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Region: The High Court

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Thaecia v.

Xernon

Crimes alleged & laws in violation: The defendant failed to respond to a legally binding subpoena within 14 days of its enactment, which is a misdemeanour offence under LR 044 Article VIII Section XII.

Describe the facts of the case as you hold them to be: A subpoena for the defendant passed the House of Commons on or around the 11th of April 2022 (29d ago, BST). As such, the defendant had until on or around the 25th April 2022 (16d ago, BST) to respond to the subpoena, however failed to do so despite being contacted on Discord & Nationstates and having been online on Nationstates since the subpoena was issued.

[spoiler=Justices]AJ Democratized Peoples

AJ The Marconian State

DJ Dendrobium[/spoiler]

This case has been accepted by the High Court of Thaecia. The pre-trial phase begins now.

Reminder: When the pre-trial phase begins, the region of Thaecia and the defendant have 24 hours to declare their legal counsel of the regional message board of the High Court. Legal counsel must be approved and registered members of the Thaecian Bar Association. The default counsel for the region of Thaecia, henceforth referred to as the plaintiff, is the Minister of Justice, but they may appoint a registered member of the Thaecian Bar Association to prosecute in their stead. If the defendant chooses to defend themselves, they do not need to be a registered member of the Thaecian Bar Association.

If the filing party would like to appoint an alternate prosecution please also indicate that within the next 24 hours.

Brototh

Dendrobium

Xernon

I declare brototh as legal counsel for Thaecia

Brototh, Toerana V

Thank you.

The Court will now find counsel for the defendant, contact has been made over 24 hrs ago and no reply has been given.

As a first attempt, Mardis please appoint a registered Public Defender.

Brototh

Of Altonianic Islands v Toerana V

---

Crimes alleged & laws in violation:

The Thaecian Constitution, specifically Article 2 Section 1b, the right to freedom of association.

---

Describe the facts of the case as you hold them to be:

Toerana V, the Communications Minister, has banned me from participating in the Thaecian governmental media organization, the Thaecian Tribune, after a harmless joke. He has staunchly refused to let me back into the server despite numerous apologies and requests. Due to the Tribune's status as a media organization, my right to participate is explicitly recognized by the Thaecian constitution.

Here is the right in full: "The right to free association; this includes the right to form or join a political group or media organization."

Toeran V's actions are obviously illegal, and I request that the Court force him to allow me to participate.

I assume the primary defense against this would be that the Tribune is a product of the Thaecian government and isn't privately run, however the Constitution is extremely clear that all media organizations are affected. The Tribune, in my opinion, falls under that category.

I also acknowledge that there is an ongoing trial. I am unsure if the Court wishes to do these trials in tandem, or if I'll wait a few weeks. I'm fine with either option, but would prefer the quickest course of action.

I appoint The Islamic Country Of Honour as counsel for the defendant.

Thank you Mardis.

The Islamic Country Of Honour please attempt to make contact with the defendant to determine their plea. If you cannot achieve this within a reasonable timeframe the Court will enter the default plea of not guilty.

Of Altonianic Islands noted.

Given that ICH has resigned from being a Public Defender and removed himself from this case, Mardis please appoint another PD.

Brototh Vs Vedenmark

Alleged conduct of the accused: violation of LR 069 the no alt accounts act

Describe the facts as you hold them to be: vedenmark is like literally me so this is clearly a classic Xernon & Tomb situation so uh ban pls court mods!!!

Marvinville, Sevae

Brototh wrote:Brototh Vs Vedenmark

Alleged conduct of the accused: violation of LR 069 the no alt accounts act

Describe the facts as you hold them to be: vedenmark is like literally me so this is clearly a classic Xernon & Tomb situation so uh ban pls court mods!!!

This case is declined.

Mardis can you please appoint another public defender? If this isn't done in the next 48 hours the Court will attempt to appoint counsel themselves to ensure that the defendant has adequate counsel as guaranteed by the Constitution.

Brototh

Cerdenia would you be willing and able to serve as Counsel for the Defense? I see you are listed on the Public Defender registry and while the Court doesn't have the statutory power to force you to take this case, it would be greatly appreciated.

Democratized Peoples wrote:Cerdenia would you be willing and able to serve as Counsel for the Defense? I see you are listed on the Public Defender registry and while the Court doesn't have the statutory power to force you to take this case, it would be greatly appreciated.

I am willing to serve as counsel.

Wonderful.

Brototh and Cerdenia in the next few days please post your evidence forms and in the case of the defendant, their plea. If the defendant cannot be reached to make a plea, the default plea of not guilty will be entered.

Your honours,

As of about 48 hours from having attempted to contact the defendant for their plea, I have yet to have received any response. Therefore we shall proceed with the not guilty plea.

The default plea of not guilty has been lodged.

Brototh and Cerdenia please ready your evidence forms in the next 72 hours, if an extension is needed the Court would be glad to comply.

Democratized Peoples wrote:The default plea of not guilty has been lodged.

Brototh and Cerdenia please ready your evidence forms in the next 72 hours, if an extension is needed the Court would be glad to comply.

I may require between 12 to 24 more hours depending on my availability over the next 72 hours

Democratized Peoples

The prosecution, and the defense if applicable, are asked to submit their evidence in the next 48 hours or formally ask for an extension with good cause, else this case will be dismissed.

Brototh Cerdenia

Your honours,

Considering our client is innocent, there is no possible evidence to be submitted on behalf of the defence.

Brototh

Your honours,

The prosecution does not intend to abandon the charges, however the state awaits the results of the investigation into the June 2020 General Election, in which it is expected that the Congress of Thaecia will recommend charges to the Legal Affairs Minister against the defendant Xernon. Regardless of whether or not charges are recommended, the prosecution will push on with the charge of failure to obey a subpoena provided that the Court allows us to use that charge.

However, we will be temporarily withdrawing this case, so that in the event Congress does, as it likely will do, recommend further charges they can be properly considered and added to the case. I hope that we may soon entertain a proper legal case again in this august judicial body and I commend the defendant's attorney for being willing to take up this case when nobody else could do so. As always, the right to an attorney is key in our democracy.

In summary this case will be temporarily withdrawn by the prosecution so further charges may be considered and added.

Thaecia v.

Xernon

Crimes alleged & laws in violation:

High Crime - LR 044 Article VIII Section X (x1) The defendant utilised one alternate account to vote multiple times, hindering the democratic process of the region.

High Crime - LR 044 Article VIII Section X (x2) The defendant utilised between one and seven separate alternate accounts to vote multiple times, hindering the democratic process of the region.

Misdemeanour - LR 044 Article VIII Section XII (x1) The defendant failed to respond to a legally binding subpoena within 14 days of its enactment.

Describe the facts of the case as you hold them to be:

During the June 2020 General Election, which began on or around the 24th of June 2020 (709d ago, 1.9yr), the defendant utilised one alternate account to vote, hindering the democratic process of the region.

During the June 2020 General Election, which began on or around the 24th of June 2020 (709d ago, 1.9yr), the defendant utilised between one and seven separate alternate accounts to vote, hindering the democratic process of the region.

A subpoena for the defendant passed the House of Commons on or around the 11th of April 2022 (53d ago, BST). As such, the defendant had until on or around the 25th April 2022 (39d ago, BST) to respond to the subpoena, however failed to do so despite being contacted on Discord & Nationstates and having been online on Nationstates since the subpoena was issued.

[spoiler=Justices]CJ Sma Cyrillic

AJ Democratized Peoples

AJ The Marconian State

DJ Dendrobium[/spoiler]

Brototh can you detail the differences between counts one and two, they seem to be alleging, at their core, the same crime. If the only difference is the number of puppets potentially used, the Court would accept a case with those two merged if no substantive difference exists.

Democratized Peoples wrote:Brototh can you detail the differences between counts one and two, they seem to be alleging, at their core, the same crime. If the only difference is the number of puppets potentially used, the Court would accept a case with those two merged if no substantive difference exists.

The intended difference was that the evidence in the first count would focus much more substantially on a specific nation that will be mentioned in the evidence. However after further consideration of the evidence, I believe that it is not possible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the second charge. There is a substantive difference in the charges and with sufficient evidence could stand separately, but it would be immoral for the state to present a charge that it does not feel has enough evidence for. As such the second charge will be withdrawn and the first charge shall be reworded as such:

High Crime - LR 044 Article VIII Section X (x1) The defendant utilised at least one alternate account and potentially up to eight alternate accounts to vote multiple times, hindering the democratic process of the region.

This case, Thaecia v. Xernon, has been accepted by the High Court of Thaecia. The pre-trial phase begins now. Specifically on the following two counts:

High Crime - LR 044 Article VIII Section X (x1) The defendant utilised at least one alternate account and potentially up to eight alternate accounts to vote multiple times, hindering the democratic process of the region.

Misdemeanour - LR 044 Article VIII Section XII (x1) The defendant failed to respond to a legally binding subpoena within 14 days of its enactment.

Mardis as JM you are the default prosecution, do you intend to prosecute this case?

Xernon please appoint your counsel in the next 24 hours.

Mardis as the defendant has not appointed counsel, can you please appoint a Public Defender?

As it seems Mardis is inactive and/or unable to respond to our inquiries:

Brototh are you, as Prime Minister and filing party able to prosecute this case?

Cerdenia since you are a PD and previously represented Xernon in a related case, are you able to serve as defense counsel?

