The Roche Trials

[Tydeus of Tion]

I would like to request that those who actually participated in the negotiations with the Mandalorians and leveled the charges at [member="Ali Hadrix"] be the ones who actually conduct the trial.

There have been whispers of [member="Mantic Dorn"] using an NPC Vice-Chancellor to possibly issue a not-guilty verdict.

Let's just make sure those stay whispers and not turn into #facts. That isn't how we should operate.

PC characters should be conducting the trial.

[member="Faith Balor-Organa"] as the interim chancellor should be conducting the trial, with [member="Janira Fenni"] as prosecution.

 

[Mantic Dorn]

Oh my,

you might be whispering with the wrong peeps.

Anyhow, I have some ideas for the trial. Fixing dinner atm but will reply better in the near future.

 

[Kay-Larr]

I don't want the trials to turn into a witch hunt for just one person, which is what it seems like for me. That's not going to make any trial fair or unbiased.

 

[Popo]

[member="Lady Kay"]
Easy. Have unbiased third parties (maybe some SSC members?) Form a jury.

 

[Gabriel Sionoma]

I will serve as jury if needed. It makes sense.

 

[Kamon's OOC]

SSC/GA as jury makes sense. I will be happy to be prosecution. As an Echani I have no love for the Mandalorians, but I'd be happy to be the voice of honor and justice.

 

[Kay-Larr]

Sounds good [member="Popo"] Otherwise there's no point in any of it.

 

[Mantic Dorn]

[SIZE=14pt]Hello people from various factions![/SIZE]
Much love as usual. :wub:

First, I will address the suspicion that I have some sort of interest in using the NPC vice chancellor and veto any judge against [member="Ali Hadrix"] in a trial.

Why would I do that? Hmmm…. What have gone through your minds this time? *scratches head*
I guess that if the trial is run as a GR trial and it turns into a OOC pile of drama podo it might be in order to try and pull the emergency break if folk wont listen to ooc appeals to calm down or something like that?
Dunno what creative rumors are being spread about me around this but I had not given much thought to the trial more than that it just might be a fun event.
Maybe you suspect that I feel for Ali OOC wise? Then my answer is yes. I do sympathize with Ali OOC wise. Mainly because I think folks made her move into something much larger then it needed to be.
But IC my characters and Ali have nothing in common; hence my characters stance toward this is neutral. I dunno, if you think I am sitting around plotting how to disrupt RP or something, I am not. I am planning future RPs though. But I seldom reach out for RP with folks without a good IC reason.
So, even if Ali is guilty as hutt, or innocent ike a jawa that is IC. My frame work idea around this is OOC. I do my very best not to mix em up and be a neutral part.

The essence!
Everyone are speaking about it as if you are all counting on it to actually happen. None in this thread or otherwise can state the final terms of this without the agreement of the main character - [member="Ali Hadrix"]

Ali has told me that while she was initially disturbed by how the venting was interpreted by her co-writers in the invasion thread, she came around and rather liked the story that came from it. At least for a while, but lately there has been a bit too much around this. I hope that folk can understand her position and calm it down a notch so that we have a chance of actually making this happen.
Without Ali we got no trial at all. Hence once we got an idea around this it needs her stamp of approval.

I am aware that the republic as a faction somehow must solve this even without Ali and so it is also in this factions best interest to see the trial take off in good order and with every writer having genuine smiles decorating their faces as they write in it.
Ok, I now ask that if you feel that above is necessary to address that you start a separate thread in the open forum – call it “we hate mantic” or something – I will try to appear in it if it pleases you.

So onto the actual trial idea.
Initially, when I read the topic of this thread in these forums I had hoped for the trial to be a GR event. My thoughts were to make it a fun faction event to show that our justice system worked perfectly fine. We are after all hunting down our own traitors, pressuring clones that threaten our systems etc etc. We could set it up pretty easily and regardless of the outcome most likely have a fun plot to pursue around its aftermath. But - I see in this thread that its not likely that you will allow it. So I have reconsidered.

Assuming the GR is still the arresting body and most likely have a large role in the trial since its our supreme commander we are talking about I suggest the following:

In GR land the decision makers are not supposed to be force sensitives. Hence the jury must be composed by non-force users. IC we got a healthy suspicion toward force sensitives and prefer to even keep the Jedi Order an arm’s length. That said, the jedi order is the most trusted instance of force folk the GR has and thus the grand master of the order [member="Corvus Raaf"] would be asked to ensure that no force users are allowed inside the court room. She can bring whatever jedi knights she wants to secure that no force users enter the court room but its not meant to be the focus at all, just fluff in case someone decide to party crash claiming that no one guarded the door.
And since it is probably necessary to mention the jedi are there to detect force users. Naturally an extensive “NFU court security” exists as well.
Those anti-force lizards will most likely be there but NFU don’t trust them completely so only NFU are to be working in the trial. So, for us force sensitive characters we can only follow the trial via the holo-net.

