Ryan Protter

Mr. Bathke
Lincoln Douglas Debate: January February resolution
January 14, 2011
Aff case 1: The Harm Principle
Resolved: In the United States, juveniles charged with
violent felonies ought to be treated as adults in the
criminal justice system. I affirm.
The resolution dictates either discourse ought to be done.
Ought is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as
“expressing a moral imperative.” Hence my value is
morality.
To evaluate morality effectively, we need an appropriate
moral system. I contend a moral desert system is the only
appropriate moral system for three reasons.
1. It gives morality meaning. James Rachels 1 explains
“Morality includes (some would say it consists in) how we choose to treat
other people in our myriad interactions with them. But if
reciprocity could not be expected, the morality of
treating others well would come to occupy a less
important place in people’s lives. In a system that
respects deserts, someone who treats others well may
expect to be treated well in return, while someone who
treats others badly cannot. If this aspect of moral
life were eliminated, morality would have no reward,
and immorality would have no bad consequences; so
there would be less reason for one to be concerned
with it . If people were perfectly benevolent, of course, such incentives would not be needed. But for
imperfectly benevolent beings such as ourselves the
acknowledgment of deserts provides the reason for
being moral that is required for the whole system to
be effective.” Moral desert in an evaluation of
morality is required, because morality carries no
reward and is meaningless without it.

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Ryan Protter
Mr. Bathke
Lincoln Douglas Debate: January February resolution
January 14, 2011
Aff case 1: The Harm Principle
2. It grants people the power to determine their ends.
Rachels 2 continues, “Acknowledging deserts is a way
of granting people the power to determine their own
fortunes. Because we live together in mutually
cooperative societies, how each of us fares depends
not only on what we do but on what others do as well.
If we are to flourish, we need to obtain their good
treatment. A system of understandings in which desert
is acknowledged gives us a way of doing that.” A
moral desert allows individuals to control their
actions.
3. It is applicable and quantifiable in the Criminal
Justice system. Hegel agrees, “The injury which the
criminal experiences is inherently just because it
expresses his own inherent will, is a visible proof of
his freedom and is his right. But more than that, the injury is a
right of the criminal himself, and is implied by his
realized will or act. In his act of a rational being,
is involved in a universal element, which is set up as
a law.” It is a quantifiable moral system and you
prefer it for the round.
A moral desert system is the best evaluation of morality,
hence my value criterion is maintaining a moral desert.
Before I begin the round, I would like to provide the
following observations:
1. To fully deserve a punishment, an individual must be
capable of proper rational decision-making and be able
to limit their actions properly. Zaibert explains, “a
deficiency or impairment in the agent’s mental

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Ryan Protter
Mr. Bathke
Lincoln Douglas Debate: January February resolution
January 14, 2011
Aff case 1: The Harm Principle
capacities impedes reproach, and thus there is no
crime. Excuses pertain to the agent; an agent might
or might not be excused, but the act cannot be either
excused or not excused (acts can either be justified or unjustified). The condition
is , then, that the defendant must be capable of reasoning, of
distinguishing between right and wrong , etc… that the
defendants mental state at the time [they] acted was
such that it renders the action blameworthy” Because
my observation is true, the converse is also true; if
an individual is not proven capable of rational
decision making, they do not deserve the punishment.
2. The Oxford English Dictionary defines arbitrary as
“Derived from mere opinion or preference; not based on
the nature of things; hence, capricious, uncertain,
varying.” Therefore, arbitrary punishment is based
upon opinion or preference devoid of the mental state
of the defendant and bypasses moral desert.
Therefore, arbitrary punishment voids any meaning in
morality.
3. A moral desert system must be upheld to maintain legal
credibility, and arbitrary punishment destroys it.
Robinson and Darley explain “the [criminal justice]
system's moral credibility, and therefore its crime
control effectiveness, is undermined by a distribution
of liability that deviates from community perceptions
of just desert.” By voiding any meaning in morality,
arbitrary punishment destroys the credibility of the
law. Therefore, if I somehow do not link into
morality, I provide a direct link to the resolution

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Ryan Protter
Mr. Bathke
Lincoln Douglas Debate: January February resolution
January 14, 2011
Aff case 1: The Harm Principle
with desert, because the law is based upon the
distribution of desert. Furthermore, if I can prove
that arbitrary punishment is endorsed by the juvenile
justice system, it violates a desert system and I am
winning the round
Contention 1- The juvenile justice system violates a desert
system
A. The juvenile justice system implicitly assumes the
lack of rational capacity in the defendant. Feld
explains “ By separating children from adults and providing a rehabilitative alternative to punishment, juvenile
courts rejected both the criminal law's jurisprudence
and its procedural safeguards such as juries and
lawyers. Under the guise of parens patriae, the
juvenile court emphasized treatment, super- vision,
and control rather than punishment.” The notion that
juveniles have to be separated from adults and that
others have to make their decisions for them means
that they are presupposed to have a lack of
rationality. This is intrinsically arbitrary because
it does not take into account the nature of the
defendant’s rationality.
B. Juvenile court transfers are flawed determinations of
rational capacity because such a determination is
founded on the sole discretion of a judge. Feld 2
tells us “the individualized justice of a
rehabilitative juvenile court fosters lawlessness and
thus detracts from its utility as a court of law as
well. Despite statutes and rules, juvenile court
judges make discretionary decisions effectively