Democratized Peoples wrote:As it seems Mardis is inactive and/or unable to respond to our inquiries:

Brototh are you, as Prime Minister and filing party able to prosecute this case?

Cerdenia since you are a PD and previously represented Xernon in a related case, are you able to serve as defense counsel?

sure why not

Democratized Peoples wrote:As it seems Mardis is inactive and/or unable to respond to our inquiries:

Brototh are you, as Prime Minister and filing party able to prosecute this case?

Cerdenia since you are a PD and previously represented Xernon in a related case, are you able to serve as defense counsel?

Yes I am able to prosecute this case. Although I would like to request a very small change to the first charge.

High Crime - LR 044 Article VIII Section X (x1) The defendant utilised at least between one and eight alternate accounts and potentially up to eight alternate accounts to vote multiple times, hindering the democratic process of the region.

After reviewing the charge I feel that if the defendant is only found on using one account, the current charge may mean that the defendant is overall found not guilty even if he is known to have used at least one. We feel this significantly raises the burden of proof required to even further beyond, beyond a reasonable doubt as proof of using one alternate account should be enough to be found guilty. With this renewed charge the unnecessary hinderance to the prosecution will be dispelled. I am willing to concede time to the defence to prepare for this change in the charge if they wish, although I feel that the change is so minuscule it does not need it. If the request is denied the prosecution will withdraw and refile yet again as we wish to carry out justice properly, but we feel such a small change is not be worth the hassle of refiling.

As the substance of the charge is at its core the same and no plea has been entered or evidence presented, the Court will allow this change. The updated list of charges are as follows:

High Crime - LR 044 Article VIII Section X (x1) The defendant utilised between one and eight alternate accounts to vote multiple times, hindering the democratic process of the region.

Misdemeanour - LR 044 Article VIII Section XII (x1) The defendant failed to respond to a legally binding subpoena within 14 days of its enactment.

Brototh please present any evidence you have as soon as possible.

Cerdenia please attempt to get in contact with the defendant to establish a plea and present any evidence you have as soon as possible, if no plea is entered after a reasonable amount of time the Court will enter a default plea of not guilty.

The High Crime evidence form will be submitted shortly. For now, here is the evidence form for the Misdemeanour, as well as the witness form.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1718945

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1718936

Post self-deleted by Brototh.

I submit the evidence form and witness form for the high crime

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1719066

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1719454

Toerana V

I also submit a brief explanation of why this charge is legal:

"The High Court rules that if a criminal offense is repealed and replaced with one substantially similar as the previous offence, a Citizen may be prosecuted for actions committed while the former offense was law under the currently enacted criminal statute" - CR 21

"Electoral fraud will be defined as creating puppets to vote for a specific candidate, or in any way attempting to hinder the democratic process of the region." - LR 008

"10. Voter Fraud - One person voting with multiple nations in a Thaecian election, or in any way attempting to hinder the democratic and electoral process of the region." - LR 044

These passages are identical, and it is definitely true that voting multiple times in an election hinders the democratic process of the region. Democracy is where the population votes in a leader, an oligarchy is a small group of people. If someone votes multiple times, they are hindering democracy and forming oligarchy.

It can also be argued that voting with multiple nations and creating puppets to vote for a specific candidate are also substantially similar. Either way, it is still hindering the democratic and electoral process.

CR 021 also states that "it does seem that the repeal and replace was not meant to create a new law, but rather establish legal continuity from the previously enacted statute with some formatting and wording improvements" in reference to this specific law.

Your honours,

the defendant has not responded to my attempts to contact him, therefore the defence stands with the not guilty plea.

Furthermore the defence submits the following evidence before the Court:

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=cerdenia/detail=factbook/id=1720192

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=cerdenia/detail=factbook/id=1720189

The prosecution takes issue with the submitted evidence form by the defender's legal counsel (henceforth simply 'Cerdenia' or likewise for ease of typing).

The prosecution is fully prepared to argue as to why the crime in LR 008 is not unconstitutional, however this period is for taking issue with the relevancy of the evidence as I understand it. As such, the prosecution argues that Cerdenia's evidence is not relevant to the case because it is built upon the assumption that the law was unconstitutional during its time of existence and during the time of the alleged voter fraud.

The defendant themselves whilst serving as a Justice approved the dismissal of a case brought by Marvinville in the High Court because the basis of the charge relied upon the assumption that part of LR 040 Military Commission Act was unconstitutional. The High Court ruled that such a case cannot be taken and instead a constitutional challenge against the law (or however it was named during this time period I cannot recall) must be filed first. As the argument was that the defendant in that case, United Cascadian Peoples, had lost his citizenship because part of LR 040 was unconstitutional, the court dismissed the whole case as the currently established precedent was that LR 040 was not unconstitutional. The Court would be required to separately deem it unconstitutional.

That was established by the prosecuting lawyer Democratized Peoples AJ, who I am sure can testify to that occurring. It cannot be seen because the High Court ceased to exist so the RMB record was lost, but because Peeps was the lawyer who brought the argument that basing your argument in a trial on the suggestion that part of a law is unconstitutional cannot be done and it must be separately filed, he can definitely confirm it took place.

The defendant's entire argument rests upon a law being unconstitutional - the court has already ruled that this cannot be done by the prosecution and so it would unnecessarily raise the standard needed for the prosecution if the defence is able to do the same. The defendant's argument also relies upon an assumption of the law that is not based within court precedent, and that is that free speech is absolute. While this may appear obvious, this has never been decided by the Court. Assuming that it was during the Third Constitution's time, this would be better suited for a constitutional challenge against LR 008 holding that it was always unconstitutional, not as a defence against charges brought to the defendant.

What the defendant is trying to do is host a constitutional challenge during a criminal case. Instead it should be held separately and independently, with its own procedures and arguments. Instead, the defendant should be attempting to have their client cleared of the charges against them instead of attempting to have another case within this one.

This is a case on establishing Xernon’s guilt to an alleged crime that to this date the law of which it is contained in is considered as having been constitutional during its time, not a case on establishing whether or not LR 008 was unconstitutional. They are separate things and should occur as independent cases.

The defence's logic is also flawed because later legal precedent established by the court before the passage of the Fourth Constitution found that only parts of a law and not the entire law could be deemed unconstitutional. Legal precedent established by CR 018 (linked) which occurred more than a month before the passage of the Fourth Constitution of Thaecia held that only the violating sections would be struck, not the entire law. This is the most up to date legal precedent from the Third Constitution and so should be used by the Court when establishing the unconstitutionality of older laws. If the Court is to deem the previous law unconstitutional, it should be done with the legal precedent of the time, to which the most up to date precedent was to only strike part of a law. If the Court does rule that the incitement section is unconstitutional, it should only affect that section as never having been law in the first place, not the entire legislative resolution.

If this was done it would make the rest of the evidence irrelevant as the defence's argument relies upon the entire law being ruled unconstitutional, not just a single section. As such the evidence is not relevant to either the charges brought or to itself as it relies entirely upon the entire law and not just the section allegedly violated.

As such the prosecution requests that the High Court rule the defence's evidence form for the High Crime charge irrelevant / inadmissible as it is a) attempting to create a constitutional challenge within a criminal trial despite the Court has already established this cannot be done [reminder note: Marvin v. UCP was dismissed because it relied upon a portion of the law being unconstitutional: Court ruled this had to be done in a separate constitutional challenge] & b) relies upon one section being unconstitutional and thus the whole law, which is inconsistent with the most up to date legal precedent from the time of the Third Constitution as established by CR 018, and so only one section would be ruled unconstitutional and leave the Election Fraud section in place which would not change this trial at all.

The prosecution also recommends that because the misdemeanour evidence form attempts to do the same thing it also be ruled irrelevant / inadmissible. If the Court decides that constitutional challenges can occur during a criminal trial and changes its precedent, the High Crime evidence form should still be dismissed because of (b) as I stated in the paragraph above, but the prosecution is still willing and ready to provide arguments as to why the misdemeanour is not unconstitutional. However that is for the cross examination of the evidence presented by the other party and so that will be saved until later unless the Court requests it now.

The prosecution's motion to expunge the evidence form of the defense insofar as it argues for the unconstitutionality of a law is granted. As previously established, in the case of Thaecia v. United Cascadian Peoples constitutional challenges to laws must be made in a separate filing to the Court. All exhibits of both forms are expunged.

The Court further adds two points of obiter dicta, the Court did rule in CR 018 that under the previous Constitutions individual sections of laws could be stricken while the law as a whole remained intact. Furthermore, defense council is reminded that under the current Constitution laws are only unenforceable insofar as they violate the Constitution. Differing applications of the law can yield different results.

The defense is given a further 72 hours, with extensions if reasonable, to present evidence.

Democratized Peoples wrote:The prosecution's motion to expunge the evidence form of the defense insofar as it argues for the unconstitutionality of a law is granted. As previously established, in the case of Thaecia v. United Cascadian Peoples constitutional challenges to laws must be made in a separate filing to the Court. All exhibits of both forms are expunged.

The Court further adds two points of obiter dicta, the Court did rule in CR 018 that under the previous Constitutions individual sections of laws could be stricken while the law as a whole remained intact. Furthermore, defense council is reminded that under the current Constitution laws are only unenforceable insofar as they violate the Constitution. Differing applications of the law can yield different results.

