I'm sorry, but I sat through the entire trial, and I cannot for the life of me remember a time in Second Life when I was more horrified by a spectacle unfolding in front of me. I know that it was intended to show fair and evenhanded treatment of infractions within SFCSLQ, but quite frankly what it did was exactly the opposite.
When I first heard about this trial (from the group announcement), I was concerned about two things. The first was that the accused would not have the time for a proper and fair proceeding because of the late hour it was scheduled at on a Sunday evening. The second thing I was concerned about was that this would all basically be made up as it went along, without any real predefined structure. From what I observed, both of these things came to pass.
From the start, things went badly for the idea that this was a fair and unbiased trial. When you want to convince people you’re fair, and that you really mean it, you have to go out of your way to avoid potential ethics issues. Unfortunately, that did not occur here.
Complaint about the Prosecutor being dressed in the robes of a judge – the Defense Counsel was ordered to stop being a fashion critic. The Prosecutor remained gowned as a judge for the entire length of the trial, in effect putting her on an even standing with the Judge. She should have been made to remove the robe.
Complaint about the Prosecutor and the Judge having a personal relationship that might provide the Prosecutor with some special advantage, either knowingly or unknowingly. How can this not be seen as a potential bias issue? Here, it would have been best to either have the Prosecutor step down, or the Judge recuse himself in order to avoid even the slightest hint of impropriety or bias.
Complaint about the Prosecutor and the Judge having personal communication via Ventrilo. This leads right back to the special personal relationship of the Prosecutor and Judge, and absolutely screams Special Advantage. While personal communication can be used via IM, and the net effect of Ventrilo usage is nothing serious, we are again talking about the need to make things actually look fair. The Judge should have acknowledged the complaint and discontinued the use of Ventrilo (even if only actually saying so in court) to try and enhance the perception of propriety and fairness.
Complaint by the Defense Counsel that the Defense was not able to participate in the Jury Selection process. The net result was that the Prosecution and the Judge chose the Jury themselves. It doesn’t matter what the reasons were that the Defense was unable to participate in the process was. There is no way to provide a fair and unbiased trial if there is a perception that the Prosecution was able to choose and mold its own sympathetic jury without interference from the Defense. When it was obvious during Jury Selection that the Defense would not be able to participate, Jury Selection should have been postponed or rescheduled. By the time it was brought up in trial, it was obviously too late for that. Instead, there should have been a mistrial declared, and the proceedings restarted. Instead, the Judge gave the curt reply of “addressed and overruled.” You cannot “address” something as major as lack of Defense participation in Jury Selection as if it were a complaint that the coffee was too cold.
Continuing with the Jury. Was this supposed to be comprised of Hazel’s peers? Obviously, a jury of peers would have been comprised of members of SFCSLQ. Period. Instead, we had some members of the jury, most noteworthy of which was someone named “HolyHell,” that appeared to have just been handy people visiting Galaxy for the first time that were asked, “Would you like to be in the Jury?” And seeing the potential for fun, they said, “Sure!” Thus, the end of the Jury selection process. I can only assume that there weren’t enough “volunteers” for the job, so it was opened up to anyone and everyone. This should not have occurred. The selection process should have been rescheduled, a different method for attracting jurors, whatever, but it should never have been opened up to people outside of SFCSLQ. Our real world example would be Canadian and Mexican jurors in an American trial.
Still continuing with the Jury. The aforementioned juror, HolyHell:
[17:52] HolyHell Cassell: He's guilty !! BURN HIM AT THE STAKE !!!!!
[17:53] HolyHell Cassell: oh is it too early for that part ?
[17:57] HolyHell Cassell shouts: Can we burn him now ? please can we can we ?
Nothing was said about this for nine minutes, until at 18:01 Lead Counsel objected to the “obvious juror bias”. While it’s not likely there was any real juror bias here (can’t be discounted though due to the biased Jury Selection process) it is very obvious that HolyHell did not take the event seriously.
[18:01] HolyHell Cassell: Ok Im sorry..... How about a light roasting instead
[18:01] Cobramax Mechanique: the juror will refrain from any further outbursts
[18:01] HolyHell Cassell: with carrots and potatoes
[18:02] HolyHell Cassell: oh okies sorry
[18:02] Ssaspriina Sismondi: Your honor, I object. obviously they are not impartial
[18:02] Ssaspriina Sismondi: May we please have this one juror dismissed from the jury box?
[18:02] HolyHell Cassell: No. I wanna stay
[18:02] HolyHell Cassell: Ill shut up now
[18:03] Cobramax Mechanique: Bailif, please have HolyHell Cassell leave the jury pool area
[18:04] HolyHell Cassell: Awww thats not fair. I object to his objection of me being nonobjective
[18:04] Cobramax Mechanique: she was not on the preselected jury list
The Judge tells the Juror to refrain from further outbursts. The Assistant Counsel objects again about the lack of impartiality, and the Judge asks the Bailiff to remove HolyHell. A minute later, the Judge mentions that she was not on the pre-selected jury list. Then why was she called a juror previously, and why was she allowed to sit in the jury to begin with? Eventually, after making a further nuisance of herself, HolyHell is eventually removed from the courtroom, but only after the Prosecutor requests it.
