Simple new code causes crash in browser, not in Flash Player

programming flash
1

I added a pretty basic new function to the game I’m working on, and I thought it worked fine. All behavior was as expected, and I got no crashes when testing on my machine using FlashDevelop and the Flash Player. But if I open the .swf in Chrome directly or through the Kongregate test area, the game crashes 100% of the time that that function is called. I’m intensely confused by this behavior, and either Google has failed me or I’ve failed Google.

Here’s the new function in it’s entirety.

public function selectRandomDebater(event:Event = null):void
{
     trace("DebaterSelectScreen.randomDebater called");
     var selectedDebater:String;
            
     var randomNumber:int;
     randomNumber = Math.floor(Math.random() * 12);
            
     switch (randomNumber)
     {
          case (0):
          {
               selectedDebater = "Lincoln";
          }
          break;
                
          case (1):
          {
               selectedDebater = "Gandhi";
          }
          break;
                    
          case (2):
          {
               selectedDebater = "Hypatia";
          }
          break;
                
          case (3):
          {
               selectedDebater = "Murasaki";
          }
          break;
                
          case (4):
          {
               selectedDebater = "Voltaire";
          }
          break;
                    
          case (5):
          {
               selectedDebater = "Einstein";
          }
          break;
                    
          case (6):
          {
               selectedDebater = "MLKing";
          }
          break;
                    
          case (7):
          {
               selectedDebater = "Socrates";
          }
          break;
                    
          case (8):
          {
               selectedDebater = "BenitoJuarez";
          }
          break;
                    
          case (9):
          {
               selectedDebater = "Saladin";
          }
          break;
                    
          case (10):
          {
               selectedDebater = "JoanOfArc";
          }
          break;
                    
          case (11):
          {
               selectedDebater = "CaoCao";
          }
          break;        
     }            
            
     if (debater1Selectable == true && debaterBeingSelected == 1)
     {
          selectDebater(selectedDebater, 1);
     }
     else if (debater2Selectable == true && debaterBeingSelected == 2)
     {
          selectDebater(selectedDebater, 2);
     }
}

The selectDebater function is not new, and has never had a problem.