The defense is given a further 72 hours, with extensions if reasonable, to present evidence.

The defence understands the Court's position regarding the evidence presented to the High Crime charge, however we request clarity regarding the Court's position on the misdemeanour charge. While the misdemeanour charge attempts to argue that Article II of Legislative Resolution 055 is unconstitutional, which perhaps might not be proper for a Criminal Case, it is an argument based on current Thaecian law and which does not come into contradiction with previous court rulings, as the argument the defence presented for the High Crime charge arguably did.

Considering the clear relevance of the evidence submitted by the defence regarding the misdemeanour charge, and the precedent set by Marvinville v. United Cascadian Peoples, the defence request this case be temporarily put to a halt so that they High Court may analyse the constitutionality of Legislative Resolution 055. It wouldn't be proper for the defence to have its entire argument invalidated because the High Court is considering a law which isn't a law at all, taking into account the solid reasoning for its unconstitutionality presented by the defence.

Cerdenia wrote:the defence request this case be temporarily put to a halt so that they High Court may analyse the constitutionality of Legislative Resolution 055.
I respect that this is not a time for debate and so I will not challenge the rest of the post but instead just leave a comment here that the prosecution would find this acceptable so long as it did not cause delay for the High Crime charge as well. If the High Court is able to hold this constitutional review at the same time as holding the criminal trial the prosecution would be fine to do so on our end.

Cerdenia and Brototh the Court would find it acceptable to put a pause to these proceedings until the issue of Constitutionality is settled. However we do ask that the case be filed as soon as possible as to not create unreasonable delay.

Democratized Peoples wrote:Cerdenia and Brototh the Court would find it acceptable to put a pause to these proceedings until the issue of Constitutionality is settled. However we do ask that the case be filed as soon as possible as to not create unreasonable delay.

Do "these proceedings" include the High Crime case? I feel that there would be unreasonable delay to said case if it was delayed considering the issue of constitutionality there has already been resolved. With all due respect, the prosecution did file that case first. There are no issues with the High Crime from a technical standpoint. The Court also has a history of taking cases first come first serve whilst another is ongoing even if they are directly related. For instance, the challenge against L.R.033 Safety Net Act was not instantly picked up as there was a court case where that law was violated ongoing (Hulldom case). While the prosecution believes that LR 055 is not unconstitutional, if it is we would not want an individual to be charged under it as that would be unfair. However we do stress that this should not apply to the other case as there are no issues there and we feel it would be improper and unreasonable to delay that as well.

I respect that the Court may not wish to take on two cases at once, in which case it could be possible to simply split the charges and we could host High Crime trial now, once the verdict is delivered there the challenge against 055 can be filed and then if it is not unconstitutional the misdemeanour charge can be continued.

Constitutional Challenge

Item being challenged: Legislative Resolution 055 Article II

Section of the Constitution under violation: Article II Section I: "The right to personal privacy"

Explanation: Article II of L.R. 055 directly contradicts the constitutional right to personal privacy. Through Article II Section I, Congress is given the powers to call individuals to testimony before Congress. Article II Section IV goes on to elaborate that: "Individuals subject to a subpoena must obey every aspect of the subpoena by 14 days of its enactment". Considering testimony is an ample term, Congress has the ability to request any information from an individual, including information one might consider to be personal. Since individuals are required to "obey every aspect" of the subpoena, refusing to reveal personal information would be considered a violation of the law. As such, it can be established that the law directly contradicts the rights of individuals by forcing them to reveal information which they by no means need to as per the Constitution.

Brototh wrote:I respect that the Court may not wish to take on two cases at once, in which case it could be possible to simply split the charges and we could host High Crime trial now, once the verdict is delivered there the challenge against 055 can be filed and then if it is not unconstitutional the misdemeanour charge can be continued.

With all due respect, the prosecution previously dropped their original case against the defendant regarding the subpoena to have it along with this one, and now the prosecution wants to split the charges again? Could the prosecution please make up their minds? It appears that it is the prosecution which is the origin of this unreasonable delay.

After extensive deliberations, the Court has decided to pause the entirety of the criminal case against Xernon and accept a Constitutional Review.

Cerdenia please file using the filing form contained in LR 56.

[spoiler]Are you seeking (check one):

- a Court order declaring an item or government action, to the point of the inconsistency, unconstitutional;

- a Court declaration on the correct interpretation of the Constitution;

Describe the relevant facts as you hold them to be:[/spoiler]

Constitutional Review

Requesting: court order declaring an item, to the point of the inconsistency, unconstitutional

Describe the relevant facts as you hold them to be: Article II of L.R. 055 directly contradicts the constitutional right to personal privacy. Through Article II Section I, Congress is given the powers to call individuals to testimony before Congress. Article II Section IV goes on to elaborate that: "Individuals subject to a subpoena must obey every aspect of the subpoena by 14 days of its enactment". Considering testimony is an ample term, Congress has the ability to request any information from an individual, including information one might consider to be personal. Since individuals are required to "obey every aspect" of the subpoena, refusing to reveal personal information would be considered a violation of the law. As such, it can be established that the law directly contradicts the rights of individuals by forcing them to reveal information which they by no means need to as per the Constitution.

The Court accepts the above Constitutional Review.

Cerdenia being the filing party and assuming Brototh will be representing the state, you each have 72 hours to file your arguments.

Brototh

Your honours,

I believe the point made my myself in the filing of this review (that being that while individuals are guaranteed a right to personal privacy by the constitution, Article II of Legislative Resolution 055 essentialy gives Congress the power to obligate individual to testimony any information, including personal information) is enough to explain the unconstitutionality of the Article. That said, I would like to raise another point.

Suppose we are to ignore all of what I previously argued, I still believe Article II of Legislative Resolution 055 to be unconstitutional for a separate reason. Article I Section I of L.R. 055 establishes the following:

"Congress shall have the ability to investigate any past or current government actions and functions, which includes every aspect of the Thaecian government and its members in relation to their action(s) as an officer serving in the government."

I believe this establishes very clearly that Congress has the ability to investigate government officials, this includes alleged misconducts conducted by government officials during their tenures. With this proven, I would like to remind the Court of Article II Section I, which gives Congress the power to "issue a subpoena for testimony".

With both of these established, I believe it to be clear that Congress has the power to investigate individuals as well as to force them, through a subpoena, to testimony on their own investigations. Considering this, I argue that Legislative Resolution 055 further infringes upon Constitutional Rights by violating the protection from forced testimony against oneself, established under Article II Section I of the Constitution. If an individual is forced by law to testimony on an investigation of themselves, and an investigation seeks to uncover information to potentially bring criminal charges against an individual, as established through Section V (II) of the law, then a forced testimony through Congress is merely a way to attempt to cheat the Constitution, by ensuring an individual can be forced to testimony, as they would not have to if a matter was directly brought to Court without a formal congressional investigation.

Your honours, I argue that the defence / filing's point that a subpoena can be unconstitutional is correct, but that this is a hypothetical fault of a government action and not of the legislative resolution 55.

First of all, let us look at Article I, Section I:

"[...] in relation to their action(s) as an officer serving in the government"

It is important to note here that an investigation by Congress can only investigate a member of the government in relation to their actions as an officer serving in the government. Article II of the legislation states "The chamber of Congress conducting an investigation may issue a subpoena for testimony or government information from an individual". This directly links an investigation and a subpoena for testimony, which suggests that a subpoena may by extension only cover actions in the government. This would mean logically that a subpoena cannot demand private information nor can an individual be asked private information whilst being questioned under a subpoena. The legislation does not enable Congress to issue subpoenas that violate a person's personal privacy. The legislation then goes on to define government information as "official government documents and discussions, either in public channels, private channels, dispatches, telegrams, and direct messages". This means that if a conversation was not a private one and instead was an official government channel, it is not subject to a subpoena. The subpoena would not be able to extend to this. For instance if me and Peeps debate a new bill, me expressing my opinion would not be government documents, if I ask Shadow for permission to revoke a nation's citizenship under the Constitution, that would be a government relay.

In no ways is an individual forced to testify against themselves- if one replies with "I invoke the right to protection against forced testimony", that should be considered a valid response. What the Court should do here is lay down a ruling that officially states this is a valid response: it would be responding to the subpoena and it would be constitutional.

Your honours, let us take a look at constitutional reviews, defined in resolution 56 as "a proceeding in which [...] a Court declaration that a past action is or is not legal [...]". The Court is well established to have the power, even before the passing of this legislation, to rule that a government action is unconstitutional- even without 056, if I were to revoke a person's citizenship illegally (not criminally as the Constitution has no set punishments), the Court could declare that action to be illegal, and this has been done in which Z00POLIS was unbanned by the Court after Xernon was found to have unconstitutionally banned them. Why is this relevant? Because as I have established, a subpoena cannot force a person to give up their private information and can only command a person to give up government information (which again, can be avoided by invoking one's rights). So if the government (in this case, the Chamber of Congress issuing the subpoena and conducting the investigation as these are inherently linked as previously mentioned) issues a subpoena that infringes upon a person's rights and/or tries to force them to testify against themselves, the Court would be able to strike this down as an unconstitutional government action and void the subpoena.

