Space Law, Court Proceedings and Lawyer

[crystalwarrior]

We all know how it goes these days: if you comitt a minor crime, you get brigged for some time. If you murder someone, you get permabrigged or even executed on the spot. But there's no trial. Heck, nobody even tries to contact centcomm these days.

I think the entire system we have right now is a big mess. Anything worthy of permabrig should absolutely require a court, even if it means the clown has to be the judge.

Lawyer right now is completely useless: he has no authority, nobody even uses his services and if they do you have to convince the HoS that permabrig absolutely requires a court. He also has no classification of just what the hell is his role in court.

So I think Lawyer should be able to choose which kind of lawyer does he want to be: A prosecutor, a Defence Attorney or a Judge.

Prosecutor is in charge of the investigation - he's the guy who's in charge of detective and he collects as much evidence as he can against the defendant.

Defence Attorney is the guy who gets a Not Guilty verdict on the defendant, meaning he's got the right to cross-examine every single witness prosecutor brings in to court. He's the guy who asks questions and finds contradictions in the evidence at hand.

Judge is the guy who oversees the entirity of the court proceedings - Judges must be unbiased towards everyone and they're the highest authority in the Court of Law. The judge must hear out every witness and look at all the evidence, as well as all the claims the defence has made to ultimately decide the Defendant's fate.

Everyone gets their own badge they can attach to suit, similar to ties. Attorney Badge, Prosecutor Badge and the Judge Badge, I suppose. So you can understand who is who by examining them.

Now, in-game, NOTHING is said about how the court of law should proceed. There's no guide on it, and Space Law books don't even tell you that you're required to have a court for permabrig sentence. Right now, HoS has all the authority he needs to just execute whoever the hell he wants because he saw them near the victim. I think that's what really makes HoS the ultimate shitcurity most of the time - court is never even slightly enforced.

[NotFoos]

While I agree with almost everything you said, the problem with court cases in this game is that they take too much time and security personnel to safely do anything.

Here is how every court case goes:

Clown NotATraitor says: "I DEMAND A TRIAL I DEMAND A TRIAL I DEMAND A TRIAL SHITCURITY WEE WOO WEE WOO" x42
HoS Idont Giveafuck says: "FINE JEEZ"

Cue waiting half an hour for everyone needed to show up to the trial, and for evidence to actually be collected. As soon as the trial starts people will probably be breaking windows and shit. Or even break the fuckin criminal out of there unless you have like 6 shitcurity members/1 actually good security.

All the while this is going on, the entire station gets set on fire while the slimes are loosed and the singularity gets free and wormholes show up and teleport the lawyers into the singularity and power fails and the only head teleports into the sing and the shuttle never gets called and (this is 2 hours into a shit round by the way) everyone leaves.

That's like, basically 90% of actual trials ever.

[AbleRip]

I am currently taking some law classes and i can look up in my notes about pretrial hearings, jury, and judges if you guys want to use real law to influence space law. Also when I used to play warden I would let the lawyer have talks with their 'client' in interrogation room which freaked out the client because he thought he was going to be interrogated. Maybe an official room connected to brig where a warden could bring a defendent so that they could have talks with a lawyer but not be publicly watched.

I like the idea of lawyers being judges and defence attorneys but I'm not sure about prosecutor. That would requiring to have three lawyers to have a full and fair trial and I think the cap is at two. Maybe the Warden or the HoS if there are ones can represent secruity. However this itself may cause problems as the captain may become biased to helping his security team. Another thing maybe a rule where there is no defence lawyer present the current head of that persons job will be there lawyer if they have one.

Also Dark Bowls you forgot how sometimes when there is a trial that some random guy with a tool box breaks the defendent out by smashing the shit out of the glass wall while the captain 'judge' is typing. (Though I think the grill is now shocked so this may be fixed)

[derpthestewpidgoat]

Honestly no. Eye for an eye. You murder someone, I execute you. Everyone is happy (except you). I see you looting the entire armory and/or you leave YOUR fingerprints on every fucking thing? Fuck no you get no trial, you get permabrigged, or executed if you decide to harmbaton or shoot me or one of my officers. Can't do the crime, don't do the crime. I don't want some bullshit where say a Studnick is on trial for murder and their lawyer/the judge is also a Studnick so they basically win the case even if they have a Mt. Everest of evidence against them.

