Six Feet Underground [OOC Thread | Character RP | Invite-Only | Collaborative Writing]

IC Thread

Welcome to the RP Six Feet Underground (Santonian: Six pieds sous terre). The title alludes to the setting of the RP and its topic. Here, RPers/writers will play detective and try to solve deaths in the city of Saintes. Each player (or two) will be assigned to a case which they will solve.

This is a collaborative writing project. What do I mean by that? To prevent one-liners and needless back-and-forth posts, people in this RP are going to write posts with me via Google Docs and once done, we will be posting it to the forums as scenes/parts of the story.

Essentially, it’s like a choose-your-own-story game, only that players will write their way through it with me. I have a general idea on how the storylines play out and which right questions and right investigations will lead you to solving the case. Take note too, that my time is limited and so this will be a very slow RP.

For now, this RP is invite-only. For those interested to join, you can DM me via Discord.

Character and Story Index

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Resources for players
Homicide Detectives in Saintonge
Homicide Investigation in Saintonge

Homicide Detectives in Saintonge

Detectives
Homicide detectives (détectives) in the Saintes police have the rank of Lieutenant. Decades ago, each police district in Saintes had a team of homicide detectives. But ever since crime and homicide rates in Saintes fell in the 1970s, the homicide divisions were reorganized. In 2018, there were only a hundred homicides in this city of 8.6 million people. In the 1980s, all homicide detectives were gathered into a central pool of homicide detectives, and the numbers reduced by attrition, or transfer to other jurisdictions needing experienced detectives. Only in the late 1990s onwards were there training again of homicide detectives in Saintes.

Currently, the Saintes Police’s Homicide Investigation Division (Division d’enquête sur l’homicide, DEH) is headed by a General Commissar (Commissaire général), who manages the pool of homicide detectives. The homicide detectives, who work by pairs or threes, are organized into teams (brigades) consisting of 2-3 pairs or trios of homicide cops. Thus each brigades criminelles can have 5-9 detectives (usually seven), plus the leader (chef de groupe), who holds the rank of Capitaine. The DEH in the city of Saintes have seven teams.

Parallel organisations are present in each department of Saintonge, with varying numbers of teams.

Ordinary police
Police districts are congruent with the 22 arrondissements of Saintes, and are headed by Commandants. Police districts are further divided into police precincts, which are headed by precinct captains (Capitaines).

Judicial system
Saintonge is a civil law jurisdiction, and its judicial process for heinous crimes like murder are of a semi-inquisitorial system. (For you Anglo-Saxons used to the adversarial system, this is a video on the inquisitorial system used in Saintonge (and IRL continental Europe).)

Homicide Investigation in Saintonge

In Saintonge, responsibility for reporting suspicious deaths (which may include homicide, suicide, accidental deaths, and unobserved deaths) lies with the precinct captains in whose jurisdiction the death occurred. For obvious cases of homicide, the precinct captain will call the three basic offices involved in homicide investigation: the Division d’enquête sur l’homicide (DEH); the Service de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale (SSJML), the country’s forensic service; and the Office des procureurs aux poursuites criminelles (OPPC), a specialized prosecutorial service dealing with major crimes such as homicide. All three offices will send their people to respond: a brigade criminelle from the DEH, a forensic team from the SSJML, and a procureur from the OPPC.

For uncertain cases (or obvious suicide cases), the precinct captain may opt to call the SSJML only, until s/he believes that the case might be a homicide or if his/her district commandant overrules him/her, in which case the DEH and the OPPC will be called. If the DEH and OPPC are not called, such cases are investigated by police within the district.

During the first part of the investigation (enquête préliminaire) the procureur works closely with the detectives, who have a large degree of freedom to investigate. In Saintonge’s inquisitorial system, the judiciary, represented by the procureur (and later, the juge d’instruction), takes an active role in investigating cases and in finding out the truth; while at the same time ensuring impartiality, protecting everyone’s rights, providing legal advice to the team, and ensuring a solid legal case. As an example, procureurs and juges d’instruction are allowed to issue search warrants and arrest warrants, order suspects remanded, and interrogate witnesses and suspects (the procureur’s powers are more limited than that of the juge d’instruction). In essence, the judiciary takes an active role in finding out the truth instead of relying on different versions of the story presented by the opposing parties and choosing which one is the truth. The roles of the lawyers for the involved parties are largely minimal.

After the enquête préliminaire, the procureur informs the Magistrature (Office de la magistrature, OM), which has a pool of investigating judges. The OM will assign an investigating magistrate (juge d’instruction), who will take over from the procureur as the head of the team responsible for investigating the case. Usually the procureur calls the OM once the list of suspects has been narrowed down, or the crime appeared to be very complex that the greater powers of the juge d’instruction is needed. The procureur remains involved in the case. The investigation group will compile a file (dossier) will all the evidence, narratives, and proceedings of investigation.

Once the investigation is finished (suspect/s caught and apprehended), the case will be sent to the court for a trial under a different judge.

Practice
In practice, despite the wide powers and the seemingly central role of the procureur and the juge d’instruction, detectives usually have the power to do what they want and do the bulk of the work, as procureurs and juges d’instruction have other cases and responsibilities. Some of the procureurs or juges d’instruction delegate extensively, give the detectives a free rein, and only ask for specific requests to be carried out. Procureurs are less likely to do this than juges d’instruction. Other procureurs or juges d’instruction involve themselves extensively in the investigation, even interrogating suspects and witnesses themselves.

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