What would be unconstitutional here is the subpoena directly, not the legislation. The legislation does not do anything unconstitutional, instead, it would be the Congress that issues an unconstitutional subpoena. For instance, say that the word 'cheese' is universally considered to be treason and espionage, and take that a piece of legislation gives me the power to ban people if they say the word 'cheese'. Say that I then ban a person where they have obviously not said 'cheese' and attempt to invoke this law. It is not the legislation in this case that is unconstitutional, as the legislation provides that someone who has done this criminal thing can be banned. It is the government action of illegally banning a person outside the scope of the law and the scenario provided (that is, in this case, a subpoena being outside the scope of government actions and drifting into personal privacy) that is unconstitutional and would be struck down by the Court, not the legislation itself.

As a final point, despite we have already established that subpoenas can be unconstitutional as a government action but not the item LR 055 itself, let us consider that subpoenas under LR 055 can drift into personal privacy. This would obviously be a violation of the Constitution, right? But even in this case, the Constitution provides in 2.3 "the rights set out in [the Constitution are] subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". Under the instance that a Chamber of Congress is investigating the government's members for their actions, this would certainly fulfil this section. The reasonable limits have been passed as Congress must investigate the government for their relation to some sort of hypothetical thing. Even in this case, only the subpoena's questions (which are part of the subpoena itself, the legislation states "every aspect of the subpoena", connecting the questions to the subpoena issued) could be unconstitutional as they would not be past the reasonable limit.

In conclusion to summarise, it is the scope of the subpoena and the government actions in the questioning that can be unconstitutional and struck down, not the actual legislation itself.

Marvinville

Thank you both. The High Court will now retire to create a ruling.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1725438

The trial proceedings are resumed.

Brototh Cerdenia

Brototh Cerdenia please submit updated evidence files, if desired, in the next 48 hours.

There is no intention on the behalf of the prosecution to change our evidence or witness forms at this time your Honour

In the incredibly unlikely event this changes within the next 48hrs we will notify the Court

Considering the Court's failure to respond to the point raised by myself and responded to during the last Constitutional Review, the defence requests the court address the following, considering its clear relevance to this case.

Constitutional Review

Requesting: court order declaring an item, to the point of the inconsistency, unconstitutional

Describe the relevant facts as you hold them to be: Legislative resolution 055 grants Congress the power to investigate individuals, as established under Article I Section I, while at the same time grants Congress the power to force individuals to testimony through a subpoena, as established under Article II Section I. With both of these established, it is clear that Congress has the power to investigate individuals as well as to force them, through a subpoena, to testimony on their own investigations. Considering this, Legislative Resolution 055 infringes upon Constitutional Rights by violating the protection from forced testimony against oneself, established under Article II Section I of the Constitution. As such it can be argued that Article II of the legislative resolution, which details subpoenas and individual obligations to comply to them, is unconstitutional.

Your honours, this is getting old and tiresome.

This point has already been covered by the Court in the previous ruling. In fact, I had argued against this very point in my own post on the previous constitutional review. Undoubtedly when making their decision the Court will have read both arguments and taken them into account before making the ruling. As such the Court has already looked over this argument and settled it.

While CR 022 specifically spoke of the right to privacy, its ruling can still be applied to this case. The ruling was that the law is only inconsistent with the right to privacy when the subpoena violates just that, the right to privacy, and a subpoena that does not violate the right to privacy can still stand. As such a subpoena that does not force a nation to testify against themselves is not unconstitutional. The same principle can be applied to this whether or not it specifically states the point as we can broadly apply the ruling. If the ruling is the law is not constitutional, only subpoenas that violate the privacy clause are, then logically the law is not unconstitutional and only subpoenas that force testimony are.

This has already been argued by both the defence and prosecution. This does not warrant another week of delay. The Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial. This case would be creating unreasonable delay because we have again, already argued these points. At the most, the Court would be justified in taking a day to update the ruling with the already given arguments by the defence and prosecution. To tell us to give our points again would be a waste of time.

It is looking more like the defence cannot do their very namesake job - defend their client, and instead, their case is built upon technicalities that we have already ruled upon, we have already both submitted arguments upon. I request that this constitutional review is dismissed in its entirety or the Court update their own ruling, because yet another constitutional review where we have already established this in the previous ruling, would be delaying and thus denying the course of speedy justice. Perhaps all three Justices will expire their terms before we even get to the presentation of evidence at this rate.

At the absolute most we should not be halting the High Crime trial any further. It is clear there is no technicality for the defence to exploit under that charge, so it is time that we move on from repeating ourselves and our arguments over and over despite a ruling that has already made its broad point clear and get on with the passage of justice.

The defence believes it to be beyond obvious that it is the prosecution, as well as this court, which are causing unreasonable delay for myself and my client. The defence has never once contested the prosecution's ludicrous case "flip flopping", in which the prosecution attempted to sue my client for allegedly disobeying a subpoena, then dropped the case, then brought a new case along with a High Crime charge, then attempted to split both of the charges again and got the request denied.

The defence has brought all of its arguments to the last Constitutional Review, the court ignored half of them.

Is it really the defence which is causing unreasonable delay? No.

It is ironic that it is apparentely us causing the delay when we have already both submitted arguments. There is no need for yet another review. It is still further ironic that it is us causing the delay for the defence and their client because we wanted to split the charges, considering that request was filed in order to actually be able to do one of the charges faster. If that is creating a delay then perhaps we should be updating the dictionary for "speedy trial" and "delay".

The High Court has decided to advance with the high crime charges, with the intent to return to the misdemeanor charges after the issue of constitutionality is settled.

Please issue updated electoral fraud evidence forms within the next 48 hours.

Brototh Cerdenia

Marvinville

Your honours,

The defence has no wishes to submit any evidence forms of its own, however we take issue with exhibit B of the Prosecution's evidence form for the High Crime charge.

The defence believes the evidence in question to have been acquired through illegal means.

At the time of the election, the Thaecian Constitution not only had a clause which protected the right to personal privacy, but also voter protection was present (and still is) in regional law. L.R. 022 was the standing law regarding voter protection. Article 8 Section 1.1 read as follows:

"The Electoral Commission and all individuals who have served or are currently serving in it is hereby forbidden from publishing any individual's ballot without proof that the individual in question consented to have their ballot made public"

Considering the following, and also the fact that this section still exists to this day within Article VI of Legislative Resolution 049, the defence believes exhibit B to have been acquired through illegal means, as such information was revealed by the then Electoral Commissioner without proof of consent from the individuals who had their ballots revealed to the public. The defence therefore requests the evidence to be discarded by this Court.

After inspection of the evidence, the prosecution agrees with the defence that exhibition B is not valid evidence and will be withdrawing it from the form

The Court accepts the removal of Exhibit B from the prosecution's case.

We will now be moving forward to the Trial.

It is at this time that All individuals must swear to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Any and all witnesses must also swear to this.

Cerdenia

Brototh

Brototh

I swear to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I also call on my witnesses Marvinville & Of Altonianic Islands and Snowflame to take the above oath

I swear to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Brototh

I swear to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Brototh

Until such a time that a 3rd Justice is confirmed, I will be calling DJ The Islamic Country Of Honour to fill in the vacant seat.

I swear to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Brototh

I swear to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Brototh

With all of the Witnesses and memebers of the trial swearing to tell the truth, the whole thruth, and nothing but the truth, The Court will now proceede to opening statements.

I will remind all who are observing that only the people who are filed in the case are allowed to speak on the RMB, and witnesses can only respond when they are called forth.

With that being said, Brototh you're opening statement period starts now. Procedures say you have 12 hours, but if you need longer, let the Court know

Brototh

Cerdenia

I will require at most 12h extension and I recommend the court update procedures to make it 24h. I will spend the vast majority of my 12h asleep so it is not possible for me to do it in this time period

Procedures wil be updated to reflect it.

The extension is accepted

Your honours, for the trial that we are undertaking we must reiterate its importance to the future of the region. This is a case in which we accuse not just anyone, but the former President, Prime Minister, Founder and Admin of the region of deliberately frauding the June 2020 General Election in order to disturb the democratic function of Thaecia. This is not just a case where we accuse someone of some petty crime like spam, this is not some violation of military law, this is a case where the defendant has been consistently asked for two years to provide an explanation for his actions but has refused or ignored the opportunity to do so. Your honours, this is a time in which two long and hard fought years of our region's democratic integrity being questioned comes to a conclusion, and it is now the time in which we finally can deliver justice against a defendant who has escaped it for so long, with many casting doubt on his wrongdoing with simply "He could never do this. It is not in his character". In this trial the prosecution will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally used puppets to hinder the democratic process of the region, and we will ask for the verdict of guilty.

The prosecution will call to the stand Snowflame, a witness who as many of us will know is very active in the raiding and defending scene and so has extensive experience in swapping World Assembly nations. The witness knows that when a nation violates World Assembly rules, they are communicated upon it with moderators. The defence may argue that Xernon's alternate accounts were simply his friends using the same WiFi as him, but the prosecution's witness will show that not only did he control between one and eight of these alternate accounts, he knew that this was wrong having been given the opportunity to avoid this. He could have communicated with his friends to leave the World Assembly, but he did not.

The prosecution will prove throughout the span of the trial, with our witness and our evidence, that the defendant knew the in-game mechanics, he knew that alternate accounts were being used, and that he was the mastermind behind them from the very beginning. The defence may argue that the defendant's similarities with the nations he is accused of multiing with is no more than a series of coincidences. However we will show throughout the trial that the defendant not only shares striking similarities that prove he and his alternate accounts are one in the same, but he also possesses a strong motive for doing so, and we will show that the 'coincidences' stack upon one another so much that it becomes increasingly clear that the evidence proves beyond a shadow of a doubt the truth behind the defendant's crime. We will show that the defendant had been planning to do this prior to the election and for years attempted to hide this.

