increased mechanization and the introduction of effective pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. Biotechnology has accelerated the pace of change once again throughout the 1990s. Biotechnology provides a major opportunity to meet the nutritional needs of an expanding world population, with finite land resources. It offers a new approach to the control of pests and diseases, it will provide crops of improved nutritional quality; and it will bring about increased yields. Biotechnology is unlikely to be a complete solution to our agricultural problems, but it will play a key role in a sustainable agriculture that also uses integrated pest management and plant breeding techniques. That is the expectation in industrial countries, but it is only a hope for many others. There is a pressing need for the agricultural revolution to spread throughout the world, but to achieve it, we must provide an incentive to the innovators and owners of the new crop production technologies to share them. There are many forms of encouragement - from argument to finance - and one of these is the subject of this paper. The process of technology exchange will be encouraged and facilitated by a strengthening of intellectual property laws, especially those of the developing countries. Unfortunately, like modern biotechnology, intellectual property rights (IPR) are controversial and often misunderstood. This paper addresses some of these misunderstandings, and indicates how strengthening intellectual property rights will enable farmers throughout the world to receive the latest developments in crop production. Intellectual Property Intellectual property is a broad term used to cover patents, designs, trademarks, plant breeders’ rights, copyright, and trade secrets. All of these have a part to play in the development and commercialization of plant production products. However, the three most important IPRs in this context are patents, plant breeders’ rights, and trade secrets. None of these creates as much argument as patents. A patent is a monopoly of limited scope, granted to the owner of an invention, for a limited period of up to 20 years. It is a right that is effective only in the country that grants the patent. While it is in force, a patent enables the owner to exclude others from using the invention commercially in that country. A patent provides the innovator with a limited period within which he/she has the opportunity to recoup his/her investment in the research and development (RandD) of the invention. In return, the inventor discloses the invention to the public, and that disclosure enables other scientists and interested parties to use the invention in their own research. In due course, that research may lead to further innovation, and society will benefit. It is no coincidence that those countries with strong research-based industries are also those countries with strong intellectual property laws. IPR is national in character, and like other national laws they vary from country to country. Attempts to bring some harmonization into this area have succeeded in the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, generally referred to as TRIPs. TRIPs, which entered into force in 1995, applies to all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO). TRIPs, however, is not a complete remedy for inadequate laws since it lays down only minimum levels of protection, rather than providing for the optimum. Nevertheless these levels are important, none more so than the basis for a patent set out in Article 27. Article 27 provides that patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step, and are capable of industrial application. Patent rights are of little use if they cannot be enforced, and TRIPs also provides that member countries shall ensure that enforcement procedures are available under national law, so as to permit effective action against any act of infringement of an IPR. Enforcement is a particular concern in the field of biotechnology, where the capability of biological materials carrying genetic information to self-reproduce makes the copying of an invention and the infringement of patent rights is all too easy. The implementation of TRIPs will undoubtedly strengthen IPR in many parts of the world, but implementation is unlikely in the short term. Developing countries are permitted a transitional period, until 2005, within which to bring their intellectual property laws into compliance with the minimum standards laid down in TRIPs. Unfortunately, many developing countries lack the means rather than the will to take the necessary steps. Objectives of IP Laws The objectives of intellectual property law are stated succinctly in TRIPs: The protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology. It is useful to consider these two aspects separately. Promotion of Technological Innovation The cost of developing a new plant protection chemical is over US$150 million; the cost of developing a new transgenic plant commercially is comparable. The investment in RandD must be recovered, and the monopoly period - provided first by patents and second by protection of the confidential data supplied in regulatory packages - is essential to provide the innovator with sufficient time and opportunity to make that recovery. Without IP protection, research-based companies would be unable to bear the risk of the major investment in RandD required to bring those technologies to the market. The incentive effect of patents for developing countries is sometimes questioned on the grounds that these countries have little private sector research, and may produce few inventions. It is certainly true that inventors in those countries file few patents domestically or abroad, but without adequate IPRs, there is little incentive for local companies to set up their own research departments, nor for foreign companies to bring their technology and their research capabilities to the countries. It is left to the public sector to be the major fund provider of this research. That funding is vital, but it is not sufficient.

Biotechnology is key to the development of third-world nations and solves food shortages that disproportionately affect minorities populations.

