2NC

Off-Case
 NGA
On NGA – concede the permutation – its just a test of competition – there’s no offense
on the flow
 Abolition
On abolition – concede the permutation its just a test of competition – there’s no
offense on the flow
 ASPEC
One line ASPEC & ASPEC is good – test of aff agents and key to neg ground – reject the
argument not the team
Courts
 2NC – Courts CP – O/V
Courts solve, they rule on criminal justice, decisions are bulletproof and prevent the
net-benefit – that’s the Baum 17’ ev.
 Agent CP’s Good
C/I: Agent Cp’s are legit

1. Predictable – aff should have prepared, they’re run every round and our actor is completely
legit and not obscure.

2. Key to negative ground – agent counterplan make up the core of the negative’s strategic
options and not getting them is grossly unfair towards the aff.

3. Increases aff ground – they can turn or read offense against our agent to win the round.

4. Lit checks abuse – there arnt many actors through which to do the plan , the aff had the
same opportunity to research and write answers as we did

5. Not a voter – reject the argument and not the team

6. Err neg on theory – aff gets first and last speech plus unlimited prep
 Condo Good

C/I – NEG gets 6 conditional advocacies

1. Research Incentives – If only one CP can be run, the neg has no reason to cut
more than one good CP, and the aff has less reason to research answers to all of
the different types of CP. This discourages proper education..
2. Argument Breadth – By being able to argue condo, several different arguments
can be read against the aff, allowing us to learn several different positions on
the aff. More is better, since we can learn diverse arguments and know every
perspective on a situation.
Reject the argument not the team
 2NC - SV -- CJR
SCOTUS important in CJR.
Smith ‘15
(Christopher E. Smith is Professor of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University (MSU). “The Impact of
New Justices: The U.S. Supreme Court and Criminal Justice Policy” July 2015 REPUBLISHED modifications
--original 1997. https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/akronlawreview/vol30/iss1/3/)$

The Supreme Court is an important policy-making institution. In criminal justice ,1 for example, the high
court issues decisions affecting institutions, actors, and processes throughout the justice system, from
police investigations2 through corrections and parole .3 The Court's policy decisions affecting criminal
justice are produced by the votes of the nine justices who select, hear, decide, and issue opinions in
cases. It is widely recognized, and probably axiomatic, that the Supreme Court's decision-making patterns are determined by the Court's
membership at any given moment in history.4 When five or more justices support a specific outcome in a case, they can form a majority to
produce a decision that shapes constitutional law and judicial policy making.5 When one or more members of that majority retires or dies, the
potential exists for the Court's decisions to move in a new direction on that issue if new appointees possess different attitudes, values, or
judicial philosophies than those possessed by their predecessors.6 Because each justice's voting behavior is shaped by his or her attitudes and
values,7 the case outcomes and judicial policies produced by the Supreme Court are a product of the mix of attitudes and values represented
among the justices at the moment a particular issue is presented to the Court. When the mix of justices changes, so, too, can the constitutional
rules that shape policy issues. In
criminal justice, such rules affect police practices, conditions of confinement in
jails and prisons, and other aspects of the criminal justice system .8
 2NC – AT: PDB
Links to politics – still has Congress and Trump act, which is the basis of our link
argument on the DA. The Court has to act before congress to get shielding –
simultaneous action doesn’t solve.
Simmons 95 (Courtney, Law clerk to the Honorable J. Michael Luttig, Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the fourth
Circuit, Emory Law Journal, Winter, 44 Emory L.J. 117)

Sometimes a legislative compromise entails a decision not to make a decision. Congress standing at a stalemate may choose not to prescribe
one side or the other, or an intermediate point. Rather, the legislature may allow the courts to make the ultimate
determination . Judge Posner, in The Federal Courts, described this phenomenon: Often when there are political pressures
to do something about a problem but the legislature cannot agree exactly what to do about it, it will pass a statute the effect (as

well as the undisclosed purpose) of which is to dump the problem in the lap of the courts, taking advantage of
the fact that the courts are a kind of political lightning rod.

Perm forces the court to rule on a moot issue – this makes the decision meaningless
and means the CP can’t shield from politics because Congress is perceived as acting
first.
UPLR 2 – University of Pittsburgh Law Review 2 (Matthew T. King, “Towards a practical convergence,” Spring, 63 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 703)
The Court conceded that it would hear cases "when actual litigation brings to the court the question of the constitutionality of such legislation,"
but it will never simply test Congress's law-making savvy without an actual case or controversy. n39 Harking back to Taney, the Court relied on
the execution of a [*710] timely, meaningful judgment as a primary factor in determining whether the case was legitimate. n40 Over time, the
Court has molded the cases and controversies requirement of Article III into a doctrine of justiciability. The central guideline and goal of this
doctrine is the ability of a court to provide a meaningful decision. While courts reserve the right to declare cases non-justiciable for general
reasons, time has honed this jurisprudence into three specific arenas: ripeness, mootness, and standing. Ripeness means the case and facts at
hand must be fully and actually developed. n41 If not, no real case or controversy exists and the matter is to be dismissed. In his full summation
of rules against advisory opinions, Justice Brandeis stated that the "Court will not 'anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the
necessity of deciding it.'" n42 The next year, Anniston Manufacturing Co. called into question the constitutionality of numerous vital provisions
of the 1936 Revenue Act. n43 Only the cotton taxes and procedures for recovery of monies under the Agricultural Adjustment Act pertained to
Anniston, yet it challenged the Act generally. n44 In dismissing the case the Court specifically declined to rule on matters that had not yet
created (and might never create) an aggrieved party. n45 The Court bolstered Anniston with Electric Bond & Share Co. v. S.E.C. n46 There, the
Court refused to assess the validity of the entire Public Utility Holding Company Act when only three provisions applied to the companies
bringing suit: n47 "defendants seek a judgment that each and every provision of the Act is unconstitutional. It presents a variety of hypothetical
controversies which may never become [*711] real." n48 The Court would not decide the issues until they had ripened into a concrete set of
facts and parties. n49 Second is mootness , which requires that the case or facts have not yet run their course . n50 A
moot case is essentially the opposite of an unripe case. n51 In U nited S tates v. Alaska Steamship Co., n52 steamship companies
contested the Interstate Commerce Commission's authority to require two different forms for bills of lading for domestic and export
transportation. n53 After the suit was filed, Congress passed an act amending federal power to regulate
commerce and requiring a change in format for both types of bills. n54 Under the new circumstances, the issue became
moot . n55 The Court described what a moot case is, and what it must do with one: Where by an act of the parties, or a