Force sensitive witnesses could be brought into a cubical (observed to ensure that the witness is not affected by a third party) with cameras where they appear as holograms in the court if asked to testify. A sci fi solution for this star warsy problem.

The Jury should not be affiliated with enemy factions of the GR. It would not make sense to bring in a sith commander or a mandalorian warrior considering that they would be considered challengeable casting their opinion on their enemy’s highest ranking officer. The accusations are being made against a Republic officer and citizen. The crim taking place on Republic soil. Given that the Mandalorians were invading at the time it was still republic civilians that were killed.

Citizens from Silverland or GA-land as well as GR are welcome as well as characters with no clear faction affiliation. I would add that it need to be developed characters and not created for this event only.
I would also love to see lawyer step up for Ali and hopefully we can scramble a prosecutor.
To that we need a judge. So if we could find three characters with some sort of law-background it would sure be fun. If we cant find those or if Ali don’t agree to the writers writing them we must settle with less “perfect” examples, like corporate or political characters.
Being a trial for an officer it might also make sense to use military personnel as judge?

Not sure how many jury members are required, or if their voice is the verdict or an advice to the judge?

Other thoughts on the trial set up?

[member="Lady Kay"] [member="Janira Fenni"] [member="Gabriel Sionoma"] [member="Ryan Korr"] [member="Popo"] at others interested.

 

[Kay-Larr]

Looks like Kay will have to watch via Holonet if such force detection methods are taking place. But I hope that her lawyer [member="Matthew Mar'Tin"] is still around....

But keeping it as an invite only would be a better way of keeping party crashers out.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Jedi who were part of the arresting party or who witnessed the events should probably be at least allowed to testify as witnesses.

 

[Kamon's OOC]

If I am allowed to be prosecutor (I am not a Force User, btw) then I will be calling Master Korr and several other Force Users as witness. If, ICly, this is not allowed, I will of course submit a formal protest, but OOCly we should be allowed to call whomever we want to testify. This, I believe, is where the ysalimiri will come in handy.

 

[Faith Organa]

I also recommend as stated somewhere that time is allowed for the story to develop to avoid rushing everything due to everyone's enthusiasm.

Faith is in an unusual spot first she is the Interim Leader of the Republic until the elections take place, and then the new Chancellor will bring forth a new government, and the position of Vice Chancellor.

Second, Faith is the Minister of Intelligence, as well as a Senator.

She has family that is mandalorian and understands the culture from an insiders prospective, and she had felt the pain of losing a child, so she can see many different avenues.

Could she oversee a trial of someone who is a mandalorian, and then killed mandalorian innocents, and republic citizens. Sure she could. After all the Jury would make the final decision.

I agree a jury should come from factions outside of the Republic. And if you want to get real technical the two opposing lawyers could go through the jury choosing process.

 

[Kay-Larr]

I agree with [member="Faith Balor-Organa"] . There's no need to rush into it. Gotta give time for fact gathering and such, as well as the elections too. Gives everyone a bit of room to breathe

 

[Ali Hadrix]

Mantic made a lot of good points that I'm glad were put out there, and I think the general structure that he's going for is a great one.

One thing I feel should be avoided is recruiting non-GR characters to take part in the trial in any capacity that revolves around defense/prosecution, or jury work. As Mantic said; this revolves around a GR citizen, on GR soil, etc. Nations rarely extradite even average citizens (unless crimes were committed in another nation's territory) much less high ranking military officials for prosecution by foreigners.
Of course, everyone who wants to take part in RP is welcome! We'll just have to find some capacity in which they can. We can do lots of things with this, including investigations, searching out extra evidence, gather depositions, so on.

 

[Ali Hadrix]

Jedi who were part of the arresting party or who witnessed the events should probably be at least allowed to testify as witnesses.

Definitely. Being an FU shouldn't preclude involvement. Depositions are handy for that, sworn testimony given independently of the court. Or of course, given in real time via holo!