Mary Lynne Kupchella ‘1, Agricultural Biotechnology: Why it Can Save the Environment and Developing Nations, But May Never Get a Chance, 25 William and Mary Environemntal Law and Policy Review. 721, http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1215andcontext=wmelpr

A danger exists that ongoing disputes over biotechnology issues will so polarize the interested countries that it will become impossible for developing countries to gain anything from the technology. These nations are most needy of the genetically engineered products produced by both America and multi-national countries, and developed nations need biodiversity to be preserved. If developing nations are to preserve genetic resources, they must have an incentive for doing so. The developed nations have the means to provide such an incentive. As an increasing number of developing countries are investing resources in biotech research, it is most important to create conditions which will enable them to take full advantage of their opportunities.20 9 Many sources of funding exist for biotechnology programs in developing nations.21 0 Such relationships must be encouraged and more funding provided.2 1 ' GMOs provide much hope for the problems faced by the third-world nations. They will boost nutritional value of crops, reduce the need for pesticides, reduce the need to till soil, improve yields, and increase drought resistance of plants. Concerns continue however that developing countries will be denied free access to modified plants. Only if a worldwide agreement is reached, will biotechnology realize its full potential. The benefits of agricultural biotechnology are quite impressive. This new technology, like any other, does have risks, but the bulk of fears are fears of the unknown. Careful, but not oppressive, monitoring by regulatory agencies with the cooperation of the companies producing the seeds and the farmers planting them, will keep the known risks from becoming problems. The EU particularly needs to change its regulatory policies and recognize the benefits of agricultural biotechnology. While the Biodiversity Convention has an important goal, its objectives are not likely to be met in the manner desired by the text. Its potential erosion of the intellectual property rights, which the United States particularly sees as fundamental, will be the cause. The developed countries do need to give back to those nations from which they take genetic resources. However, such reimbursement can occur in ways other than property rights; U.S. companies have already shown that such means do exist. Biotechnology is not the panacea, but it is perhaps the best tool that is available today. It can aid third-world nations, preserve biodiversity, and increase the food supply for the developed nations. As the world population increases, biotechnology provides the only current answer to solving food shortages. If the EU and other nations of the world do not embrace this technology, they will not be able to feed themselves one day. The unwarranted opposition to GMOs by the EU, and most recently by Japan, because of their trading relationship with the United States, threatens the existence of GMOs on a global scale. If import restrictions become severe and/or widespread, the United States will be prohibited from growing genetically modified crops. If the United States is not growing these crops, U.S. biotech companies will have no incentive to continue researching and developing GMOs. The outcome of this chain of events will be that the developing nations will be denied the great benefits of genetically altered crops.

NC Util

The standard is maximizing expected well being. Prefer - ethical frameworks must be theoretically legitimate. Any standard is an interpretation of the word ought-thus framework is functionally a topicality argument about how to define the terms of the resolution. My framework interprets ought as maximizing happiness. Prefer this definition:

A Ground: Both debaters are guaranteed access to ground to engage under util – ie Aff gets plans and advantages, while Neg gets disads and counterplans. Additionally, anything can function as a util impact as long as an external benefit is articulated, so all your offense applies. Other frameworks deny 1 side the ability to engage the other on both the impact level and the link level. Under util, both sides have access to defense and turn ground, so it’s the most fair.

B Topic Education – Util forces debates about what actually happens in the real world because we have to use empirics and analyze the consequences of the plan versus neg advocacy. This increases topic education because it forces research on the effects of the resolution and thus learn more about the topic. Topic education is key to education because we use it in the real-world to talk about current topics. Outweighs phi led on reversibility: we can learn about Kant on other topics or at camp but topical debate only happens now.

T Topic

A. Interpretation the aff must defend complete abolition of plea bargaining in the United States.

B. Violation you do X

C. Standards

A) Textuality – abolition implies completely get rid of

Abolish defined by Miriam Webster –

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abolish

to completely do away with (something)

Prefer the definition

1) Common usage when people say abolish means rid of completely

2) Topic lit – almost all topic lit is based on idea of previous complete bans on plea bargaining

3) Fairness first on definition debate judge votes for better debater means education reasons to prefer your interpretation don’t matter

Branse 15, David, 2015, The Role of the Judge, http://nsdupdate.com/2015/09/04/the-role-of-the-judge-by-david-branse-part-one/