The Prosecutor then begins to present her case. Unfortunately, the charges have not been presented to the jury by an officer of the court. This fundamental flaw in court procedure should have been enough at the least for a mistrial, and should in and of itself be grounds for an appeal based on lack of a fair trial. However, this goes unnoticed, and no formal charges are ever presented.
Also missing is Opening Arguments. What does the Prosecution hope to prove? What is the Defense going to show? The only thing being shown here is that the proceedings are at worst being made up on the go, and at best were written down on paper by someone that never bothered to look into how a trial actually worked. Again, a trial that does not contain all the parts cannot be considered fair, and either mistrial or appeal should have been the result.
When the Prosecutor did begin her case, she was the one to make the first indication of what wrongdoings the Defendant had made.
[18:24] Katrina Bixby: I have time date and details of Hazel Bellows planting listening devices on ppl
However, these are not formal charges, and are not being delivered by an Officer of the Court. Again, at no time in the trial do we actually learn what the formal charges are.
The Prosecutor then enters into evidence something she declares is a log of the finding of the chatlog devices planted by the Defendant. This log, easily altered, is never authenticated or confirmed by an uninvolved third party witness, nor was it ever the subject of a pretrial hearing to determine whether or not it was admissible in court. In other words, the trial was also missing its Discovery Phase. As such, it should have been grounds for a mistrial. Now, it should be added to the list of reasons for appeal.
Not going to go through all the various objections and counter-objections that occurred within the actual questioning… except for one thing that kept getting repeated by the Prosecution over and over.
[18:57] Katrina Bixby: Your honor this question is not relivant
[20:30] Katrina Bixby: The subject is the defendant placing listening devices on ppl nothing else
[20:52] Katrina Bixby: I request that the defendant speak of the issue of 10/7 chat loggers
[20:59] Katrina Bixby: your honor, pls tell the defense the state of mind is not a issue in this case?
[21:04] Katrina Bixby: Your Honor this seems like phillerbustering, the jury and my self...
Since no formal charges were ever placed, the Prosecutor’s opinion of the relevance of the subject was not, well, relevant. And yet, she was allowed to continually harass the Defense about this over and over, and again, the Judge would try to rush the Defense based on this.
By the third hour of the trial, it was obvious that both the Judge and the Prosecutor had better things to do than waste time in something that was supposed to be over in an hour. When the Prosecution rested, the Judge immediately attempted to turn the trial over to the Jury. The Defense then asked if they would be allowed to call their own witnesses, and the Judge was puzzled.
[20:40] Cobramax Mechanique: you have additional witnesses?
Beyond obviously trying to bypass yet another, and potentially HUGE aspect of the trial (not that forgetting to actually charge the Defendant isn’t huge), it both highlights again that this was being made up on the fly, and that a witness list was never created by either side. It does not appear that it was even requested by the court. How are the Defense and Prosecution supposed to prepare questions for the other’s witnesses if they don’t even know who they are?
The Defense witness is none other than the Defendant. As the Counsel attempted to question him on the events of that day, they were again subjected to harassment by the Prosecutor that were little more than attempts to get the proceedings over with quickly so she “and the jury” could get on to other things. Last three quotes above from the log are from this period.
[21:04] Cobramax Mechanique: the defense will wrap this up forthwith
At this point, the Defense Counsel had a meltdown. Sickened of the constant harassment and interference of the Prosecution, and the constant pushing to get the trial over with as quickly as possible, Counsel just gave up.
[21:05] Ssaspriina Sismondi: Hazel, please be seated.
[21:05] Hazel Bellow: ma'am?
Without bothering to find out why, the Judge simply told the Prosecutor that it was her witness.
[21:05] Cobramax Mechanique: the prosecution will question the witness
[21:05] Ssaspriina Sismondi: Your honor, you may proceed with the jury. I will note that formally I complain that this trial has been mishandled
[21:06] Cobramax Mechanique: complaint denied
[21:06] Ssaspriina Sismondi: I will make no more comment through this trial
[21:06] Diovan Armistice: Defense is not even given the right to question their whitness
[21:06] Cobramax Mechanique: please proceed
[21:08] Diovan Armistice: Our client is titled to the right of defense, and is not being alowed to state his accounts of the event. This is a travisty
[21:08] Cobramax Mechanique: the defense had its oportunity
[21:09] Cobramax Mechanique: and seems to have delayed the process
Rather than allow the Defense Counsel to meltdown and rob the Defendant the right to a fair trial (he lost his representation right there), the Judge should have stopped the trial and resolved that situation, perhaps with some bullying of the Counsel back in the chambers. Instead, he purposely allowed the meltdown to occur in the interests of getting the trial over as quickly as possible.
After the Prosecutor finished her questioning, the Judge again showed that the entire thing was being made up as it went along by once again trying to give it to the Jury, and thereby skipping another important portion of a trial, the Closing Argument. This is the opportunity to remind the Jury of the different things that each side believes is relevant and important to their case. When reminded of it (again, by the Defense, as in all other instances), the Judge, obviously trying to rush things to the point of ridiculousness now, gave each side a single minute. While I would certainly agree that a time limit would necessarily be imposed simply to prevent filibustering, many people have a difficult time typing one or two coherent sentences in the space of a single minute.
