People of the Republic of Atlasia vs. Ninja0428

[Blair]

Your Honor, I further object:

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This passage is indicative of an improper strategy, visible throughout the whole of the prosecution's argument, to prejudice the Jury against my client by assigning to him negative personal characterizations that do not relate to the specific charges brought by the Department of Justice. The subjective characterization of my client's comments to various persons as "sneering" constitutes an unnecessary personal attack irrelevant to the matter at hand. Whether or not my client was rude to the president or any other person is beside the point; "rudeness" is not evidence of Treason, and suggesting as much is highly improper.

I humbly ask the Court confine this argument to the charges brought by the Department of Justice, and order the Jury to disregard any insinuations against the personal character of my client not strictly related to the same.

Objection sustained.

The defendant being rude, or sneering makes him no more guilty, than him being friendly, or courteous makes him innocent. We're discussing criminal charges here; not personal conduct.

The Jury will disregard all arguments about the tone of the defendant.

[edit]reformatted paragraphs[edit]

[Blair]

Your Honor, I object:

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Whether or not the Governor of Lincoln or any other citizen believed my client's actions to be illegal is irrelevant. The purpose of this trial is not to test whether the actions of my client on the 17th of March meet a vague and subjective standard for transparency; my client has been charged with a specific offense under federal law and must be judged according to the merits of those charges alone. Suggesting that my client is guilty of Treason because the governor deleted a pardon, which supposedly shows there were "concerns of criminality," does nothing to prove or disprove the charges and is a highly improper attempt to distract the jury with irrelevant slander.

(1) That the Governor of Lincoln sought to pardon my client does not prove a crime was committed. At most, it proves the governor may have believed a crime was committed, or that he believed others would reach this conclusion. The opinions of executive magistrates do not constitute proof of criminal guilt, any more than a mob armed with pitchforks and torches chanting "Lock Him Up" constitutes a "free and fair trial." My client must be judged only on the merits of the charges brought against him as they relate to the letter of the Law, and not on the uninformed opinions of private citizens.

(2) That the Governor of Lincoln sought to pardon my client for an alleged criminal offense does not prove my client guilty of the charges brought against him. My client is not being tried for "criminality" as defined by the patrons of the Fantasy Elections board; he is being tried for a specific offense under the Criminal Justice Act. The prosecution is right to note that the Governor of Lincoln has no power to issue pardons for crimes committed under federal law, so it seems unlikely that the alleged pardon even related to the charges being brought by the Department of Justice. Again: my client must be charged only on the merits of these charges as they relate to a specific passage of federal Law.

In conclusion: the alleged brief existence of a pardon issued by the Governor of Lincoln does not prove my client committed any crime, and certainly does not prove he committed Treason. I ask that the quoted paragraph be struck from the record on the grounds that it does not seek to prove my client committed the specific criminal offense with which he has been charged, but rather attempts to raise concerns about "criminality" in general which encourage the jury to reach a decision based on their feelings about the propriety of my client's actions, and not whether my client committed the specific offense with which he has been charged.

Objection sustained.

Governor AZ's pardon does not signify guilt, and thus arguments about 'concerns of criminality' are irrelevant to the charges of the defendant.

The quoted paragraph from the AG will be disregarded by the Jury.

[Blair]

On the assumption that Truman has no further objections (but I will consider them if the unlikely event he does) I will now call Assembly Member Jimmy7812, Assembly Member Mike Wells and Governor AZ to the stand as witnesses, and will allow the Attorney General to question them.

For the matter of time, I will allow this to happen all at once; it would take days when you account for the US-UK time difference to do it witness by witness.

To repeat again, when we proceed to questioning it's of the most importance that witnesses don't edit their posts, without showing/telling what they edited on the thread.

Can witnesses please take the following oath

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[Esteemed Jimmy]

I, Jimmy7812 swear that I will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Dave.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

I, 1184AZ swear that I will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Dave.