My ultimate view is that the role of the judge and ballot is to vote for the debater who best defends the truth or falsity of the resolution. The aff burden is to prove the resolution true; the neg’s burden is to prove it false. This certainly doesn’t forbid judges from voting on education voters in theory shells or K roles of the ballot. The judge can still be tab. I argue just that the right answer to the question “should the judge vote on education impacts?” is no. Debaters can certainly be winning the opposite though.¶ My claim is that the judge does not have the jurisdiction to reject an argument proving the truth of the resolution for its lack of critical education nor to prioritize a set of arguments for their educational value. I will refer to this as the truth-testing paradigm.¶ The judge is given one explicit obligation: vote for the better debater (or, on some ballots, the “winner”). This article tries to establish what that means.¶ 2) Establishing the Importance of Rules¶ To determine who is better at something requires normative assessments about the rules of the activity – the winner of a competitive activity is the one who follows the rules and procedures to victory. The better soccer team is the team that scores more goals according to the rules of soccer and the better chess player is the person who achieves checkmate by moving their pieces in accordance with the rules of chess. Any competitive activity’s evaluation of the “better participant” is constrained by the rules that govern the activity.¶ The constraining role of an activity’s rules can answer a couple of common claims for education’s value and the judge as an educator.¶ First, a common reason to view education as “a voter” is a combination of the following:¶ Argument 1: A) education is valuable, and B) debate is a unique space to provide that education.¶ To see how this claim is mistaken consider the follow example:¶ It seems apparent that two claims are true: 1) exercise is valuable, and 2) soccer is an activity structured in such a way that can easily facilitate exercise. This, however, does not seem to be a strong enough reason to make the claim that: “the referee should be a facilitator of exercise”. Intuitively, if one team scored more goals than another team that happened to hustle far more, the proper response is to reward the goal-scoring team the win. There doesn’t seem to be a compelling reason to promote exercise just because exercise can easily be promoted.¶ This is because pragmatic benefits are constrained by the rules of the activity. Exercise or education should not be promoted at the expense of the rules since the rules are what define the activity. LD is only LD because of the rules governing it – if we changed the activity to promoting practical values, then it would cease to be what it is. As soon as if referees reward teams that hustle more with the win, the game is no longer soccer, but some new sport that rewards hustle rather than goal scoring.¶ At best, the claim in Argument 1 merely justifies why the rules of debate should change; however, that does not bear any claim to who should win a round.¶ A much stronger claim made for education is as follows:¶ Argument 2: Debate was designed to be educational¶ At first glance, this argument seems intuitive. If debate was designed to be educational, then surely our rules should just be to promote that educational objective. This, however, incorrectly understands the nature of activities. Once again, an example will help illustrate this problem:¶ Although the rules of chess were probably designed to provide an intellectually stimulating game (and for the sake of argument, let’s assume they were), this does not tell you how to play the game. Imagine that a player makes an illegal move and argues that it should be allowed because it will make the resulting position more intellectually challenging. The proper response is to forbid it. Internal rules of an activity are absolute. From the perspective of the players, the authority of the rules are non-optional. The argument the player made could only be a reason to reform the rules outside the round.1¶ Even if debate was designed to be educational, if the rules of debate don’t mandate voting on education, then the judge does not have the jurisdiction to do it. In fact, rules probably shouldn’t exclusively actualize the reason for their instantiation. If chess rules said, “be intellectually stimulating” instead of “move pieces certain ways”, the resulting game would end up being less intellectually stimulating. In the same way, if debate should be educational, a rule of “promoting (or voting on) education” is probably counter-productive. The process of saying something is educational so we should be bound to talking about it limits the range of arguments available. Education arises after the fact: the process itself provides education; we receive value from truth testing. I will elaborate on this argument in more detail in later sections.¶ Thus, from an internal perspective – the perspective of an agent involved in the activity – rules are more important than the purpose of creating the rules in the first place. Within the debate, the judge is bound by the established rules. If the rules are failing their function, that can be a reason to change the rules outside of the round. However, in round acts are out of the judge’s jurisdiction.¶ In fact, I also disagree with Argument 2 since debate was probably created just as a competitive activity. Soccer provides exercise, but schools fund it simply because it is a fun, competitive activity. I view debate in a similar way. This, however, is not relevant to my final argument.¶ 3) The Rules of the Game¶ With the importance of rules established, the question arises: what are the rules of the game?¶ There are of course no natural rules of debate. There is nothing analytically contained within the concept of debate that dictates that certain specific rules must be attached to the activity. There are, however, rules that we have chosen in setting up this debate activity in particular ways. These rules – however arbitrary – govern debate.¶ There are three features of debate that I think are truly constitutive of our current model of debate – three features that define the fundamental rules we have chosen for Lincoln-Douglas Debate.¶ Speech times¶ A resolution¶ An “affirmative” and a “negative”¶ I think these rules (rules 2 and 3 specifically) make the case for the judge’s decision calculus being “truth testing” rather than “educational value”.¶ First, the resolution delineates a topic for discussion. A truth-testing model coheres with this view of a resolution: the resolution is the rule that sets the grounds for the adjudication of truth and falsity claims. In contrast, educational claims seem unable to explain this feature of debate.¶ Of course, advocates of education could claim that the resolution is a starting point for critical discussion. This, I think, does not go far enough. The role of the judge as an educator seems to regard the resolution as merely a helpful tool not a constitutive feature. If the educational potential of the round could be improved by shifting away from the resolution, the education view would say to shift away. The role of the judge as an educator renders evaluative words like ought and justice irrelevant. In fact, education could potentially dictate disregarding the resolution all together (anything is possible when the round is guided by a practical consideration); however, everybody believes that the resolution is at least significant for the debate. The resolution, in fact, offers one of the only constitutive guidelines for debate. Most tournament invitations put a sentence in the rules along the lines of, “we will be using X Resolution.” Thus, discussion confined to the resolution is non-optional.¶ I don’t believe that this is the strongest argument in favor of the truth-testing model, but I think it does offer at least a persuasive reason to adopt it. Common usage seems at least a reason to err on the side of truth testing when viewing what debate means; however, I think the second argument is much more compelling.