For the record, Prosecution’s closing argument lasted from 21:12 to 21:14, while Defense Counsel’s lasted from 21:15 to 21:17. Even given the fact that both sides took twice the allotted time, neither was able to muster much of an argument in that period. Again, the rush to judgment just to get the thing over with was damaging the ability of this trial to be called fair. However, it wasn’t over yet.
Finally, the Judge was able to give the trial over to the Jury. However, in contravention of all logic, he gave them a 10 minute time limit to deliver a verdict. Again, this was obviously contrived to get the trial over with as quickly as possible, but the net result was that it prevented any in-depth, meaningful Jury deliberations. Again, this could not even remotely be misinterpreted as “fair”.
Ten minutes later, the Jury had its verdict for the court.
[21:29] Cobramax Mechanique: has the jury made a determination?
[21:30] Katsuhito Tal: We here of the jury
[21:30] Katsuhito Tal: Have come to a decision
[21:30] Katsuhito Tal: The jury finds Hazel Bellow
[21:30] Katsuhito Tal: Guilty of the Charges against him
[21:31] Cobramax Mechanique: thank you ladies and gentelmen and officers of the jury
The irony, of course, is that no Charges were ever actually placed against him in court. That the Jury itself was aware of what a huge mess this was turning out to be was indicated immediately after the announcement of the verdict by a Juror himself
[21:32] Ebonfire Harbinger: hornor. THis is vey importnat.
[21:32] Ebonfire Harbinger: I would be remiss if I did not state that this trail has very many problems. Apperances of immporpity on both sides of this case.
[21:33] Ebonfire Harbinger: You are the partner of the defence...that is against all legal preseince.
[21:33] Ebonfire Harbinger: The defence inclused somone that was linkedc to the "motive" of the defendnat
[21:33] Ebonfire Harbinger: If is imparitive that somene NOT linked to this case give a judgement.
[21:34] Ebonfire Harbinger: On the actual punish ment
[21:34] Ebonfire Harbinger shakes his head
[21:36] Lauri Mayfair: I think Ebon meant Prosecution, with the partner comment, and Senstancing rather than Judgement. Just to clarify what I think he meant, nothing more in any fashion.
Despite reason after reason to declare a mistrial, the trial was allowed to continue to its hurried conclusion not so that justice would be served, but so people could go to bed. When you’re talking about the future of a person, and justice, you really can’t go too far. It would have hurt nothing to allow this trial to continue over a period of a few days. Better if it had been held as a court martial, without the need for a jury of people with dubious ability to log on to watch it all.
By taking on the roles of Judge and Prosecutors, the two SFCSLQ flag officers ensured that there was no higher authority available to the Defendant, this denying him the ability to appeal. All convicted persons have the right to appeal, but in this case, there’s nobody left to appeal to.
In the end, Hazel will be sentenced by a group of senior officers, likely none of whom were at the trial, for whatever reason, and are therefore unable to take anything into account to determine the appropriate punishment.
Ironically, the indications of an unfair trial and jury tampering were not over. While it may be an absolutely amazing coincidence… mere minutes after the conclusion of the trial, Juror Lauri Mayfair was given a field promotion to the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade. No reason was given for the promotion, and she was not promoted to any position. Such a field promotion is unprecedented. While I don’t wish to create an obvious conclusion that she was given a promotion in exchange for her vote (I’m sure she deserved it for a very different reason), it again shows a fundamental lack of judgment on the part of the admirals. Whatever the reason for Lt Mayfair’s promotion, how can this not look like it was related?
In summary, there is absolutely no way anybody with even a modicum of legal experience or even just plain common sense could think for a second that this trial was fair and impartial. I have not been able to find one such person yet, and I've spoken with a number that were actually there.
If, with all this, the admiralty cannot see the problem with what occured at the trial, then all I can do is throw up my hands and remember the final words of Lead Defense Council Diovan Armistice during that overly long two minutes of closing arguements:
"I want you to imagine yourselves on trial here today. If this was your trial, and you looking to this jury. Would you feel Justice? Would you feel.... justice?"
In regards to something that has been posted here in the forums:
"The defendant never denied doing what he was charged with, only pleaded the 5th amendment."
Pleading the 5th amendment is not an admission of guilt. In fact, in Griffon vs California in 1965, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not punish a defendant for exercising his right to silence by allowing the prosecutor to ask the jury to draw an inference of guilt from the defendant's refusal to testify in his own defense. However, this was done in the trial, and now it is being done right here on the forums.
Off that subject, and in regards to the initial complaint about Bogle disrupting the SG RP... it was brought up at that weekend's senior officer meeting. In fact, Cobramax was getting himself ready to participate by putting on his General Hammond uniform when he was informed that the RP had been cancelled because of the disruption. With the rescheduling of the RP to Wednesday, it was decided not to worry about Bogle.