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Ryan Protter
Mr. Bathke
Lincoln Douglas Debate: January February resolution
January 14, 2011
Aff case 1: The Harm Principle
unconstrained by the rule of law. If judges intervene to meet each child's "real needs,"

then every case is unique and decisional rules or objective criteria cannot constrain clinical intuitions. The idea of treatment necessarily entails individual

differentiation, indeterminacy, a rejection of proportionality, and a disregard of normative valuations of the seriousness of behavior. But, if
judges possess neither practical scientific bases by
which to classify youths for treatment nor
demonstrably effective programs to prescribe for them,
then the exercise of "sound discretion" simply
constitutes a euphemism for idiosyncratic judicial
subjectivity. Racial, gender, geographic, and socio-
economic disparities constitute almost inevitable
corollaries of a treatment ideology that lacks a
scientific foundation.” Therefore, the transfer is
based solely off of the preference of a judge, it does
not take into account the juveniles rationality and is
therefore arbitrary.
Because the operation of the juvenile justice system is
arbitrary, it violates a moral desert system and links back
to my value criterion. This contention links to
Observation 3 because it fulfills the burden I placed upon
myself; that the juvenile justice system employs arbitrary
operation. The impact is that I am winning the round with
the extention of either of my subpoints, as each proves
that the juvenile justice system is arbitrary and ought not
be used.
Contention 2- The age distinctions that the juvenile
justice system employs are arbitrary
A. Age is an arbitrary distinction because it varies by
state. Michon tells us that “To be eligible for
juvenile court, a young person must be a considered a
"juvenile" under state law. In most states, the

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Ryan Protter
Mr. Bathke
Lincoln Douglas Debate: January February resolution
January 14, 2011
Aff case 1: The Harm Principle
maximum age for using juvenile court is 18. In a few
states the age is 16 or 17, and in one (Wyoming) the
maximum age is set at 19. States also set lower age
limits for juvenile court eligibility. Most states
consider children under the age of 7 to be incapable
of determining the difference between right and wrong,
or forming a "guilty mind.” Because age in context to
legal culpability varies by state, it is arbitrary
because it further does not take into account the
rationality of the defendant.
B. Age britelines are intrinsically arbitrary. Buss
explains “behavioral change may well be reflected in
physiological changes in hormone levels and brain
activity, just like the changes we see before, during,
and after adolescence. Should we treat developmental culpability on a continuum, assigning ever-increasing blame for

crimes the more developmentally atypical they become? This would suggest that violent offenders in their fifties should be punished more severely than violent

offenders in their twenties. Scott and Steinberg are clear that the distinction lies in what is
typical, or normative, for the age cohort as a whole,
and that no lesser culpability should be assigned to
an individual, regardless of how immature as measured
by the same behaviors, capacities, vulnerabilities and
brain function, if that immaturity reflects a failure
to develop at the typical pace (pp 136-42). At some point,
they conclude, behavior can be "reliably attributed to
bad character" rather than to deficient development (p

50). But it is not clear why this should be so.”

C. It is empirically warranted that the bright line
between age and culpability is indeterminate. Bower
agrees “UCLA’s Elizabeth Sowell, another prominent
brain-development researcher, takes a dim view of the

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Ryan Protter
Mr. Bathke
Lincoln Douglas Debate: January February resolution
January 14, 2011
Aff case 1: The Harm Principle
movement to apply neuroscience to the law. Delayed
frontal-lobe maturation may eventually be shown to
affect teenagers' capacity to make long-term plans and
control their impulses, she says, but no current research
connects specific brain traits of typical teenagers to
any mental or behavioral problems.” Therefore, the
determination between age in context to legal
culpability is unclear, and cannot procure the basis
for a punishment. The impact is twofold: First, that
age is arbitrary, but second, it independently links
in and proves observation 1 meaning even if everything
the negative says is true, I preclude them because
they do not deserve a punishment if their rational
capacity cannot be determined.
The age bright-lines employed by the juvenile justice
system are arbitrary. Because they are arbitrary, they
violate a moral desert system and hence establish the link
to my value criterion, we need to reject the juvenile
system to protect moral desert. This contention links back
to observation 3 because I have proven that the age bright
lines that the juvenile system are purely arbitrary, and
violate a moral desert system. The impact is that to
protect a moral desert system, we must reject the juvenile
justice system and to extend any of my subpoints instantly
wins me the round because each proves that age bright lines
are arbitrary.
Thus you affirm