subsequent law, the existing controversy has come to an end, the case becomes moot and should be treated
accordingly . However convenient it might be to have decided the question of the power of the Commission to require the carries to
comply with an order prescribing bills of lading, this court "is not empowered to decide moot questions or abstract
propositions, or to declare, for the government of future cases, principles or rules of law which cannot affect the result as to the thing in issue
in the case before it. No stipulation of parties or counsel, whether in the case before the court or in any other case, can enlarge the power, or
affect the duty, of the court in this regard." n56

It removes the controversy, which makes the case moot

CLS 17 (Cornell Law School, https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-2/clause-1/mootness, EM)
usual rule is that
A case initially presenting all the attributes necessary for federal court litigation may at some point lose some attribute of justiciability and become “moot.” The

an actual controversy must exist at all stages of trial and appellate consideration and not simply at the
date the action is initiated.588 “Under Article III of the Constitution, federal courts may adjudicate only actual, ongoing cases or controversies. . . . Article III denies
federal courts the power ‘to decide questions that cannot affect the rights of litigants in the case before them,’ . . . and confines them to resolving ‘real and substantial controvers[ies]

This case-
admitting of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.’

or-controversy requirement subsists through all stages of federal judicial proceedings, trial and
appellate. To sustain our jurisdiction in the present case, it is not enough that a dispute was very much alive when suit was filed, or when review was obtained in the Court of Appeals. .
. . The parties must continue to have a ‘personal stake in the outcome’ of the lawsuit. ”589 Because, with the advent of
declaratory judgments, it is open to the federal courts to “declare the rights and other legal relations” of the parties with res judicata effect, 590 the question in cases alleged to be moot now
seems largely if not exclusively to be decided in terms of whether an actual controversy continues to exist between the parties rather than in terms of any additional older concepts. 591 So
long as concrete, adverse legal interests between the parties continue, a case is not made moot by intervening actions that cast doubt on the practical enforceability of a final judicial order. 592

Cases may become moot because of a change in the law,593 or in the status of the parties,594 or because of some act of one of the parties
which dissolves the controversy.595 But the Court has developed several exceptions. Thus, in criminal cases, although the sentence of the convicted appellant has been served, the case “is
moot only if it is shown that there is no possibility that any collateral legal consequences will be imposed on the basis of the challenged conviction.” 596 The “mere possibility” of such a
consequence, even a “remote” one, is enough to find that one who has served his sentence has retained the requisite personal stake giving his case “an adversary cast and making it
justiciable.”597 This exception has its counterpart in civil litigation in which a lower court judgment may still have certain present or future adverse effects on the challenging party. 598

Courts wont review moot cases --- assumes waiver and forfeiture – means the perm is
legally impossible
Lueck 5 (Dennis served as the Managing Editor of the Villanova Law Review, and graduated with a JD from Villanova Law School. “The
Third Circuit Adopts the Relation-Back Doctrine to Prevent Defendants from Picking off Representative Plaintiffs of Putative Class Actions in
Weiss v. Regal Collections” https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1242&context=vlr//Go Hornets)

United States Constitution requires that there be a case or

C. Class Certification and Mootness: The Article III Case or Controversy Requirement The

controversy in order for a federal court to possess subject matter jurisdiction over an action.3 9 Thus, when an individual
ceases to have a "personal stake" in the litigation, there is no longer a case or controversy, and the court is deprived of subject matter jurisdiction. 40 <INSERT FOOTNOTE 40> 40. See County

of Los Angeles v. Davis, 440 U.S. 625, 631 (1979) (noting that when controversies causing case are no longer at issue case becomes
moot and must be dismissed because court no longer has subject matter jurisdiction). <END FOOTNOTE 40> This is commonly referred to as a moot case. 41 Whenever a
case is deemed moot, the court must dismiss the action , regardless of whether the parties motion for
dismissal . 42

Congress will be seen as overriding Court decisions, politicizing the plan

Hasen 18 – Richard L. Hasen is an American legal scholar and expert in legislation, election law and
campaign finance. (“End of the Dialogue: Political Polarization, the Supreme Court, and Congress”,
HeinOnline, January 18, https://heinonline-org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/HOL/Contents?
handle=hein.journals/scal86&id=1&size=2&index=&collection=journals, accessed 7-23-20)//kel$