Your honours, once you see the evidence and hear witness testimony, I ask that you find the defendant guilty of this high crime charge.

The Defense now has 24 hours to make their opening statement. If an extension is required, please inform the Court ASAP

Cerdenia

Your honours,

Through the course of this trial the defence will prove that, under currently established evidence, it is impossible for the prosecution to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. While a lot of effort has been put into this trial by the prosecution, the defence will prove that the evidence submitted before this court is nothing more than well elaborated conjecture based on a series of coincidences which can not be proven as absolute from a logical perspective, and therefore can not constitute proof of the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

It is for these reasons that the defence firmly requests this court to find the defendant not guilty of all charges.

The Court now moves onto the presentation of Evidence from the plaintiff. The plaintiff is given 24 hours to present their evidence.

Brototh

Cerdenia

Your honours, the evidence that I will present today will show that without a doubt, the defendant is beyond a shadow of a doubt guilty of the aforementioned crime.

First, I would like to begin with the end; Exhibit T, the final piece of evidence on our form. This is a screenshot of the June 2020 presidential election results. Let us assume that the defendant's up to eight alternate accounts voted for him. If such is true, the defendant would have missed the quota for the election by 3.5 votes. As per Thaecian law at the time we cannot see the votes of the nations, however, this serves as a strong start to the case, as it shows the potential motive of the defendant. He had not been present in Thaecia for just over four months at this time. Upon his return, he chose to run for President to win a fourth term in office as the incumbent, Titanne, chose not to run for re-election. He would have considered that after four months of being gone, it would be difficult for him to win an election by default, and his chances were potentially in danger. His motive is to win the election after having been gone for four months, he was well aware that it may be difficult for him, and he sought to disturb the democratic process of the region by giving himself a boost. A crime must have means, motive, and opportunity- we have shown his motive, but we will show his means through his multiing and opportunity through his return as Xernon/Nydaymos instead of Tomb.

Let us progress forward chronologically but continue from Exhibit A- we see here that Xernon and his alternate accounts are ejected from the World Assembly for rules violations. Rules violations implies that they were ejected for multiing, and considering this all happened at the same time, it is logically impossible that the nations all individually broke WA Rules at the same time and were ejected together. Nations are ejected from the World Assembly for a reason. The most common reason being that the nations were all controlled by a single person, and game rules state that a person may only have one WA account at a time. As can be observed from the regional happenings screenshots, Xernon and Tomb were done around 1-2 minutes prior to the other nations. This suggests a direct link between Xernon and Tomb. It is just as likely that if Xernon and Tomb are the same, the other nations are controlled by Xernon as well; they all happened at roughly the same time, and they seem to have been created just for this election. We know for a fact that Xernon broke rules, we can now tell that he is undoubtedly directly related to them.

Exhibit C (there is no Ex. B) shows us the election voter list for the June 2020 General election. It is sorted in order of when the nations voted in elections. All the ejected nations voted in this election- Xernon, Tomb, etc. They were all ejected, they all voted; another strange coincidence, perhaps? Unlikely, as the coincidences are stacking and will keep stacking. The nations voted relatively close to one another; it is not like they all voted days and hours apart, but instead in relatively close together bursts. In fact, Right to Win and The Democratic Republic of Tomb voted one after the other.

Exhibit D shows us something interesting about Reformist Netherlands- as observed at the time, he was not online during the election period. This raises the question of how he knew the election was ongoing. Perhaps he was told by someone in real life, or perhaps he is Xernon. They were also the last of the ejected nations to vote, which could be that Xernon forgot about his last puppet until just before the election and did not remember to log on when voting. Secondly, it shows that most of the nations (apart from Tomb and Xernon) only existed for two weeks. This indicates that they were created just for the election, which is incredibly suspicious. We can properly infer that what has happened is Xernon has made these accounts explicitly to vote multiple times in the election. We also know that all the nations, except Reformist Netherlands, showed similar log in patterns. Another strange coincidence- or not. The nations are looking increasingly likely to have been controlled by the same person: similar log in patterns, similar founding dates, all voted in the election, all ejected. Moderators do not eject on a whim, they investigate it, they consider it, and then they eject. They only eject when they are sure that it is the right action.

Exhibit E is Xernon's only ever defence of his actions. The first thing we must consider is that Xernon originally stated that the alternate accounts were friends from university. Having all allegedly used the same Wi-Fi, the game detected them as the same nation and ejected them. This is mildly plausible, however could also open a separate debate on whether bringing peoples into the region for the exclusive and explicit purpose of voting for them is in and of itself subversion of democracy. However, the story has now shifted to the 'individual', suggesting one person, making alternate accounts. Additionally, there is no one single way that the game detects alternate accounts- a Wi-Fi connection is just one. There are many people that live together and use the same connection. But using the same device is what gets people. Could it just be the usage of a school library computer? But it seems unlikely considering the connections between the nations as established and as will be. It would also mean that every single one of them, in two weeks, would have had to have used the same computer at least once. This is now becoming increasingly odd.

Xernon here admits that there were alternate accounts used, admits that there is blame on him for not stopping it- indicating that he had an involvement in this, potentially regretting his actions and thus blaming himself for undertaking it- and most notably and strangely, says he will be avoiding shared accounts. If Xernon's story is truthful, he would need no fear of alternate accounts. There are many shared alternate accounts employed in Thaecia: The Thaecian Dep Admin for instance, shared between at least Brototh and Snalland at the time of the evidence form being created, now Brototh and Marvinville, switching hands at every administration. There is a significant difference between these alternate accounts and the eight accused: the Thaecian Dep Admin is on multiple computers and is not in the WA, whereas the alternate accounts employed by Xernon was all on one device: his own and were all in the WA. If all shared accounts would result in a ban, neither Brototh, Snalland, nor the great list of people who have collaborated on our dispatch office would be permitted in the World Assembly. Xernon clearly has an experience with shared accounts: if he had not shared them, why would he fear them? As he says himself, fault lies on him, which is why he must avoid shared accounts- there would be no fault on him if he had not used shared accounts to rig the elections then.

It is noticeably clear from Xernon's own statements that he had at the very least, created an account with at least one other person to vote multiple times in the election. There is no reason Xernon would share an account with 8 other people- at the least, Xernon and one other person created 7 alternate accounts between themselves and used them to manipulate the results of the election. This has been all but confirmed by the defendant himself. If they really were university friends, how did Xernon never get it confirmed with his friend? His friend who put in so much effort to rig an election for him? Did their friendship totally cease? Over NationStates of all things? No. The reason Xernon could not have it confirmed by someone else is because there was nobody else. This catastrophe is of his own doing.

Let us look more deeply into the connections between the nations. This is a case built upon circumstantial evidence. No one piece of evidence directly proves the fact, but instead, we can infer connections between the nations through each piece of evidence. And as it all builds up, it becomes an impossibility that they are all coincidences all at the same time. By connecting the evidence, we can prove for a fact that the allegation is truth. This is how alternate accounts have been caught since the dawn of the site, through careful connections of a series of unlikely events. And this, your honours, is not just unlikely- it is a farce.

In Exhibit F, Xernon discusses with Snowflame his military history in the Sekhmet Legion (the armed forces of Osiris), the North Pacific Army (the armed forces of The North Pacific), and that he had considered joining The Black Hawks. Xernon stated multiple times that he had military experience. This is something he had also informed Brototh and Andusre of. However, Xernon's only known past is as "Nydaymos" of the New Western Atlantic which only very briefly had an exceedingly small military (as will be detailed), the region he and Andusre among others came from before founding Thaecia together. Unless he had some sort of other history with a different nation (which is shown in the next set of exhibits), this would not be possible. In Exhibit G, half a year prior to Exhibit F, Xernon speaks to Snowflame about his past with raiding. Xernon suggests that his past with raiding was all part of a "different lifetime". What Xernon means here is that his past with raiding took place during his time as The Democratic Republic of Tomb, which would fit well as a 'different lifetime'. His raiding experience also goes back by "about two years", which is inconsistent with Nydaymos's founding date in November 2017 (linked in evidence form) unless Xernon had begun raiding with Osiris and The North Pacific as soon as he was founded as Nydaymos, which seems unlikely for a very new player to the game, especially as Xernon was preoccupied with a fledging political career in the New Western Atlantic at the time.

Exhibit H shows MadJack of the North Pacific discussing with Marvinville Tomb's history in the North Pacific Army. MadJack informs Marvinville that Tomb was in the NPA between September 2016 and September 2017. These dates are consistent with Xernon's alleged two-year military history as he told Snowflame which would be around October 2017. His "different lifetime" quote becomes more obvious that he means his time as Tomb in the North Pacific Army as shown here. As a previous Delegate of the North Pacific (which anyone can see on the North Pacific's history pages onsite), it is not unrealistic that he would have acquired R/D experience in The North Pacific as he was clearly very involved in the region, learnt the game from there, travelled to different regions etc, and then decided that he wanted a clean slate which is where Nydaymos began.

