Trial thread

I find the defendant alex_cristal ...

On the count of second degree griefing: Guilty by confession, for which I sentence 7 days pearling.

On the count of third degree griefing: Not guilty. 1) There is no direct evidence of the defendant placing the sign. 2) The only remaining argument--that "nobody else showed up on the snitches as being there--is invalid, because it could still have been any of an unknown number of people who might be on the group and who don't show up on snitches when in the house, including at a minimum azkedar himself, and 3) The same argument also fails because the prosecution does not actually KNOW that nobody else was in the area, even those not on groups. To know this would require the whole property to be snitched fully without gaps, yet it clearly wasn't, since snitch records don't exist for the sign being placed (or the chest). So there are at least some large, known gaps in the snitch coverage through which third parties could have reasonably entered. There are many reasonable doubts here.

On the count of theft: Not guilty. The only argument the prosecution gave was that the defendant seemed to be including ProgramMC's comment "he is wanted for raiding azkedar's house" in his statement "I was paid to do all these nasty things." However, 1) This is very thin to begin with, requiring several assumptions and word choices to be exact. It would not pass the standard of "clear and convincing evidence" even if the next point was not also true: 2) The word "raid" does not imply theft, regardless. Raiding simply means attacking. For example, when pilots bomb a city, it is called an "air raid" and the air raid sirens go off. Do the bomber crews land, steal people's silverware, and take off again? No, they just destroy stuff from a mile up. Thus, even if the defendant was referring to Program's comment, it was still not a confession to any theft. It was a confession to at a minimum causing some sort of damage, which the defendant already pleaded guilty to for 100.02 crimes. 3) I also considered the possibility of theft from the screenshot, of blocks taken, but it looks like blocks are being routinely placed as well as broken, and no theft is clear there either.

A quick note on it allegedly being "far more likely than not" that azkedar's story is true: Even if that were the case (I'm not saying it is), none of the crimes listed have "preponderance of the evidence" as their standard. They all have higher standards, so that's not good enough anyway. Be sure to look at the burden of proof for the crime you are charging for to know if you have enough evidence for it.

Total sentencing: 7 days. Thank you.