Consistent with Eskridge, there is a broad, technical literature in public choice and positive political
theory which generally posits that the Justices seek to interpret federal statutes as close as possible to
their own preferences without being overridden by Congress. 47 The chances of congressional override
depend not only upon the preferences of the median member of Congress but also upon the
preferences of committee chairs and party leaders, who act as the gatekeepers for legislation. Jeb
Barnes's detailed study of one hundred randomly selected overrides in the 1974-1990 period found that
"members of Congress-or, more precisely, members of prestige and re-election committees-tend to
draft more comprehensive and effective overrides, especially when the override issue involves the
collection of tax revenue." 48 Further, "if the override issue split the courts along partisan lines in the
pre-override period, federal judges seemed more likely to resist congressional oversight, especially
when the issue involved the interpretation of the statutory rights of discrete, insular minorities, such as
African Americans or immigrants."4 9 Nancy Staudt, Ren6 Lindstildt, and Jason O'Connor canvassed all
express congressional responses-and not just overrides-to Supreme Court tax decisions from 1954 to
2005. The authors found that the Court-Congress dynamic is not unidimensional but rather nuanced and
varied. The existing literature implies when Congress responds to the Court, it does so in a hostile
manner. To be sure, judicial decisions often spark a negative response in Congress, but nearly as often
the cases lead to supportive and positive responses, like codification legislation.50
 2NC – AT: PDCP
1 --- “Enact” --- excludes court action.
Court of Appeals of Arizona 20. [Brief filed on Court Listener; 3/19/20; “Netherlands v. Md Helicopters, 1 CA-CV 19-
0019 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2020),” https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4737531/netherlands-v-md-helicopters/; DS]

MD Helicopters’ argument regarding the meaning of the terms “enact” and “adopt” is similarly unpersuasive on
the question of whether A.R.S. § 12-3252(B)(2) refers only to acts of a foreign country’s legislative body, and not of its courts as well. The
common usage of the term “enact” does not generally include the actions of a court . See, e.g., 2015 Ariz. Sess.
Laws, ch. 170, § 1 (1st Reg. Sess.) (“Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona . . . .” (emphasis added)); Cronin v. Sheldon, 195 Ariz.
531, 537 (1999) (“[T]he legislature has the authority to enact laws.”). But the term “adopt” is not nearly so limited. Courts
make law through the adoption of rules or common-law principles. See, e.g., Carrow Co. v. Lusby, 167 Ariz. 18, 24 (1990) (“We
adopt the modern common law view that an owner of livestock owes a duty of ordinary care to motorists traveling on a public highway in open
range.” (emphasis added)); Judson C. Ball Revocable Tr. v. Phoenix Orchard Grp. I, L.P., 235 Ariz. 519, 523–24, 11, 16 (App. 2018) (Finding
Delaware courts’ decision to “adopt” rule of standing for shareholder suits “as a matter of common law” persuasive and deciding to “adopt”
that rule as well). Executive agencies are also frequently empowered by the legislature to “adopt” rules and
regulations. See, e.g., A.R.S. § 23-361 (Industrial Commission “may adopt such rules and regulations as necessary” to administer and
enforce statutes governing the payment of wages (emphasis added)). And the use of both the terms “enact” and “adopt” must

be read to contemplate different things , or one term will be rendered superfluous . See Cont’l Bank, 131 Ariz. at
8.

2 --- “Should” --- mandates immediacy.

Summers 94 (Justice – Oklahoma Supreme Court, “Kelsey v. Dollarsaver Food Warehouse of Durant”, 1994 OK 123, 11-8,
http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=20287#marker3fn13)

13 "Should" not only is used as a "present indicative" synonymous with ought but also is the past tense of "shall" with various shades of
meaning not always easy to analyze. See 57 C.J. Shall § 9, Judgments § 121 (1932). O. JESPERSEN, GROWTH AND STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE (1984); St. Louis & S.F.R. Co. v. Brown, 45 Okl. 143, 144 P. 1075, 1080-81 (1914). For a more detailed explanation, see the Partridge
quotation infra note 15. Certain
contexts mandate a construction of the term "should" as more than merely
indicating preference or desirability. Brown, supra at 1080-81 (jury instructions stating that jurors "should" reduce the amount of
damages in proportion to the amount of contributory negligence of the plaintiff was held to imply an obligation and to be more than advisory);
Carrigan v. California Horse Racing Board, 60 Wash. App. 79, 802 P.2d 813 (1990) (one of the Rules of Appellate Procedure requiring that a
party "should devote a section of the brief to the request for the fee or expenses" was interpreted to mean that a party is under an obligation
to include the requested segment); State v. Rack, 318 S.W.2d 211, 215 (Mo. 1958) ("should" would mean the same as "shall" or
"must" when used in an instruction to the jury which tells the triers they "should disregard false testimony"). 14 In praesenti means
literally "at the present time." BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 792 (6th Ed. 1990). In legal parlance the phrase denotes that which
in law is presently or immediately effective , as opposed to something that will or would become effective in

the future [in futurol]. See Van Wyck v. Knevals, 106 U.S. 360, 365, 1 S.Ct. 336, 337, 27 L.Ed. 201 (1882).