This is not the end of the military coincidences though connecting the timeline. No, in Exhibit I, Western Tomb (The Democratic Republic of Tomb) applies for citizenship in Europeia. He mentions that “I am only involved in Osiris and TNP” and that he served as a Scribe of Culture, Deputy Scribe of WA Affairs, and a Scribe of WA Affairs in Osiris. Refer to where Xernon states that he had served time in the Sekhmet Legion, the armed forces of Osiris. This proves that Tomb was a member of Osiris and provides an explanation for how Xernon who had not been involved in Osiris as Nydaymos was a veteran of the Sekhmet Legion. Notably, Tomb also was the Minister of Communications for The North Pacific. He was also the person as Xernon who proposed and formed the Ministry of Communications during his term as Prime Minister. This suggests further similarity of interests on NationStates between the two.

We know now that Xernon was in the NPA and Sekhmet Legion, we know that Nydaymos could not have been, and we know that Tomb was. Combined with the coincidences prior and following, this proves that they are one in the same. They have the same history, the same future. Either they are the best of friends that have never separated since 2014, or they are the same person.

In Exhibit J, Nydaymos advocates for the formation of a regional military and forum in the New Western Atlantic. Since Xernon created Nydaymos on November 19, 2017, and soon moved it to New Western Atlantic (NWA), someone could argue that he gained his military experience from his time in NWA. However, this argument is flawed since Nydaymos (Xernon) joined NWA and then on December 1, 2019, less than 2 weeks after he was founded, he started an effort to create a military and forums in the region. Nydaymos is deeply knowledgeable on how militaries and forums should operate, even though his nation is less than 2 weeks old at this time. It is worth mentioning again that Tomb had military experience in the NPA just prior to creating this new nation. He clearly has had experience in the military game, yet, he is a new nation. This further suggests that Xernon was a returning player as there is no other way he would have had this experience in such a short amount of time. Tomb also used The North Pacific forum often while he served in many government positions in that region, which can relate to why Nydaymos is a vocal proponent of forum usage in NWA. He also displays a great understanding of how moderators determine WA rules and how important it is for one nation to cast only one vote instead of multiing and rigging an election. His knowledge of this provides a reason as to why he tried to use eight alternate accounts- believing himself to be an expert on WA rules, he had thought he could not be caught. He was.

Exhibit K; Nydaymos creates the NWA Reform Party and declares he has vast knowledge of the NWA. Also on December 1, 2017, which is less than two weeks after Nydaymos was created, he created The Reform Party in NWA. Nydaymos again explains why the region should adopt forums in addition to changing how elections operate. Once again, Nydaymos possesses a lot more knowledge on forum usage and how to run elections than what a brand-new nation just two weeks old would know. Note also that he states, "relatively new to the NWA political landscape", instead of stopping at relatively new. This further suggests that he was not new to NationStates but only NWA. This is because he had been a member of TNP and Osiris among others as Tomb. His political career in the NWA continues in Exhibit L- his campaign dispatch urges the creation of a forum and military. Nydaymos continues to, despite being relatively young, urge for the creation of a regional military and forum. He should still have truly little knowledge of this, especially as his "two years" of raiding is now long past as it is July 2018. Yet he continues to parrot knowledge of it- unless he had gained it elsewhere, i.e., as Tomb.

Exhibit M shows the passage and declaration of unconstitutionality of Legislative Resolution 089 The Military Establishment Act (New Western Atlantic) authored by Nydaymos. The military in the New Western Atlantic was then created on July 18, 2018, when the Senate passed the Military Establishment Act. However, the Military Establishment Act was found to be unconstitutional on September 15, 2018, which is less than one hundred days after its passage. In less than 100 days there is no way Xernon could have attained military experience from the NWA. He must have attained it from elsewhere, like TNP and Osiris as mentioned, but we already knew he could not have done so. He must have done so as Tomb.

These exhibits show that there is no feasible way for Nydaymos (Xernon) to gain raiding experience in the New Western Atlantic. Even when Nydaymos joined NationStates and moved to NWA, he openly advocated for a military with much more knowledge than what a new nation only 2 weeks old would have. The military in NWA only lasted for around one hundred days, and this occurred in 2018. In October 2019, Xernon told Snowflame that his “raiding experience goes back about two years,” which would be around October 2017 or beforehand. We know that Nydaymos was created on November 19, 2017, and then advocated for a military in NWA on December 1, 2017. All of this shows that there is no possible way for Xernon to gain military experience from his time in NWA due to his advocacy for the military right after he joined the region as a brand-new nation. The only way Xernon could have military experience would be his time in NPA as Tomb, where he served in their military between September 2016 and September 2017 or as a member of the Sekhmet Legion of Osiris, of which Tomb was a citizen of. This does end up verifying what Xernon told Snowflame about his prior military experience, but only through proving that Tomb is his alternate account.

The next few Exhibits, starting with O, will show not only an identical past between Xernon and Nydaymos, but the fact that they type and act the same. This is how many alternate accounts have been caught in the past; Indian Genius/LY3K, Peabodia and his many, Lassau and his many. It is a tried, tested, and proven method, and will not fail us here either. In the North Pacific, Tomb’s delegacy ended in controversy. The TNP Xernon Article Draft states that “Tomb had sought to prevent long time TNPer Flemingovia from joining the North Pacific Army (NPA), unless he moderated his previous criticism of some NPA actions, coercing what the Attorney General called a ‘clearly uncomfortable’ Minister of Defence Eluvatar into speaking with Flemingovia to achieve this. This clear abuse of power had serious consequences - a guilty verdict followed by the removal of their voting rights for three months."

Tomb was found guilty in TNP for preventing someone from joining the NPA unless they moderate previous criticism of the army. This is like how Xernon has acted towards those who have criticized his Prime Minister administration. He often attacked those who criticized his administration rather than listening to them and making changes in the Executive. For these reasons, it is interesting to see how similar both Xernon and Tomb are in treating those who dissent.

Exhibit P shows that on March 30, 2020, Tomb applied to join the North Pacific Army (NPA) in addition to filing an application to become a citizen. In this NPA application, Tomb states that his current World Assembly nation is “The Democratic Republic of Tomb. With Tomb now being a World Assembly member, there is no way Xernon could also be a member of the WA without breaking NationState WA rules. Upon checking Xernon’s population statistic, we find that Xernon CTE’d on March 17, 2020, and the nation was revived on May 2, 2020. This means that there is no possible way for Xernon to be a World Assembly member at the same time as Tomb since Xernon did not exist at the time that Tomb applied to join the NPA and being a member of the WA.

Within Exhibit Q, we see very similar typing patterns between Xernon and Tomb; they have used the same emoji often in at least the Thaecia discord server and TNP discord server. The examples above show their heavy usage of that emoji within a period of 24 hours or less. This emoji is synonymous with Xernon, it is a core part of his identity and how he expresses himself online. And it clearly is for Tomb as well. There can be no doubt now that they are the same person, but we are still not finished. Exhibit R shows that both Xernon and Tomb have also said that they live in Tennessee, which is not strange by itself but increasingly odd considering both have many similarities as discussed by this evidence form. Tomb also says "currently" and Xernon says he wishes to move, indicating they both aspire to move, another similarity between them. Exhibit S: When the North Pacific wrote up an article draft of the Xernon situation, they sent it to the Thaecian government and Xernon with questions for them to answer. MadJack, the WA Delegate of TNP, states that Xernon responded to some of the questions “in a very Tomb-like way.” It is also interesting that with the many similarities they have in common, they are both known for their unique style of writing. Even MadJack, who was TNP’s WA Delegate, noticed that Xernon wrote the same way as Tomb wrote. Notably, they also use grammar to even a period/full-stop in nearly every situation, this is just one excerpt of him speaking even in 2019. It can be found in nearly all of his posts in most conversations.

As explained, most alternate accounts are found based on how they write and present themselves, for example, Indian Genius was proven to be one in the same with Love You 3000, as well as Peabodia with his many alternate accounts, and Faelauntz with her many alternate accounts in the roleplay. This is not unique to Xernon- everyone who uses alternate accounts writes in the same fashion on their nations. This suggests even further that Xernon, and Tomb are one in the same. These exhibits lay out overwhelming evidence that proves Xernon and Tomb are the same person.

Your honours, this evidence proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Xernon and Tomb are one in the same. This is not well elaborated conjecture; this is proof of fact. There is absolutely no way that Xernon and Tomb can be separate nations, and the fact that Xernon/Tomb has clearly multiied once suggests he would try his luck and do it again (7 more times). The evidence is overwhelming and insurmountable; one thing leads to another, and another, and another. It never ends. There comes a point when 'coincidences' become unlikely, and a point where unlikely becomes impossible. We have far surpassed both points, and this evidence form has proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Xernon and Tomb must logically be one in the same. NSMods were able to assert the fact with their overview of their gameside evidence; we can very easily do the same by comparing the two.

Marvinville

The defense is now called on to give their cross-examination.

Cerdenia

Your honours, I will be addressing the points raised by the prosecution in the order by which they have been presented.