[Wells]

I, Mike Wells swear that I will tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me Dave.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Thank-you, Your Honor. I would object once further, if I may:

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I request this paragraph and the appended quotations by Messrs. Reactionary, Bacon King, and Wxtransit be struck from the record as irrelevant to the question at hand. My client has been charged with a specific offense under the Criminal Justice Act that does not include offending the sensibilities of private citizens. Whether the quoted individuals indeed felt "revulsion" at the actions of my client does not prove him guilty of Treason, and the inclusion of this passage and the appended quotations therefore constitutes a highly improper attempt to influence the Jury to a decision not based strictly on the merits of the specific charges brought by the Department of Justice.

[Blair]

Thank-you, Your Honor. I would object once further, if I may:

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I request this paragraph and the appended quotations by Messrs. Reactionary, Bacon King, and Wxtransit be struck from the record as irrelevant to the question at hand. My client has been charged with a specific offense under the Criminal Justice Act that does not include offending the sensibilities of private citizens. Whether the quoted individuals indeed felt "revulsion" at the actions of my client does not prove him guilty of Treason, and the inclusion of this passage and the appended quotations therefore constitutes a highly improper attempt to influence the Jury to a decision not based strictly on the merits of the specific charges brought by the Department of Justice.

Objection sustained.

The opinions of these citizens are not relevant to the case at hand, and will be disregarded by the Jury.

[Oakvale]

I would like to register for the record my objection to the ruling of the Court on the most recent objection by the counsel for the defense. The counsel's lapel-clutching aside, the comments referenced are not merely assertions of disgust, for which I could simply have cited any number of posts, but provide concise and accurate summaries of the actions of the defendant in non-legal, layman's language, as such providing a valuable service to the jury.

Were this a real-world Court I would formally appeal the ruling of the hon. Justice on this objection. As is I can only register my disagreement in the strongest possible terms.

I thank the Justice for the speedy swearing in of the witnesses and will be questioning them shortly.

[Oakvale]

Your Honor, I will first question Assemblyman Jimmy7812.

Assemblyman, were you informed of the decision to hold a final vote on the Act in question, and, if so, when?

Furthermore, is it your estimation that the decision to hold a final vote being taken in the Discord was unusual by the normal standards of the Assembly?

[Esteemed Jimmy]

For the first question, I was not informed about the decision to hold a final vote, but rather was asked if we were ready to hold a final vote on the act in question on the Discord server set up for the government of Lincoln. The speaker said, “If there are no further comments to be made on L10.7.3 I will open it to vote” on the Discord server, which was also asked on the forum when the speaker said “Are there any further comments to be made?”. All the members of the assembly said they had no comments on the discord server. This all occurred on the night of March 17, 2018, and afterwards the vote was announced on and took place on the forum.

For the second question, I wouldn’t say that asking whether the assembly was ready to hold a final vote on the Discord server was unusual by the normal standards of the Assembly. Off-site tools such as Mibbit IRC have also been used many times in the past for communication between assembly members and sometimes other citizens, but no official business ever was done without it also being publicly done on the forum. That is the case here, as the vote was not held on discord, but rather on the forum.

[Oakvale]

Thank you, Assemblyman.

One follow-up, your honor - Assemblyman, to clarify the second answer, would you say it was an unremarkable and common practice for the Speaker to conduct Assembly business - such as, in this case, agreeing to hold a final vote, on the Discord server? Are there other examples you can recall for us of similar actions?

In the interests of time, your honor, I'd pose to Assemblyman Wells the above question too, and ask whether it was his experience that the Assembly operated at least partly on the Discord?

[Esteemed Jimmy]

To clarify my second answer, the Speaker would sometimes ask if we were ready to go to a vote on the Discord server, often if there was no debate activity in the thread for a bill. However, this would also be asked on the forum in a post.

Example:

Are we ready to hold a vote?

[Blair]

Thank you, Assemblyman.

would you say it was an unremarkable and common practice for the Speaker to conduct Assembly business - such as, in this case, agreeing to hold a final vote, on the Discord server? Are there other examples you can recall for us of similar actions?

And ask whether it was his experience that the Assembly operated at least partly on the Discord?