Court decisions are only announced in late June and early July --- means Congressional
action would occur before the court’s opinion.
Supreme Court No Date “The Court and Its Procedures”, https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/procedures.aspx
A Term of the Supreme Court begins, by statute, on the first Monday in October. Usually Court sessions continue
until late June or early July. The Term is divided between "sittings," when the Justices hear cases and deliver opinions, and intervening
"recesses," when they consider the business before the Court and write opinions. Sittings and recesses alternate at approximately two-week
intervals. With rare exceptions, each side is allowed 30 minutes argument and up to 24 cases may be argued at one sitting. Since the majority of
cases involve the review of a decision of some other court, there is no jury and no witnesses are heard. For each case, the Court has before it a
record of prior proceedings and printed briefs containing the arguments of each side. During the intervening recess period, the Justices study
the argued and forthcoming cases and work on their opinions. Each week the Justices must also evaluate more than 130 petitions seeking
review of judgments of state and federal courts to determine which cases are to be granted full review with oral arguments by attorneys. When
the Court is sitting, public sessions begin promptly at 10 a.m. and continue until 3 p.m., with a one-hour lunch recess starting at noon. No public
sessions are held on Thursdays or Fridays. On Fridays during and preceding argument weeks, the Justices meet to discuss the argued cases and
to discuss and vote on petitions for review. When the Court is in session, the 10 a.m. entrance of the Justices into the Courtroom is announced
by the Marshal. Those present, at the sound of the gavel, arise and remain standing until the robed Justices are seated following the traditional
chant: "The Honorable, the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons
having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the
Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!" Prior to hearing oral argument, other business of the Court is
transacted. On Monday mornings this includes the release of an Order List, a public report of Court actions including the acceptance and
rejection of cases, and the admission of new members to the Court Bar. Opinions are typically released on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings
and on the third Monday of each sitting, when the Court takes the Bench but no arguments are heard. The
Court maintains this
schedule each Term until all cases ready for submission have been heard and decided. In May and June
the Court sits only to announce orders and opinions . The Court recesses at the end of June, but the
work of the Justices is unceasing. During the summer they continue to analyze new petitions for review,
consider motions and applications, and must make preparations for cases scheduled for fall argument.

3 --- Normal means --- that’s Congress or the executive --- courts deliberately avoid
criminal justice rulings.
Waters 18 [Michael; July 9; Contributor, citing a study published conducted by Northwestern law professor Tonja Jacobi and Minnesota
Court of Appeals law clerk Ross Berlin; The Outline, “The Supreme Court’s silence on criminal justice issues,”
https://theoutline.com/post/5232/supreme-court-criminal-justice-mass-incarceration; RP]

President Trump’s nominee to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy is set to perpetuate the Supreme
Court’s irrelevance on criminal justice cases. A study last month from Northwestern law professor Tonja Jacobi and
Minnesota Court of Appeals law clerk Ross Berlin argues that since the 1970s, the Court has “ sidestepped ” profound criminal
justice issues like stop-and-frisk, mass incarceration sentencing, unfair plea deals, and police shootings. In part, that's because criminal
justice is among the issues the Court’s liberals have ignored in order to pander to swing vote Anthony
Kennedy, as UCLA law professor Jon D. Michaels argued in a Los Angeles Times op-ed Monday. “ For years , progressive justices
have tacked to the center , principally to win over Kennedy. In the process, they’ve often abandoned left-
liberal constitutional theories,” Michaels claimed. Much is uncertain about how the new justice will view policing and sentencing cases,
but the study's lead author Tonja Jacobi told The Outline that though Kennedy’s replacement “could appear to be a little more moderate on
these issues” than Kennedy, “I don't expect it to be a significant turn toward broader criminal procedure rights
generally,” she said. The problem is not that the Supreme Court doesn’t address criminal justice issues at all ,
but that it addresses them in limited ways that don’t align with how most people experience the criminal
justice system. Most of the Supreme Court’s focus has been on criminal trials — even though only about 1 percent of criminal justice cases
actually end in a trial. As an example, stop-and-frisk is one of the most pervasive uses of police force and, like most police tactics, it
disproportionately targets communities of color. But the Supreme Court has weighed in on the issue only to ask whether evidence found from
stops and frisks can be used at trial. On the larger issue of whether police have the right to conduct searches that target black and
Latinx people even when it doesn’t end in a criminal charge, the Supreme Court has remained silent . The scope of its
rulings on stop-and-frisk is limited to the rare instances in which the person being searched is actually charged
with a crime, well below 12 percent of all stops and frisks. “The multidecade battle between the liberal and
conservative justices over whether [allowing evidence found from random searches] should be further restricted or fully expanded is
irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of people affected by illegal police encounters, who are typically not
prosecuted,” Jacobi and Berlin write. Some prosecutors offer predatory plea deals to people charged with crimes, believing they can scare
them. The justices have done little to place limits on what plea deals prosecutors can offer — even though, as the
authors write, “almost all criminal cases are resolved via pleas,” not trials. The Supreme Court, too, has not weighed in on
harsh sentences, especially for minor drug crimes, that have led to the imprisonment of 2.3 million Americans. Almost all of the Court’s
sentencing cases have revolved around the death penalty — an important issue, but one that directly impacts only about 20 to 50 people each
year and that “has no measurable effect on the United States’ anomalous mass-incarceration problem.” In his LA Times op-ed, Michaels offers a
solution to the Court's relevance woes: fiery , progressive dissents that broaden the discussion on these issues and
trailblaze the path for future liberals on the Court.