The first paragraph serves as fundamental proof of the prosecution's attempts to twist election data in its favour. Based on the data shown in Exhibit T, we can conclude that the defendant would have won the election even under the assumption that all "alternate accounts" voted for him. To prove this let us bring forth basic maths: the quota is 48.5 because it represents the total number of votes cast divided by 2, the total number at first being 97 as is easily observable. Even going by the assumption that all eight nations belonged to the defendant, the new total of votes would be 89, which divided by 2 would result in a quota of 44.5. The defendant would have 45 votes in this situation, meaning he would still be elected regardless. The defence believes this simple proof invalidates the prosecution's alleged "motive" for a crime, considering that the defendant was very clearly still elected President in the first round of the election. This further invalidates the prosecution's claim that it would be "difficult" to win an election by default, which the defendant very clearly did despite being absent for 4 months, as could be expected of one of Thaecia's long term citizens and co-founder.

In paragraph two the prosecution argues that, because all nations were ejected from the World Assembly at relatively similar time frames, they must all belong to the same person. Despite this, the prosecution provides no proof as to why that would necessarily be the case. A number of questions must be asked: what if NationStates moderators simply choose a time frame to look at all current issues of World Assembly irregularities and then enforce punishments at the same time? If these nations really all belonged to the defendant, then why didn't all of them get ejected at the same time, as they should based on the argument presented by the prosecution? Why did a group of nations get ejected at one time and the other group at another, if they all belonged to the same person? Certainly if the prosecution's argument is true then this couldn't have happened.

Paragraph three serves to re-affirm the obvious: that this trial is based on carefully picked coincidences and nothing of absolute. So what if all World Assembly ejected nations voted? How come that prove the defendant has anything to do with this? What surprises the most really is the attempt of the prosecution to use the fact that two nations voted one after the other as evidence. Marvinville and Hulldom voted one after the other as well, does that mean that they are the same person? Of course not, but even if it did, how does that prove the relation between the individual who owned "Right to Win" and "The Democratic Republic of Tomb" with the defendant in any way? It doesn't.

Paragraph four yet again continues to give us conjecture and nothing of absolute, as will continuously be shown throughout this trial. The Reformist Netherlands wasn't online, sure, but once again a question must be asked: how does that have anything to do with the defendant? The only arguments presented here are "it could be that..." Yes that's right, it COULD, now I challenge the prosecution to provide proof that this is the case. The fact that these nations were all founded within two weeks of the election also means absolutely nothing if the relation between those nations and the defendant can't be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defence would like to present an alternative interpretation to Exhibit E. The prosecution claims that the reason given by the defendant is "unlikely" because all nations would have had to access the same computer with the same Wi-Fi within the same week, but the defence believe there is a fundamental flaw to this argument. The defendant never at any point mentioned the existence of 7 different friends, but rather he mentions one "individual". Taking this into consideration, we would like to suggest an alternative explanation, and that is that based on the statement of the defendant, one individual who he knew personally owned all of these accounts and studied in the same university as him. One could argue that this individual was perhaps acting to help the defendant win the election without his knowledge, or even attempting to pull some sort of "prank" on him. Regardless, the defence deems it impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that all of these nations belonged to the defendant when different scenarios have been presented.

Paragraphs six and seven show what the defence believes to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the defendant's words. The defendant's words do not indicate at all that the defendant: "created an account with at least one other person to vote multiple times in the election", as the prosecution argues. The statement at best proves that the defendant had a friend whom he shared an account with, and that's perfectly fine within Thaecian law. The issue here is that this friend, going off by the defendant's statements, was likely the owner of the other nations in the World Assembly, which could for example lead NationStates moderators to suspect of the defendant's account as well, considerign there is indication of a connection between the two individuals, since both shared some account.

I would like to continue to address the rest, in which the prosecution attempts to create a connection between "The Democratic Republic of Tomb" and the defendant, all at once. First off I would like to state the obvious: there is nothing of absolute presented by the prosecution. The prosecution attempts to use a series of similarities to prove its point, and does it very cleverly to be fair, however they start to fall apart once you look at them in detail. The defence would like to make itself clear that it believes that the most probable scenario, based on all evidence presented, is that the defendant and "The Democratic Republic of Tomb" are two friends, they likely shared some account between them, and when "Tomb" attempted to create alternate accounts for disputable reasons, the defendant was caught in the process. That said, the defence would like to present a few set of notes about the points made by the prosecution.

Let's take the prosecution's argument that both are from Tennessee and therefore that must (somehow) prove that they are the same. Statistically speaking, the chance of someone picked at random from the entire world being from Tennessee is aproximately 7/7500 (0.093%). Applying this to NationStates' World Assembly population (0.093% of 21100~) you get approximately 19.62~ people, and this is without excluding certain nations from our world population, which would be perfectly plausible considering NationStates isn't even available in certain countries and plenty of undeveloped nations are also less likely to have people who play NationStates. With the perfectly conservative estimate that at least 20 people from Tennessee play NationStates, how come the fact that a mere 2 people just happening to be from Tennessee prove anything? It would be understandable if two was over-representing the population of the state, but it's very clearly not, so this certainly can't be a valid argument argument.

Other point brought up by the prosecution is that Tomb joined the World Assembly in a period where the defendant's nation had CTEd. The defence can't see how this is relevant at all. Tomb and the defendant stayed in the World Assembly at the same time for at least 3 weeks, as is easily verifiable through the following website which tracks data about when nations were in the World Assembly:

http://texasregion.net/nsdossier/history.aspx?nation=The%20Democratic%20Republic%20of%20Tomb&type=Exact&group=nation&start=&end= (Tomb, check 12-14)

http://texasregion.net/nsdossier/history.aspx?nation=Xernon&type=Exact&group=nation&start=&end= (Defendant, check 48-50)

The two were in the World Assembly within a same period of time. Why is that the case? Perhaps because they are not the same person.

Other points brought by the prosecution include emoji usage, which the defence won't bother even arguing, as the fact two people use similar emojis isn't proof of anything. More importantly though the prosecution attempts to use the defendant's time in the NWA arguing for a regional military as evidence of the two being the same person, but the defence can't see how one thing is related to the other at all. There are plenty of armies in NationStates, certainly it must be beyond obvious that there are plenty of ways by which the defendant could have acquired knowledge over their functioning, including even just being taught by someone, perhaps his likely friend Tomb even.

To close things up, the defence believes that it has proven that there are dozens, if not hundreds of other possibilities to the multitude of circumstantial "evidence" presented by the prosecution, and therefore no absolute conclusions can be made. The defence believes it to be impossible to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Brototh is now called on to give a re-explanation of evidence.

Post by Treaty Organisation suppressed by High Court Founder.

Treaty Organisation

What? I’m confused?

Democratized Peoples wrote:Brototh is now called on to give a re-explanation of evidence.

Your honours,

The defence petitions this court drop this case on the grounds that the defendant isn't a citizen of Thaecia.

Legislative Resolution 056 Article II, Section II Sub-Section I defines criminal cases as follows:

"Criminal cases are cases brought by a citizen alleging that another citizen has committed a crime under the laws of Thaecia."

Considering the defendant no longer exists as a nation, it is logically impossible for the defendant to be a citizen of Thaecia.

[Spoiler=Justices][nation=noflag]Democratized Peoples[/nation]

[nation=noflag]Sma Cyrillic[/nation][/spoiler]

Your honours, I strongly object to this motion. LR 056 states "cases brought by a citizen alleging that another citizen"; this is true. However, at the time, Xernon was a citizen of Thaecia. The case was brought by a citizen alleging that another citizen had committed a crime. When the case was brought, as the law states, the defendant was a citizen of Thaecia. Just to repeat and reiterate, criminal cases are brought alleging that another citizen has committed a crime. The case against Xernon was brought by a citizen, myself, alleging that another citizen, Xernon, committed a crime under the laws of Thaecia.

There is nothing that invalidates a case after it has been accepted. The only requirement is that when it is brought, the plaintiff and defence both be citizens of the region. Which is true, and so this case still stands under Thaecian law.

This is simply more bluster from the defence. The re-explanation is coming within the next 3 hours.

Marvinville

Your honours, in similar fashion to the defence, I will address the cross-examination in the order of which they are argued.

First of all, the defence's statement that the lesser votes being removed from the ballot resulting in Xernon continuing to win is correct, however, it does not invalidate the evidence's usefulness. As Xernon is the owner and controller of the ejected nations, by removing his vote as well, as he was also ejected from the World Assembly and had his own citizenship disqualified just as the other nations, by removing his vote, Xernon would still have barely straddled the quota at exactly 44/44 votes in that scenario. This actually, to the contrary of what the defence states, reinforces the motive/evidence. It reinforces the prosecution's statement that the defendant knew that the election was a tight one- and in any case, without his alternate accounts, it would have been, either winning by 1.5 votes or 1 vote. This continues to prove what Xernon's motive was: he knew that after being absent for four months, his election chances were potentially in danger if his popularity had waned. And evidently, they had, as previously he had won a landslide and record-holding election win of 70+ votes, and now, his election as President sat only on but a single vote. It is evident that it was still difficult to win an election by default, as that is what had occured- he would have only won it by the skin of his teeth without the alternate accounts. His motive is still perfectly in tact here and continues to prove exactly why he committed this heinous crime.

