TNP vs. SacofTomatos

Belschaft

Belschaft

TNPer
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TNP Nation
Altschaft
Discord
Belschaft
Indictment:
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Indictment​

In the name of the nations of The North Pacific, an indictment under The North Pacific Legal Code is filed against SacofTomatos, alleging that during the month of November 2012, SacofTomatos telegrammed numerous nations the following:

The Republic of Sacoftomatos (New. 50 minutes ago)
Greetings!

I am telegramming you regarding your endorsement of The Delegate-Elect of McMasterdonia. McMasterdonia is controlled by the infamous The I was a sex god in the 60s of Durkadurkiranistan II - both nations controlled by the same player. Durkadurkiranistan twice subjected the North Pacific to his reigns of terror, banning thousands of nations simply for his own amusement. In addition to this, he twice abolished the democratic government in the North Pacific in exchange for a totalitarian regime. Durkadurkiranistan was even condemned by the World Assembly for his actions. You can read all about his last reign of terror here: page=WA_past_resolutions/council=2/start=32

Now Durkadurkiranistan wants to become delegate again, this time as McMasterdonia. Protect democracy in the North Pacific and please withdraw your endorsement from The Delegate-Elect of McMasterdonia, for the better of the region. It's not too late to save the region we love if we act quickly!

~Balkanlands

In claiming that the player behind Durkadurkiranistan is also the player behind McMasterdonia, SacofTomatos is in violation of Chapter 1, Section 1.4, Clause 10 of the North Pacific Legal code, which states:

North Pacific Legal Code:
10. "Fraud" is defined as an intentional deception, by falsehood or omission, made for some benefit or to damage another individual.
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Pursuant to Chapter 3, Section 3.3, Clause 11, of the Legal Code, which states that "[a]ny Justice may approve or deny an indictment, and their decision will be final," this indictment is formally requested for approval, noting that Chief Justice Hileville has previously approved an informal request above.

Sincerely,

Punk Daddy
Attorney General of The North Pacific
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Representing the North Pacific will be Punk Daddy, Attorney General.
Representing the Defendant will be Eluvatar, Attorney for the Defendant.

Presiding over this case will be Belschaft, Justice and Trial Moderator, Hileville, Chief Justice, and -?-, Justice.

The Defendant is charged with Fraud. The Defendant has 48 hours to enter a plea, at that time if no pleas is entered a default plea of "Not Guilty" will be entered for the Defendant. Furthermore, the Defendant is requested to notify the court as to who will be serving as their Attorney. If they do not do so then they will be listed as representing themselves, though they may alter this at any time. After this period has elapsed we will move into pretrial motions and the evidence discovery phase.

SacofTomatos, how do you plead?


Timetable and notes:
Timetable

December 11th - December 17th: Pre-trial motions
December 17th - December 24th:Evidence discovery and pre-trial motions
Januray 2nd - January 9th: Arguments on the evidence and law
January 9th - January 13th: Court Verdict

Witnesses
  • Prosecution
    1. McMasterdonia
  • Defence
    1. McMasterdonia

Notes

- Defendant notified of charges by AG
- Not guilty plea entered in abstentia
- Eluvtar recognized as defence counsel
- Indictement to eject and ban vacated
- Recess ended
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A plea of not guilty on the part of the defendant is hereby entered.

I am asking for volunteers to defend SacofTomatos in absentia.
 
Eluvatar is recognized as defence counsel. Once the general halt on trial proceedings ends I will provide a timetable.
 
I move that the Attorney General's unlawful halt to this proceeding be ended as my client has been banned from the region pending the result of this trial and the extension of his detention without allowing his defense is counter to the bill of right's requirement of prompt judicial review:

Bill of Rights:
Any ejected or banned nation shall have prompt and immediate recourse to judicial review of the matter.
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I move that the defense be allowed to file pretrial motions, at a minimum.
 
Motion approved. I will allow pretrial motions at this point in time, but we will not be able to move to evidence discovery till the question of the existence or otherwise of a duty to disclose is settled.
 
I move that this case be dismissed because my client is being "held to answer for a crime in a manner not prescribed by the Constitution or the Legal Code" (in violation of Bill of Rights clause 6) in an illegally non-prompt manner because:

The North Pacific Legal Code requires:
Legal Code Chapter 3:
12. Once an ejection is performed, the Government must notify the ejected nation of their rights within one hour, and publicly submit a criminal proceeding to the court within six hours.
13. Once a criminal proceeding is presented, the defendant will have 48 hours to enter a plea, or a plea of "Not Guilty" may be entered for them.
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If the 48 hour period to present a plea began when this thread was posted, then the charges were "presented to the court" at (time=1354574690) which is well over 6 hours from when my client was ejected from The North Pacific at (time=1353296152).1

If the charges were "presented to the court" at (time=1353345379) here then not only was the time for plea entry done in a manner not prescribed by the legal code but instead much later in time, but the presentation was still more than 6 hours from when my client was ejected at (time=1353296152).1

If the prohibition against holding nations to answer for crimes "in a manner not prescribed by the Constitution or the Legal Code" is insufficient reason to dismiss this case, realize also that the Bill of Rights requires that "Any ejected or banned nation shall have prompt and immediate recourse to judicial review of the matter." The Legal Code has defined how prompt that recourse should be, specifically, so violations of its requirements should not be acceptable.

