Preface

Trial thread

The case the court has examined is an unfortunately typical one for Mount Augusta, involving street to street skirmishing. What is not usual is the respect both sides have had for the law in Augusta: I have heard reports of, and have been party to both sides getting legal guidance and making sophisticated arguments. I view the respective arguments that one side is “acting outside of the law, and not following proper due process” or are “abusing the Mt. Augusta legal system” to be rather undermined by what I see as engagement with the legal system, at least on the part of the wider groups these parties belong to. I thank them for this and shall proceed to my verdict.

Context of Engagement

Both sides saw the engagement on the streets as being justified on their end- this is best exemplified by the parallel trial that was happening throughout the first part of this case. Olympia argued that their action was inherently defensive and that the allegedly “flimsy” justification for the defendant’s actions was more or less an attempt to “retroactively justify their arrest by abusing the Mt. Augusta legal system.” The plaintiff counsel’s statement acknowledges what is a fact of Augustan law, that whilst “anyone with a reasonable belief that a person is committing an offence under the Mount Augusta Criminal Code... may legally take action to arrest that person,” that belief is tempered by the requirement that the person must be deemed either a “flight risk” or “expected to further damage life or property.” The burden of proof, as it would be in a trial, is on the defendants to substantiate their implicit claims via arrest.

The Cantina submissions were as follows: Exhibit A and Exhibit B. The court is not convinced that these statements constitute anything even remotely recognisable as a pursuable offence under Augustan law. It also acknowledges that the evidence justifying an immediate arrest is somewhat dated. The defence cites correctly the belated arrest of Danielx9 using evidence from some three years ago. However the context is entirely different, Daniel was arrested on grounds of having had inappropriate contact with a then-minor. The courts took no part in this decision and before any challenge brought against it, Swift both released Daniel and then Crimeo acted on the information to ban Danielx9. The circumstances are clearly more different here.

The other pertinent point is that the speech of Blaze used as evidence is in of itself “protected” and I hold that point under BOR IV: “All persons have the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion and the right to peacefully speak, associate, assemble, demonstrate, picket, and present petitions; peacefully and unarmed.” Additionally note must be made of the inflection in “further damage to life or property”. The defence failed to cite any examples of BlazeickTheMage committing unjustifiable damage to life or property in a tangible sense, so the arrest again fails on this test due to the nature of evidence submitted.

The arrest therefore is on very weak ground. Perhaps thankfully for the defence, “reasonable belief” is a much more nebulous and lower standard. I do think the defendants were operating under a “reasonable belief” they were in the right, but this means nothing in law- it is assumed parties believe they are in the right. Reasonable belief which is unfounded does not serve to mitigate liability- if it did the clause pertaining to validity of arrests would be more or less redundant.

To summarise, the Cantinan arrest may have been based on “reasonable belief” but this reasonable belief was irrational and does not serve to sever material liability for lack of due diligence.

On Arrest Threads

ElKool correct points out that the Olympians made no arrest thread as required for the pearl of Cacti. Having heard and understood alternative legal opinions such that an arrest is a transitional arrangement to either extradition or trial- its requirement must be viewed in this light. To be specific, no arrest pearls “will be held on the basis of a reasonable belief as per i. for more than seven days” without a trial being lodged. Based on the fact a trial was requested within a day of him being pearled and the evidence of a potential crime as shown in this video I maintain that Olympia acted properly in regards to pushing the matter to trial. Whilst the video was one day later, the preponderance of witnesses to the skirmish are such that it cannot be ignored. I do not believe any party in this trial denies the skirmish occurred.

I fully acknowledge that this is an area of contention and is likely the most appealable section of this verdict.

Looking at the Fight

The fight video itself is incredibly useful to determining culpability and I’m glad TwigBranch chose to submit it. There are some key takeaways at the following time stamps:

(0-0.21): Cacti and Blaze are travelling alongside each other with no combat. This somewhat casts doubt on the premeditated arrest theory, however he is also checked by homevideos, so the hesitancy is perhaps justified.

(0.39): the attack begins. Note that Cacti is in fact attacking on his own and not as part of a group.

(0.45): both homevideos and auqust rush to the scene. It appears auqust looks down to pot up first. Given that both are ostensibly heading to the scene of the fight, this isn’t so material.

Beyond this point there isn’t anything massively groundbreaking- it is just a generic fight. The main points I gained from viewing the video were that the combat was possibly more spontaneous than alluded to, and that auqust whether by circumstance or design only entered combat at the same time as homevideos.

Semantics of Murder Charges

One of the arguments made in mitigation was, to quote the defence, that: “the plaintiffs have failed to bring any evidence to show that Cacti or Auqust killed any individual”. This is indeed correct and while I appreciate there perhaps may be some ambiguity brought in by the mention of effort into the charge (“the effort to pearl or kill a griefer”) I still do not find it suitably solid a foundation to find a successful murder charge “beyond a reasonable doubt” as outlined in 900.01. Instead I find that the acts committed are much more likely to fall under the lesser 600- General Crimes precedent charge wherein “punching, hitting, sniping, or other means of causing harm outside the context of prior agreement (war games, mock combat, etc.) are all violations”.

In Summary

There are two dichotomies presented: the ordered arrest and the spontaneous ganking. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. As Cantinans, Auqust and Cacti were aware of the evidence presented by ElKool at least in a broader sense. The content of the video seems to suggest it wasn’t organised with the efficiency or purpose I’d expect of a coordinated arrest. Cacti was acting on predetermined motives to a point, that in greater consideration would not have constituted a reasonable suspicion. Auqust sees the combat and enters at the same time as homevideos. We do not have access to communications of the day and I cannot ascertain if this was a spontaneous reaction or whether he’d been aware that Cacti instigated the fight since it had begun. I cannot find auqust guilty with any convincing certainty.

Arrests are a problematic area of law and I welcome the work of Robokaiser in attempting to bring some more regulations onto them.

Verdict

-Auqust is found not guilty of 300.1. He is to be immediately released from his logbox.

-Cacti is found not guilty of 300.1 but instead guilty of 600 to which he is sentenced to 3 days pearl time, which he has served. He is to be immediately released.

-The court finds there may be knock-on effects of the case pertaining to material reparations for alleged defensive actions to bunkers. These, if pursued, belong to the realm of another trial.

Normal routes of further appeal remain- with the proviso that the other sitting judges have recorded conflicts of interests and as such any further determinations may be heavily flawed. This may change with the ongoing mayoral election due to dual-position roles, but I am not one to speculate.