This is something that would belong to heavy RP servers *ahemBay*, we're pretty light RP.

Also, this is on top of everything that Dank said. Along with the fact that with so few players and most detectives being incompetent to really gather evidence well this is simply not fucking worth the effort.

[Snowfat]

May 2, 2014 4:38:01 GMT -5 crystalwarrior said:

Lawyer right now is completely useless: he has no authority, nobody even uses his services

So he's like the bartender. Or the chef. Or the clown. Or the mime. Or a miner. Or a virologist.

Seriously though, I believe it's the HoP or Captain's job to act as judge since they're the two top honchos on board the station so they should get the final say on things. I'd welcome a small increase in role play with an actual legal process instead of a time out for the rest of the round or summary execution though. It'd certainly make things more enjoyable for the antagonist who gets caught and involves a lot less harmbattoning.

[Nokington]

Blood looks nice on the armored coat though.

[crystalwarrior]

May 2, 2014 22:18:59 GMT -5 Snowfat said:

May 2, 2014 4:38:01 GMT -5 crystalwarrior said:

Lawyer right now is completely useless: he has no authority, nobody even uses his services

So he's like the bartender. Or the chef. Or the clown. Or the mime. Or a miner. Or a virologist.

Seriously though, I believe it's the HoP or Captain's job to act as judge since they're the two top honchos on board the station so they should get the final say on things. I'd welcome a small increase in role play with an actual legal process instead of a time out for the rest of the round or summary execution though. It'd certainly make things more enjoyable for the antagonist who gets caught and involves a lot less harmbattoning.

You realise that Lawyer has nothing to do unless it's decided to have a trial right? Bartender, chef, clown, mime, virologist ALL have things related to their job to work on.

And I really don't think Captain should be the judge in trials at all. HoP, maybe. Problem lays in the power. Captain is used to be the final say of everything and heck what prevents the cap from just fucking up the trial and saying defendant is guilty even when ignoring the facts?
Like I said, judge should be the ultimate unbiased person in court. The one who doesn't hold grudges. The one who will listen to all sides of the story and bring down the final verdict. If HoP is competent, he may fit the bill well enough. But I'd rather have Lawyers be able to choose a job as a Judge.

But yeah, executions without even a centcomm approval is complete bullshit even though in the rules/space law it says that you can't execute without it. Why don't I see admins punishing it? In fact, why do admins do it themselves with no consequence, even from the roleplay standpoint?

[AbleRip]

I personally don't see alot of real executions (aka needle or death in a cell) most times when a criminal dies from what I see are on sight killings. An example of this would be an officer instead of using cuffs ends up harm batoning a comfirmed traitor to death. I think this is mostly due to not wanting to deal with this shit and use the 'spur of the moment' to execute someone.

[crystalwarrior]

May 3, 2014 4:29:11 GMT -5 AbleRip said:

I personally don't see alot of real executions (aka needle or death in a cell) most times when a criminal dies from what I see are on sight killings. An example of this would be an officer instead of using cuffs ends up harm batoning a comfirmed traitor to death. I think this is mostly due to not wanting to deal with this shit and use the 'spur of the moment' to execute someone.

Most of the other executions I found were "hurr durr conclusive evidence i guess you did it i have a hunch you die anyway" when all the evidence present was completely wrong anyway.
One time when I was a traitor HoS was hellbent on executing me even though all the evidence he presented I have proven wrong in my testimonies.
There was no trial, but I discussed the matter with Captain in permabrig cell so he let me go. Captain looked into the matter much harder than HoS, HoS even blamed me for something I didn't do and got the wrong location. hue.