If I am allowed to be prosecutor (I am not a Force User, btw) then I will be calling Master Korr and several other Force Users as witness. If, ICly, this is not allowed, I will of course submit a formal protest, but OOCly we should be allowed to call whomever we want to testify. This, I believe, is where the ysalimiri will come in handy.

I'm thinking we should decide ahead of time which characters are going to be involved in the story and at what capacity. So far there are very few people we'd actually be able to use in a trial of any sorts. We'd need Ali herself, Ryan Korr and Vulkan (who made it to the control station and interacted with Kol'k Oto and the other Verpine), the Verpine delegation, the Verpine technician (dammit I'll have to give them a name now), Fenni (as she became part of the events at one point), Ali's BOG Commandos (who secured the holotapes of the security systems from the Verpine) and whomever ends up being part of the arresting party.
Then there's character witnesses, but beyond that, there aren't many characters that have any actual involvement. I suppose Popo could be used; his character was jacked into the system at the time. He would be able to account for activity in the station's system. Verifying this or that function was activated from this or that station, etc, basically helping provide an aspect of the factual timeline of events in conjunction with other characters.

 

[Soliath Devin Talith]

As former Senator of Borleias, longtime member of the Republic, and husband to Jedi Master [member="Kira Talith"] I would be happy to serve as an independent and objective juror/judge ^_^

 

[Kamon's OOC]

I will concoct a full list of witnesses later on.

But, I believe if we want to not be just putting on a show, SSC and GA jurors are the way to go. We need to be serious about this. ICly, and OOCly, we need to show people that the Republic can be better than what it has been of late. This whole thing is very, very important to that.

 

[Harmon Tardai]

I have two GA characters that would be willing to be involved in this.

Abigail has been monitoring the situation via Republic channels while she's been in system. Probably couldn't be a juror, but could be a witness and possibly expert testimony on warfare aboard ship and station.

Harmon would be able to be a juror, and given that he's never been involved in either the Republic or Ali, he'd be completely impartial.

 

[Corvus Raaf]

I'll preface anything I say with the fact that I haven't read a single post of the Invasion, so have no idea who did what to whom. But I understand logic (I think) and that ought to be relevant regardless.

So...(no I haven't shaken the habit, yet)...here are some thoughts. Just opinions. Not facts, merely what occurs to me as I read this thread:

1. A GR military person has killed people on a GR planet. Not the invading forces. A planet the Mandalorians were Invading. If at any point I get the facts wrong, forgive me (and correct me)...this is what I have gleaned from this thread.

2. The Mandalorians have taken exception to this

3. There is a view that people from outside the GR would make the best jurors as...it would make the GR look better than it has of late

OK, here are my thoughts.

1. In real-life, this would be an internal affair. If the Russians invaded Alaska and an American officer gave an order that killed innocents (including Russians who were resident - and therefore citizens of the US) - the US would politely ask the rest of the world to keep its nose out. And I presume most people see the US as broadly the good guys here?

2. This bit I don't entirely understand - so am probably missing something. In the above scenario, I doubt the US would care what the Russians think - they're at war with them. They've just invaded Alaska.

3. If the GA and SSC combined decide on justice, I'm unsure how this looks good on the GR. If anyone points to the trial as a show that the GR are not monsters, people would rightly point out it took other Governments to make justice happen. And what happened to the notion that justice is blind? The UK legal system is based upon it (even the statue on the Old Bailey is blindfolded for this very reason). You shouldn't need independent jurors. A galactic Republic ought to find its own unbiased jury.

Please note:

Am I saying don't go down this route? Of course not. I have no horse in the race - other than a desire to see justice done (as any citizen or servant of the Republic would). Innocents should be absolved and the guilty should be punished.

My lack of understanding (and therefore post) is the (to me anyway) lack of logic applied to some of the proposals set out.

Thanks for letting me ramble on

#saidmypiece
#I'llgonow

 

[Kamon's OOC]

[member="Corvus Raaf"]
1. I will say one thing if we are comparing to the real world: war crimes are tried in Geneva, not the U.S.

2. They showed up with a fleet, yes, but I believe we fired the first shot. No hostile actions were immediately taken by the Mandalorians and any coming into the system could have conceivably been doing so to visit relations or conduct business.

3. The jurors only decide on guilt. Punishment is decided usually by the judge. Having outside jurors discourages any notion of bias if they come back and say not guilty. Additionally they have no particular stake in the outcome and so can remain truly neutral on the subject.

Just some counter points. Not trying to argue; I understand what you said. Just providing a response to it so you and others see the other side as well.