4 --- courts alone are less than “federal government.”

Arthur Miller 86 . Distinguished Visiting Professor of Law – Emory University. Summer 1986. “Congress, the Constitution, and First Use of
Nuclear Weapons.” Review of Politics. Vol. 48, No. 3.

Three other points merit mention in this discussion of collective decision-making. First, both the formal and the secret constitutions allocate power over foreign relations and defense to the

central government, to, that is, the United States of America visualized as a single entity. What, however, is "the" United States? The question has never been definitively
answered; and indeed has seldom been asked in judicial opinion or scholarly discourse.42 Asked another way, the question is this: Where does sovereignty lie in the American polity? The
formal constitution is supposedly based on popular sovereignty, with ultimate power resting in the people. That, however, is far from accurate. Proof positive that sovereignty lies in the
"state" came when General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox: "the people" of the South were not to be permitted to exercise their "sovereignty." The powers of the national
government are supposedly only those delegated to it, either expressly or impliedly. But that is scarcely accurate, as 200 years of constitutional development attest. The Framers of the formal
constitution established a governmental system that, as Justice Robert Jackson commented, would ensure that the dispersed powers of the federal government would be integrated into a

The meaning is unmistakable: "the"

workable government. "Separateness but interdependence, autonomy but reciprocity" was the constitutional command.43

United States is a single metaphysical entity , encompassing state, society, and government in one artificial being. These terms are
not synonymous. The state is the fundamental entity; government its apparatus; and society is composed of the individuals and groups governed. Much like the business corporation, the
state-"the" United States-is an artificial construct, more a method than a thing. It exists in constitutional theory-in, for example, the state secrets privilege in litigation-even though judges and
commentators alike often confuse the term with government and with society. A legal fiction that by itself can do no act, speak no work, and think no thought, the state (like the corporation)
has "no anatomical parts to be kicked or consigned to the calaboose; no soul for whose salvation the parson may struggle; no body to be roasted in hell or purged for celestial enjoyment." 44

Despite loose language to the contrary from executive branch lawyers and even the Supreme Court, "the" state or "the" government-or
"the" United States-is not to be equated with the executive branch. Nor with any one branch , for that matter; each branch is part
of an indivisible whole.
 2NC – NB – Politics [Long]
Courts avoid congressional fights.
Whittington 5 - Professor of Politics, Princeton University (Keith, "Interpose Your Friendly Hand: Political Supports for the Exercise of
Judicial Review by the United States Supreme Court”, The American Political Science Review, Nov., (99)4, p. 583)

There are some issues that politicians cannot easily handle. For individual legislators, their constituents may be
sharply divided on a given issue or overwhelmingly hostile to a policy that the legislator would nonetheless like to see adopted.
Party leaders, including presidents and legislative leaders, must similarly sometimes manage deeply divided or cross-pressured
coalitions. When faced with such issues, elected officials may actively seek to turn over controversial political questions
to the courts so as to circumvent a paralyzed legislature and avoid the political fallout that would
come with taking direct action themselves. As Mark Graber (1993) has detailed in cases such as slavery and abortion,
elected officials may prefer judicial resolution of disruptive political issues to direct legislative action,
especially when the courts are believed to be sympathetic to the politician's own substantive preferences but even when the attitude
of the courts is uncertain or unfavorable (see also, Lovell 2003). Even when politicians do not invite judicial intervention, strategically
minded courts will take into account not only the policy preferences of well-positioned policymakers but also the willingness of those potential
policymakers to act if doing so means that they must assume responsibility for policy outcomes. For cross-pressured politicians and
shifting blame for controversial decisions to the Court and obscuring their own relationship to those
coalition leaders,
decisions may preserve electoral support and coalition unity without threatening active judicial review (Arnold 1990; Fiorina 1986;
Weaver 1986). The conditions for the exercise of judicial review may be relatively favorable when judicial invalidations of legislative policy can
be managed to the electoral benefit of most legislators. In the cases considered previously, fractious coalitions produced legislation that
presidents and party leaders deplored but were unwilling to block. Divisions within the governing coalition can also prevent legislative action
that political leaders want taken, as illustrated in the following case.

Normal means shields the link --- court decisions are announced in June and July.
Supreme Court No Date “The Court and Its Procedures”, https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/procedures.aspx
Prior to hearing oral argument, other business of the Court is transacted. On Monday mornings this includes the release of an Order List, a
public report of Court actions including the acceptance and rejection of cases, and the admission of new members to the Court Bar. Opinions
are typically released on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and on the third Monday of each sitting, when the Court takes the Bench but no
arguments are heard. The
Court maintains this schedule each Term until all cases ready for submission have
been heard and decided. In May and June the Court sits only to announce orders and opinions . The
Court recesses at the end of June, but the work of the Justices is unceasing. During the summer they
continue to analyze new petitions for review, consider motions and applications, and must make
preparations for cases scheduled for fall argument.