For sake of clarity these are the two questions being asked to Mike Wells.

[Wells]

Thank you, Assemblyman.

One follow-up, your honor - Assemblyman, to clarify the second answer, would you say it was an unremarkable and common practice for the Speaker to conduct Assembly business - such as, in this case, agreeing to hold a final vote, on the Discord server? Are there other examples you can recall for us of similar actions?

In the interests of time, your honor, I'd pose to Assemblyman Wells the above question too, and ask whether it was his experience that the Assembly operated at least partly on the Discord?

I've been in the Assembly for about a month now and the Discord hasn't been around much longer than that. It was started in late February; I joined in early March during the special election in which I was elected to the Assembly. I can see everything that's ever been posted in the Discord, considering it is discord. Assembly business has been prevalent in a certain way which I will describe. But first, I want to clarify what I consider Assembly business. Assembly business includes debate, motions, and votes. As far as I am concerned, no motions or votes have taken place on Discord. However, we have debated on bills on Discord. I think we should do it on the forum (and ironically debated with someone on the Discord about it), but I'll admit that Discord is convenient for stuff like that.

Of course, a lot of our discussion isn't just debate - some of it is stuff like the Speaker telling us that there is a bill on the floor for discussion or a vote being held on Atlas, or an Assemblyman announcing that they made an amendment on Atlas. Other times, it is general discussion about something only tangentially related to Assembly business. As for whether agreements to hold a final vote occurred on Discord, they did not occur while I was a member of the Discord that I can recall. The one exception is the subject of this court case.

[Oakvale]

Thank you both.

No further questions to these witnesses, your honor.

To conclude I will ask to Governor AZ the following:

Did you issue a pardon to the defendant and subsequently delete it, and, if so, why?

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Your Honor
I object to the last question posed by the Attorney General as I don't see what we and the Court gain from making myself answer the AG latest question and those questions that are likely to follow.The allegations that the AG is making of a pardon being issued by the Governor of Lincoln and then subsequently being deleted  do not impact the facts of the alleged actions by Ninja or whether the allegations against the honorable speaker Ninja0428 are true. This case rests solely based on the actions of Ninja and whether those actions constitute a breech of federal law.

[Blair]

Your Honor
I object to the last question posed by the Attorney General as I don't see what we and the Court gain from making myself answer the AG latest question and those questions that are likely to follow.The allegations that the AG is making of a pardon being issued by the Governor of Lincoln and then subsequently being deleted  do not impact the facts of the alleged actions by Ninja or whether the allegations against the honorable speaker Ninja0428 are true. This case rests solely based on the actions of Ninja and whether those actions constitute a breech of federal law.

Objection overruled. Whilst the alleged pardon has no legal standing under federal law, the alleged pardon is still a matter of importance for the court, and jury in this case.

(Edit made for grammar and formatting)

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Thank you both.

No further questions to these witnesses, your honor.

To conclude I will ask to Governor AZ the following:

Did you issue a pardon to the defendant and subsequently delete it, and, if so, why?

Your Honor,
Yes a pardon was issued to cover any offenses that may have been committed by the defended from his time as speaker. The pardon was deleted based on the advice of the defended and dfwlibertylover.

Here are some screenshots on the conversation surrounding myself and Ninja plus dfw discussing the pardon and where they persuade me to delete it.









If any of the text is unreadable I can write it out for the court.

Thank you
your Honor

[Blair]

A transcript would be greatly appreciated, as even when zoomed in the text it hard to read

[Pragmatic Conservative]

A transcript of the above text your honor

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[Blair]

Does the Attorney General have any further questions?

[Oakvale]

Apologies your honor, I didn’t see the transcripts had been posted.

No further questions to the witness, though I would suggest given the context of this very case that pardons, even rescinded, should not be deleted from the Public Record of the thread.

[Blair]

Unless the Attorney General has any further witnesses, or statements he wishes to make, we'll be moving onto the defense's case.

[Oakvale]

No further witnesses or statements to the Court at this time your honor, though I look forward to seeing the defense counsel’s arguments.