1
NationStates API happenings for sacoftomatos saved at (time=1355209437)
HTML: 
<NATION id="sacoftomatos"><HAPPENINGS>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353296152</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ was ejected and banned from %%the_north_pacific%% by @@mcmasterdonia@@.</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353259361</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ was nominated for a World Assembly Condemnation by @@soulia@@.</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353210884</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ changed its national slogan to "For a better North Pacific.", and animal to "New Dollar".</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353210884</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ changed nation type to "Republic".</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353210884</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ altered its national flag.</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353210853</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ changed its national animal to "dollar".</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353210853</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ changed nation type to "Confederacy".</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353210853</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ altered its national flag.</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353210839</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ changed its national currency to "tomato", and animal to "rogerlio".</TEXT>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
<TIMESTAMP>1353210839</TIMESTAMP>
<TEXT>@@sacoftomatos@@ changed nation type to "Commonwealth".</TEXT>
</EVENT>

</HAPPENINGS></NATION>
 
Your honor, I object to "proof" as this has not been entered and accepted into evidence by the court.

With respect to the motion to dismiss, I object. The defendant has had ample time to enter a plea, and did not do so. The defendant was also given notice about these proceedings and did not respond to this office in-game or here.

Further, I would submit that it is the responsibility of "the Government" to publicly submit a criminal proceeding. The delegate posted a request for a warrant/indictment for the defendant within the timeline proscribed within the Constitution defense cites. In this manner, the Government via Delegate McMasterdonia, submitted a criminal proceeding in a very public manner. That the physical indictment was not issued until 14 hours later, in my opinion does not invalidate the public proceedings initiated by McMasterdonia.

Defense's argument is that because notices were sent within 6 hours of the time they should have been sent that is cause for this case to be dismissed. However, I would argue that the court and The North Pacific provided ample time for the defendant to respond to the requests placed upon them and that the spirit of the law is such that proper notice be given to ejected nations.

This office believes that The North Pacific did give SacofTomatos sufficient notice and that any dismissal would undermine the ability of the delegate to conduct his/her business and require that members of this office be online nearly 24/7 in order to comply with the letter of this statute. I maintain that this office complied with notifying the defendant
 
The defense has made no argument regarding the notice given. Nor is the Court required to immediately approve indictments. The problem is that for at least 3 hours past the the deadline for formal charges, they were not laid, while my client continued to be banned from The North Pacific. The problem is that despite my client's right to prompt judicial review of his banning, my client has been banned from the region for two weeks without trial, two weeks less six hours longer than is permitted by the legal code.
 
The motion to dismiss the charges is rejected. Whilst the court regrets, and apologizes for, it's tardiness in establishing the trial thread, I do not consider this oversight sufficient to justify such action.

However, considering the fact that this trial is on recess, and will remain such for some time, I am vacating the indictment to eject and ban the defendant. As we cannot guarantee a hasty resolution, I feel it is improper to keep such in force when he is not an active security threat. I hereby order that he be removed from the regional ban list with all possible haste.
 
The court has essentially approved the motion to dismiss by this process.

Has this order been delivered to the delegate?
 
The court has not approved the motion to dismiss the charges. To the contrary, I have rejected it. However, I cannot in good conscience leave a nation banned from the region whilst his trial is, at your offices request, in recess indefinitely. I have not yet communicated the order to the delegate as he is no presently online; if I go to bed before he comes online I will communicate it to him via PM rather than in person.
 
Actually a nation can remain banned from a region pending a trial. I do not see how this goes against your conscience, your honour. The trial is yet to deliver a verdict, if you wish to dismiss charges you should say so
 
The recess is now over. Evidence discovery will run from now until the 23rd, after which there will be a one week Christmas recess from the 24th to the 1st. We will move on to arguments of the evidence on the 2nd of Januray.
 
As a note - as stated in the Official Policy of the AG - I will be 100% online Wednesday. Very touch and go until then.
 
Belschaft:
Noted. I assume you requested his presence and he refused?
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I'm a little surprised. I do not recall being asked to come forward as a witness?

Edit: Upon reflection. Eluvatar is calling me as a hostile witness as he believes that I will not be of benefit to the defence's case, but is calling me anyway? Presumably as I was the one who banned the defendant from the region.
 
In that case, Eluvatar, you are going about this in an incorrect manner. MCM is not at this time a hostile witness; he will become so if, when providing testimony, he is evasive or antagonistic.

McMasterdonia is recognized as a defense witness.
 
I actually was going to call him as a primary witness, but I thought the indictment had been vacated. Let me click on page one to see what has changed. McM is actually my primary witness.
 
I am sorry if I misuse legal jargon. I meant that I understood him to be an adverse party to my client. I did not mean that mcmasterdonia has declined to testify: I had not asked him. The distinction is not of course important under the December Court rules.
 
Eluvatar:
If I may, I would like to ask mcmasterdonia when it was he banned Sacoftomatos?
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30 Days ago.

Shown from the National happenings of the nation in question:

30 days ago: Sacoftomatos was ejected and banned from The North Pacific by The Minister of Cheese of McMasterdonia.
 
Your honor, you vacated the indictment. I am not sure what is involved next? Can you please explain the ramifications of vacating the indictment and what that means to the case at hand?
 
punk d:
Your honor, you vacated the indictment. I am not sure what is involved next? Can you please explain the ramifications of vacating the indictment and what that means to the case at hand?
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I vacated the indictment to eject and ban, as we were on indefinite recess, but not the charges. The trial continues.
 
No it is not.

I shall seek to conduct testimony of this witness on Saturday evening if the witness and defense counsel are agreeable to such terms.
 
If we could combine questioning then, that would perhaps be best.

Would the witness be available in the evening by Eastern Time?
 
I will review all outstanding matters later today. This is a reminder that the court recess will start tomorrow; I will be accepting no further evidence submissions or witnesses after the 24th, however outstanding testimony may be gathered during the recess so long as it is provided to the moderating justice before it ends.
 
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