That’s bulletproof --- decisions never leak before they are announced.
Baker 12 (Sam Baker, staff writer, “Supreme Court healthcare ruling leaks have DC buzzing: Who is the culprit?”
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/legal-challenges/236197-supreme-court-talk-has-dc-buzzing-who-is-the-leaker, rwg)

The justices themselves were implicated in the speculation because clerks would have more to lose by talking to the press. A
decision has
never leaked before the court announced it publicly ; the explanation for that fact is that justices have
nothing to gain and clerks would be throwing away promising careers by leaking.
Trump appointments prove.
Mazzone 18 Albert E. Jenner, Jr. Professor of Law, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (“Above Politics: Congress and the
Supreme Court

in 2017,” Chicago-Kent Law Review Vol 93 Iss 2 Art 5, Aug 9 2018, https://scholarship.kentlaw.iit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=4207&context=cklawreview, jwg)

Absent, too, in the modern Congress is any real sense that the Supreme Court can be brought to heel :
say, by constitutional amendment , by stripping the Court of funding, by hauling in members of the
Court to justify their rulings before congressional investigatory committees, by appointing special
counsels to review and report back on what the Court does, by impeaching the Justices (or locking them up), or by simply
ignoring or defying judicial rulings. Perhaps the Court does not rule in ways that offend enough members of
Congress ( or their constituents ) for them to invest the energy—and political capital —required to
generate these sorts of measures. Perhaps, instead, members of Congress do not consider such measures
appropriate in our constitutional system. In either case, modesty on the part of Congress is the result, even in an era when a
single party controls both the Congress and the White House. The lesson for the Court is that so long as it continues

doing—more or less—what is has done in recent years, it has very little to fear from the Congress .
CONCLUSION After President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the death of
Justice Scalia, fifteen House Republicans sponsored a Resolution that “the House firmly supports the
nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court” and “the Senate should hold a swift confirmation of
this nomination.”229 The proposed resolution died, without further action, in the Committee on the Judiciary. While Gorsuch was, of
course, confirmed, the failure of the Republican-controlled House to pass a simple resolution supporting the nomination is telling. After an
election season in which the Supreme Court figured very prominently, aside from the Senate’s
confirmation of a new Justice, Congress in 2017 accomplished nothing with respect to the Supreme
Court. Various bills and resolutions —some sponsored by Republicans, others by Democrats, and some garnering bipartisan
support—targeted statutory and constitutional rulings by the Court and sought also to impose new
regulations upon the Court’s activities. Even the most modest of these proposals failed to advance
through the legislative process and become law. We like to think that the Supreme Court, guided
solely by the rule of law, is above politics. The experience of 2017 suggests that the Court may
also be above politics in the quite different sense that its rulings and activities
are largely immune to political response and redress.

Expert opinions prove.

Perine 8 (Katherine, Staff – CQ Politics, “Congress Unlikely to Try to Counter Supreme Court Detainee Ruling”, 6-12,
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002896528&cpage=2)

Thursday’s decision, from a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees, gives Democrats further cover against GOP sniping. “This is
something that the court has decided, and very often the court gives political cover to Congress,” said Ross K. Baker, a
Rutgers University political science professor . “You can simply point to a Supreme Court decision and
say, ‘The devil made me do it.’ ”
Empirical evidence.
Korecki 15 (Natasha Korecki, 5-8-2015, staff writer, “State Supreme Court pension ruling provides political cover to cut more, tax more,”
http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/590030/state-supreme-court-pension-ruling-provides-political-cover-cut-tax, Accessed 7/10/2015)

An Illinois Supreme Court ruling that struck down a pension reform law on Friday could have just opened the door
even wider to the prospect of deep cuts to services and new taxes for Illinois residents. With only three weeks left until lawmakers have to pass
legislators now have even more political cover to raise taxes and cut spending following
a balanced budget,
the high court’s decision that it was unconstitutional for the state to pare back promised pension benefits for state employees.
Sanctions
 2NC – O/V
The CP solves by ending indictments which have been a disaster, the Goldsmith and
Williams 18 proves that only punishing china economically can solve. Any reason the
plan is popular is a reason the CP is popular and it won’t trigger the link to politics.
 AT: Perm Do Both
Severs out of the 1AC – the counterplan ends indictments while the aff maintains
them – severance is a voting issue
 PDCP
Severs because its not the aff – their aff is punishing corportate espionage
Business wants the hacking to stop but doesn’t like prosecutions—individual
indictments just publicize their failure and the damage is already done
Priestap and Triplett 20, *adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign
Service. He led the FBI’s counterintelligence division from 2015 to 2018, *adjunct professor at
Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. He led the FBI office in Beijing from 2014 to
2017 and was deputy head of the FBI office in Moscow from 2012 to 2014, (Bill and Holden, "The
Espionage Threat to U.S. Businesses," 10/1, https://www.lawfareblog.com/espionage-threat-us-
businesses)