[Nokington]

Psst. This is right from the space law page. You don't have to contact cent comm at all.


Capital Crimes

These crimes can result in Execution, Permanent Prison Time, Permanent Labor Camp Time, or Cyborgization. 
Only the Captain, HoS, and Warden can authorize a Permanent Sentence. 
Only the Captain can authorize an Execution or Forced Cyborgization. 

With captains almost never being around. Hos can normally execute on sight.

www.ss13.eu/wiki/index.php/Space_Law

Also in the same page about trials.

Prisoners are permitted to seek legal representation however you are under no obligation to provide or allow this.

[crystalwarrior]

Holy shit that is retarded.
That's why we should have our own Space Law that makes a little bit more sense, don't you think?
Something as serious as an execution or forced cyborgization should REQUIRE outside approval or at least a trial. It makes no sense otherwise.

Anyway, on a slightly different note, I think we should add more to the detective's investigative abilities as well. Right now, if you wipe the blood off the floor it's gone for good. And if you touch something with your bloody hands it won't leave a handprint but instead just more blood.

So I think there should be a Luminol Testing Fluid or something of the sort, chemistry should be able to make it or detective starts with it. Basically, you can spray it on where you think the blood might be and then put on special science goggles with red tint to them. They will put a red overlay on your view but you'll also be able to see the reaction to the testing fluid in the form of glowing blue blood.

Then, if we make bloody hands actually leave bloody handprints on the scene it will mean that not just walls, but pretty much everything you touch will leave handprints - lockers included. That means if you get your hands dirty, you better bring something to clear it all up. And even then there's still traces of blood left, meaning that leaving next to no blood is the best solution. Basically it makes stealthy murderers even MORE careful if there's a competent detective around.


EDIT: Oh shit. I forgot. Does our Judge actually have a gavel??
I don't think he does. He really should have one! Seriously, all Judges I've seen utilized the enrergy gun to calm down the spectators, and it only caused unnecesarry damage to the courtroom.

[Snowfat]

To be fair there is no government dictating what Nanotrasen can or cannot do in the lore. They are the biggest corporation with the most control which has basically taken over a corner of the galaxy. If they want to let their station captains execute crew without trial, they allow them to do it. And with such an unfair legal system it makes sense why they have so many goddamn enemies attacking their station 24/7.

[Name Changing Autist]

May 3, 2014 9:09:58 GMT -5 Nokington said:

Psst. This is right from the space law page. You don't have to contact cent comm at all.


Capital Crimes

These crimes can result in Execution, Permanent Prison Time, Permanent Labor Camp Time, or Cyborgization. 
Only the Captain, HoS, and Warden can authorize a Permanent Sentence. 
Only the Captain can authorize an Execution or Forced Cyborgization. 

With captains almost never being around. Hos can normally execute on sight.

www.ss13.eu/wiki/index.php/Space_Law

Also in the same page about trials.

Prisoners are permitted to seek legal representation however you are under no obligation to provide or allow this.

That's from /tg/'s wiki page though.
We split ages ago, and you're aware of this, as such server policy will always override /tg/ policy.

Granted executions do happen all the time without people contacting CentComm, and it's generally considered fine if the person being executed has: A. Escaped Permabrig, B. Murdered Someone, C. Is a confirmed enemy of the corporation. However unless you want an admin to be PMing you and investigating why the fuck you just lasered that guy to death it'd be a good idea to ahelp or contact CentComm beforehand.

(not like any of this matters because the server's always dead because everyone's playing a boardgame.)
((also our code is out-dated as fuck, it'd be neat to port in some /tg/ features))

And to top it all off, this shit hardly matters even with a high population round because barely anyone gives a flying fuck about the court.

[Nokington]

What did you want me to link? Bays space law page? We have no /real/ space law so I used tg

[derpthestewpidgoat]

Nokington has a point, we don't have our own space law. Additionally, we have no wiki or anything else which MIGHT come in handy later down the road if we continue to add our own things. And if we become popular again.