2 ground

3 clash

Theory Disclose New Plans

Interpretation: If the affirmative parametricizes the resolution, then they must disclose the plan text and solvency advocate of the aff they are reading on the NDCA case wiki at the release of pairings.

Limits

Arg quality

Theory Disclosure

Interpretation: All all TOC bid-distributing tournaments, debaters must disclose all broken positions on the NDCA LD wiki. The disclosure must include tags, complete citations, and the full text from each piece of evidence. The disclosure must occur within 30 minutes of the round.

Violation – you do not disclose full text

Net Benefits:

1 Accessibility: There is a section of literature base and evidence that is blanketed by paywalls and online protections: things like Heinonline and JSTOR make it so that only certain debaters can access some articles. Full text disclosure means that even in the face of inaccessible evidence, debaters can still understand the crux of the arguments that are being detailed that a first three last three disclosure can never allow. Accessibility is an independent voter: we cannot have any debate without the ability to participate.

2 Research Burdens: The more disclosure happens the better – the more access we have to opponent cases, the more motivated we will be to read, learn and block out.

Nails 13 A Defense of Disclosure (Including Third-Party Disclosure) by Jacob Nails NSD, Update October 10, 2013

In theory, the increased quality of information could trade off with quantity. If debaters could just look to the wiki for evidence, it might remove the competitive incentive to do one’s own research. Empirically, however, the opposite has been true. In fact, a second advantage of disclosure is that it motivates research. Debaters cannot expect to make it a whole topic with the same stock AC – that is, unless they are continually updating and frontlining it. Likewise, debaters with access to their opponents’ cases can do more targeted and specific research. Students can go to a new level of depth, researching not just the pros and cons of the topic but the specific authors, arguments, and adovcacies employed by other debaters. The incentive to cut author-specific indicts is low if there’s little guarantee that the author will ever be cited in a round but high if one knows that specific schools are using that author in rounds. In this way, disclosure increases incentive to research by altering a student’s cost-benefit analysis so that the time spent researching is more valuable, i.e. more likely to produce useful evidence because it is more directed. In any case, if publicly accessible evidence jeopardized research, backfiles and briefs would have done LD in a long time ago..

3 Reciprocity: I disclose full-text and you don’t, which automatically gives you a structural prep advantage over me since you have to spend less time before the round hunting through articles and recutting ev to figure out my positions. This outweighs—a) every reason disclosure is good is an advantage for them and not me, b) view their counter-interp with a grain of salt since it’s self-serving. Reciprocity key to fairness—ensures equal access to the ballot.