Exacerbating the problem is the fact that businesses and investors are woefully unprepared for this new
environment. They have neither the information nor the tools they need to protect themselves, and they can’t reliably turn to
the U.S. government for help, because the government is limited to broadly protecting industries and
the economy. Government agencies have neither the inclination nor the resources to protect individual companies. The interests of the
U.S. government and those of private companies overlap to some degree, but not entirely. Even if the U.S. government
ultimately punishes someone for stealing intellectual property from a U.S. company, the U.S. company
has still likely lost whatever strategic advantage it possessed. And there is little, if anything, the U.S.
government can do to make the company whole.
On-Case
2NC – AT: Espionage
 At the top
They have no answer to their own author saying mining asteroids won’t working and
that there’s no incentive in the squo
XT: 1NC #1 – US primacy is not key to peace – there are prevent of deterrents in place
such as weapons that prevent attacks
XT: 1NC #2 – Espionage is inevitable due to lack of cybersecurity & there’s no brink for
escalation
XT: 1NC #3 – even if they win china will rise there are massive checks to conflict
escalation with the U.S. such as economic interdependence
XT: 1NC #4 – The bennet evidence proves there’s no asteriods impact, asteriods
explode in high-altitude enviornments and the most damage they’ll cause is broken
windows
XT: 1NC #5 – The scoles evidence takes out their internal link for asteriod mining,
asteroids are too difficult to predict and keep in place – 0 solvency
XT: 1NC #6 – The Goldsmith and Williams 18 evidence says that indictments make things
worse, they take away the perception of us cybersecurity as strong and embolden
hackers to continue hacks
XT: 1NC - #7 – The foreign policy card says that hackers in China won’t go to jail
because china won’t export them 0 reason to turn them over
US decline will not cause transition wars or great power conflicts.
Fettweis ‘17
Dr. Christopher J. Fettweis, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, PhD in Government and Politics from
the University of Maryland, “Unipolarity, Hegemony, and the New Peace”, Security Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3, p. 434-442 [language
modified]

During the 1990s, the United States cut back on defense by about 25 percent, spending $100 billion less in real
terms in 1998 that it did in 1990.68 To those believers in the neoconservative version of hegemonic stability, this irresponsible “peace
dividend” endangered both national and global security. “No serious analyst of American military capabilities doubts that the defense budget
has been cut much too far to meet America’s responsibilities to itself and to world peace,” argued Kristol and Kagan at the time.69 The
world grew dramatically more peaceful while the United States cut its forces, however , and stayed just
as peaceful while spending rebounded after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The incidence and magnitude of global conflict
declined while the military budget was cut under President Clinton, in other words, and kept declining (though
more slowly, since levels were already low) as the Bush administration ramped it back up. Overall US military spending has varied during the
period of the New Peace from a low in constant dollars of less than $400 billion to a high of more than $700 billion, but war does not seem to
have noticed. The
same nonrelationship exists between other potential proxy measurements for hegemony
and conflict: there does not seem to be much connection between warfare and fluctuations in US GDP,
alliance commitments, and forward military presence. There was very little fighting in Europe when
there were 300,000 US troops stationed there, for example, and that has not changed as the number of
Americans dwindled by 90 percent. Overall, there does not seem to be much correlation between US
actions and systemic stability. Nothing the United States actually does seems to matter to the New Peace.
It is possible that absolute military spending might not be as important to explain the phenomenon as relative. Although Washington cut back
on spending during the 1990s, its relative advantage never wavered. The United States has accounted for between 35 and 41 percent of global
military spending every year since the collapse of the Soviet Union.70 The perception of relative US power might be the decisive factor in
decisions made in other capitals. One cannot rule out the possibility that it is the perception of US power—and its willingness to use it—that
keeps the peace. In other words, perhaps it is the grand strategy of the United States, rather than its absolute capability, that is decisive in
maintaining stability. It is that to which we now turn.

Conflict and US Grand Strategy

The perception of US power, and the strength of its hegemony, is to some degree a function of grand strategy. If indeed US strategic choices are
responsible for the New Peace, then variation in those choices ought to have consequences for the level of international conflict. A
restrained United States is much less likely to play the role of sheriff than one following a more activist
approach. Were the unipole to follow such a path, hegemonic-stability theorists warn, disaster would
follow. Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski spoke for many when he warned that “outright chaos” could be
expected to follow a loss of hegemony, including a string of quite specific issues, including new or renewed attempts to build regional
empires (by China, Turkey, Russia, and Brazil) and the collapse of the US relationship with Mexico, as emboldened nationalists south of the
border reassert 150-year-old territorial claims. Overall, without US dominance, today’s relatively peaceful world would turn “violent and
bloodthirsty.”71 Niall Ferguson foresees a post-hegemonic “Dark Age” in which “plunderers and pirates” target the big coastal cities like
New York and Rotterdam, terrorists attack cruise liners and aircraft carriers alike, and the “wretchedly poor citizens” of Latin America are
unable to resist the Protestantism brought to them by US evangelicals. Following the multiple (regional, fortunately) nuclear wars and
plagues, the few remaining airlines would be forced to suspend service to all but the very richest cities.72 These are somewhat extreme
versions of a

central assumption of all hegemonic-stability theorists: a restrained United States would be

accompanied by utter disaster. The “present danger” of which Kristol, Kagan, and their fellow travelers warn is that the United
States “will shrink its responsibilities and—in a fit of absentmindedness, or parsimony, or indifference— allow the international order that it
created and sustains to collapse.”73 Liberals fear restraint as well, and also warn that a militarized version of primacy would be
counterproductive in the long run. Although they believe that the rule-based order established by United States is more durable than the
relatively fragile order discussed by the neoconservatives, liberals argue that Washington can undermine its creation over time through
thoughtless unilateral actions that violate those rules. Many predicted that the invasion of Iraq and its general contempt for international
institutions and law would call the legitimacy of the order into question. G. John Ikenberry worried that Bush’s “geostrategic wrecking ball”
would lead to a more hostile, divided, and dangerous world.74 Thus while all hegemonicstability theorists expect a rise of chaos during a
restrained presidency, liberals also have grave concerns regarding primacy.

Overall, if either version is correct and global stability is provided by US hegemony, then maintaining that stability
through a grand strategy based on either primacy (to neoconservatives) or “deep engagement” (to liberals) is clearly a wise
choice.75 If, however, US actions are only tangentially related to the outbreak of the New Peace , or if any of
the other proposed explanations are decisive, then the United States can retrench without fear of negative
consequences. The grand strategy of the United States is therefore crucial to beliefs in hegemonic stability. Although few observers would
agree on the details, most would probably acknowledge that post-Cold War grand strategies of American presidents have differed in some
important ways. The four administrations are reasonable representations of the four ideal types outlined by Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross
in 1996.76 Under George H. W. Bush, the United States followed the path of “selective engagement,” which is sometimes referred to as
“balance-of-power realism”; Bill Clinton’s grand strategy looks a great deal like what Posen and Ross call “cooperative security,” and others call
“liberal internationalism”; George W. Bush, especially in his first term, forged a strategy that was as close to “primacy” as any president is likely
to get; and Barack Obama, despite some early flirtation with liberalism, has followed
a restrained realist path, which Posen
and Ross label “neo-isolationism” but its proponents refer to as “strategic restraint.”77 In no case did the various
anticipated disorders materialize. As Table 2 demonstrates, armed conflict levels fell steadily, irrespective of the
grand strategic path Washington chose.

Neither the primacy of George W. Bush nor the restraint of Barack Obama had much effect on the level of global
violence. Despite continued warnings (and the high-profile mess in Syria), the world has not experienced an
increase in violence while the United States chose uninvolvement. If the grand strategy of the United
States is responsible for the New Peace, it is leaving no trace in the evidence. Perhaps we should not expect a
correlation to show up in this kind of analysis. While US behavior might have varied in the margins during this period, nether its relative
advantage over its nearest rivals nor its commitments waivered in any important way. However, it is surely worth noting that if
trends
opposite to those discussed in the previous two sections had unfolded, if other states had reacted differently to fluctuations
in either US military spending or grand strategy, then surely hegemonic stability theorists would argue that
their expectations had been fulfilled. Many liberals were on the lookout for chaos while George W. Bush was in the White House,
just as neoconservatives have been quick to identify apparent worldwide catastrophe under President Obama.78 If increases in violence would
have been evidence for the wisdom of hegemonic strategies, then logical consistency demands that the lack thereof should at
least pose a problem.

As it stands, the
only evidence we have regarding the relationship between US power and international
stability suggests that the two are unrelated. The rest of the world appears quite capable and willing to
operate effectively without the presence of a global policeman. Those who think otherwise have precious
little empirical support upon which to build their case. Hegemonic stability is a belief, in other words, rather than an
established fact, and as such deserves a different kind of examination.
2NC: Indictments Bad
And the indictment strategy actively makes the US more vulnerable—we let the world
know when we’ve got hacked, but indicting foreign actors is a small scale response to
a huge problem. It shows just how vulnerable we are and invites more attacks—that’s
Goldsmith and Williams. The plan actively makes the problem worse.
Goldsmith and Russell 18, *Professor at Harvard Law School, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover
Institution, and cofounder of Lawfare, *visiting fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center where
he works on the Cyber Security Project, (Jack and Stuart, "Strengths Become Vulnerabilities" Hoover
Institution, https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/381100534-strengths-become-
vulnerabilities.pdf)
The asymmetry in US government transparency about cyber losses harms the United States in two very different ways. First, and obviously, to
the extent that the United States is asymmetrically vulnerable to leaks and related insider threats, it suffers asymmetrical intelligence losses.
Second, the United States’ asymmetrical disclosure of cyber losses—involuntary as well as voluntary—emboldens
adversaries and weakens deterrence. The second point requires some explanation. When losses from various forms
of cyber operations appear on the front page of the newspaper, adversaries are made aware in a
concrete and credible way about US vulnerabilities . Citizens expect the government to do something about the losses, and
the government feels pressure to identify the culprit and act against it in some way. And so, after a major acknowledged cyber
operation in the United States, the US government goes through a process of public attribution —for
example, pointing to North Korea for the Sony hack, China for the 2015 OPM hack, Russia for the 2016 DNC hack and the 2017 NotPetya attack,
and Iran for various cyber intrusions. But
having raised the issue of intrusion and attribution, the US government
response becomes salient and visible. And for various reasons, the US public responses to these and
other harmful cyber operations has been nonexistent or tepid. The main forms of public response have
been indictments and relatively weak sanctions. In no case have these public responses been
proportionate to the acknowledged losses the United States suffers. The publication of the many losses,
followed by the invariably weak or nonexistent public response, demonstrates credibly that US defenses
are poor and that the US government is either unable or unwilling to retaliate even in the face of
massive cyber losses. This combination of events thus emboldens adversaries and weakens deterrence.
Even if the United States is robustly engaging in retaliatory covert or clandestine responses, those responses cannot contribute to deterrence
against the many third parties who are watching, and indeed in context detracts from it. We can summarize the main point of this section as
follows. Unlessa nation is able to effectively redress a cyber intrusion, it can be harmful or self-defeating
to publicize it, since public knowledge of loss and the failure to respond effectively invite more attacks .47
The United States finds itself in the unfortunate position of having an asymmetrical lack of control over the publication of losses and not being
able to effectively respond to those losses. Every digitally connected nation has trouble defending against and responding to cyber intrusions,
but the United States is the world’s leader in openly advertising its weakness in both defense and response, and it suffers accordingly.