In terms of moderators removing nations from the World Assembly only at specific times, this is not true. Moderators take action when rule breaking is identified. Otherwise, if someone was breaking rules to obtain a game advantage in raiding with multiple nations, the person would be able to get away with it until the specific time that the moderators come online to check: they take action when they see rule breaking and decide that it has gone too far, as it did to moderation in this case. Additionally, if punishment is enforced at the same time, how does that explain the nations other than Xernon and Tomb being ejected 2-3 minutes away from the prior mentioned two? If it were one minute, it would make sense, or if the moderators took a break for a moment, but the defence asserts that because one group of nations were ejected later, they must not belong to Xernon. To that point, if the moderators do as the defence suggests, hand down punishments for all WA irregularities at once, then why would they not have ejected Xernon and Tomb alongside the other 7 ejected nations, if again, it all happens at once like the defence asserts? And if the moderators had simply taken a break for a second to do something else, that still does not disprove that the nations are not all Xernon, in fact, it provides an explanation as to why they did not all occur at the same time. And for the sake of argument, assuming that the defendant is right and Xernon truly did not own the second group of nations because he was not ejected along side them, he would still have owned Tomb as he was ejected along side him, and would still be guilty of the crime accused.

Continuing on to the third response, let us consider something initially: there is no such thing as direct evidence in a crime such as this. Xernon cannot be caught in flagrante dlicto (red handed), unless we go to his computer and watch him multi in front of our eyes. The reason that this evidence seems like alone it cannot prove anything of absolute, is because that is what it is. Evidence in this trial is a series of things that, at first, seem like coincidences, like Marvinville and Hulldom voting one after the other, but as you pile the evidence on, and on, it becomes more and more clear. There is no direct evidence, because we cannot literally watch Xernon multi and we do not have access to the logs that NS Moderation does. Instead, this trial is built upon circumstantial evidence, which is a real and valid form of evidence in all legal systems, by connecting the dots to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that so many little things add up to prove that Xernon is, again, undoubtedly guilty of this crime. The nations ejected voting at similar times is an example of this; it shows just one thing that connects them, and there are of course a great many more.

And again in the fourth, the point made above is reiterated. The prosecution has very much so given proof that these nations have many things in similar, this evidence, that before it, and those after it. Again, it is impossible for us to literally watch Xernon do this thing, and so this is a case of evidence that piles up. It is clear why this is to do with the defendant: the defendant was about to face an election that was hard won, a group of nations were ejected within 2 minutes of him, and the nations were, other than Tomb, founded near one another, which just so happened to be right before the election. Nations being founded at the same time is not suspicious in and of itself, but when you combine it with the fact they voted at similar times for a very tight election, it looks suspicious; let alone with the pile of evidence still waiting to come.

Let us consider the defence's theory that one individual, for example sake let us say Tomb, was the true mastermind behind the alternate accounts, and intentionally did this in order to have Xernon 'pranked'. This starts to fall apart under the defence's own logic that the other nations being ejected later means that they are not related to Xernon/Tomb, because if Tomb had, say, accessed the same computer and WiFi that Xernon did, they should all be ejected at the same time, as the defence suggests. Additionally, the defendant's statement in the exhibit is "I should've known from a request of me that there was something up"; this implies that he had an idea of what was going on. If this was truly because of a prank, for the humour of Tomb, would he request something of Xernon? The defendant claims that the individual was 'perhaps acting to help the defendant win the election without his knowledge'- well, this is blatantly not true, as the defendant himself had admitted that this 'person' had made a request of him. The defendant makes a Freudian slip in his own story; he reveals that, at the very least, he and another person planned to, and went ahead with, using alternate accounts to disturb Thaecian democracy. Additionally, the defendant's statement that he knows the "in-game mechanics" raises further questions that the defence does not even attempt to answer in the cross-examination, such as why he did not communicate with NSMods, who send warning telegrams about being in the WA with multiple nations before taking action (which the prosecution will discuss in greater depth later in the trial). Additionally, he claims to know these in-game mechanics, but still fears shared accounts: yet we have already shown in the evidence relevance section itself that shared accounts alone do not result in a ban.

It is ironic that the defendant consistently states throughout this trial that the evidence provided does not prove anything, that it is not absolute, because it is the defence that is making statements of little to no value. As the defendant says, it is perfectly fine to share an account with someone under Thaecian law. But that is not what is being presented in this trial: what is being presented is that it is very clear that the defendant made alternate accounts to damage Thaecia's democracy. Whether or not he did that with a friend is not relevant as the defence tries to make it, as he still will have fallen guilty of electoral fraud. The defence themselves makes the statement that this alleged friend was the owner of the other nation, and this somehow brings the defendant into the fray. This does not make any sense: if the defendant's friend was the owner of the other nations, why would this now suddenly connect the defendant to them? The defence suggests that there is an "indication of a connection between the two individuals" [the friend and Xernon] "since both shared some account". But we have already established that simply sharing an account does not get you done by moderation: otherwise I myself would have been ejected long ago.

Your honours, it is clear, from the evidence, and from the defence's own cross-examination, that the reason the defendant was ejected is not because of a friend breaking the rules, it is because the defendant is that friend themselves, and employed this alternate nation to harm our democracy.

Continuing on now to the links between Xernon and Tomb, I would first like to address the continuing bluster from the defence: this has nothing of absolute, etc. We have already established that this is a trial based on circumstantial evidence that links to prove a greater point, and so I ask the Court to ignore this continued attempt to disregard the evidence. The defendant's first point on the two "individuals" both being from Tennessee 'somehow' proving they are the same is what makes this clear: again, this is a trial built upon piling evidence, not a single smoking gun IP log or video footage of the defendant doing it. That is how we catch alternate accounts in NationStates, that is how it has always been done and always will be.

Besides the point though, let us take a look at the defendant's assertation that there are 20 people playing NationStates from Tennessee. If anything, this further proves the fact that the defendant and Tomb share very, very odd links. Twenty is, really, a very low number- it is just under enough to fill the number of an average classroom (22 pupils). The defendant suggests that because two people being from TN is only a part of 20 and not the whole number or the majority of it, this evidence is irrelevant. Yet I would like to point out something else with maths- 2 is 10% of 20. The assertations made by the defence begin to prove the prosecution more and more as you look into it.

I find funny the defence's statement "The defence can't see how this is relevant at all". The two nations were in the World Assembly at the same time: yes, and they were ejected for it. It is not against NS rules to move your WA from one nation to the other, so long as both are not in the WA at the exact same time. And what has happened here is Xernon has CTE'd, he has brought back Tomb and joined the WA on there as he knows his WA is now free. However, this is not the end of the story, because anyone can see using the site linked by the defence that Tomb left the WA briefly. Why is this?

Your honours, in order to explain the point that Tomb and Xernon were not in the WA at the same time, we must think like Xernon would. As the defence puts it, Xernon was "of one of Thaecia's long term citizens and co-founder". Obviously, from the very start of creating the region, he was not malicious- he had poured a lot of money into the recruitment of this region as we are all aware. But it was only later on that he developed a motive for this heinous crime.

Let's take a closer look at the very site that the defendant links (texasregion aka nshistory). The columns that the defence mentions are numbers 12 and 14 for Tomb, and 48 and 50 for the defendant. But I think that what really needs to happen is for us to look back just a brief bit further. Xernon's column 54, which is on the date 20200316 (read: 2020/03/16), has him in the World Assembly, and he is back in the WA having refounded his nation in column 53, 2020/05/04. There is no record for the month of April- this is because, as we know and have established, the defendant briefly ceased to exist as a nation. For Tomb, let's look at column 17, on the date 2020/04/28. This is where Tomb rejoined the WA, which is in column 19, on 2020/04/08- and as you can see, he is in the WA in the very month that Xernon is not. Yet it becomes strange when you then look at column 16: on 2020/05/04, at which the same point Xernon had now refounded and rejoined the WA, Tomb has suddenly left the WA, and by column 14, 2020/06/13, just weeks before the election, Tomb has rejoined and entered Thaecia.

The defence does love their alternative explanations, and I will give one: What has happened is Xernon after serving three Presidential terms in Thaecia, tired of the position and the region at large. He has created a stable region, he has protected it from threats like Ontario & TRP, and he has peacefully CTE'd. He decides that he wants to go back to being Tomb again, having many memories from that time, and so he does, in the month of April. Xernon has ceased to exist, so he needs not worry about having only one World Assembly nation at a time. But he quickly tires of this, and he decides that he will go back to Thaecia: election season is soon, and he can find some more enjoyment in that. As we know, the first thing he did was become an MP when he returned. So he decides to refound Xernon by 2020/05/04, and he leaves the WA on Tomb. By this point, he has broken no rules- but it is by 2020/06/03, a month later, that Tomb rejoins the WA. Xernon has realised that with his electoral ambitions, he may need an extra boost, having been gone from the region. So he decides to cheat the system: as he says, he knows game mechanics- he thinks he can get away with it. This very website, that the defence uses, perfectly re-iterates and re-explains the point of the prosecution, that the defendant and Tomb were not in the WA at the same time because Xernon was as of yet not breaking the rules of the game. It shows us very directly that Xernon CTE'd, restarted as Tomb, tired of Tomb and left to rejoin on Xernon, and then decided to rejoin on Tomb.

This website establishes a timeline for his actions, it reiterates his motive of wanting an electoral boost, it shows his method of not wanting to break the rules but deciding to go ahead with it for that motive, and his opportunity in the upcoming election season.

Your honours, if the defence is so determined to dismiss all evidence as it does not conclusively prove the point, then Exhibit P is that, and the re-explanation of Exhibit P following the cross-examination that utilises NSHistory only solidifies it.

Despite that we already know for a fact Xernon is guilty of this crime, let's continue on with the defence. They decide to note even argue the defence and Tomb's shared emoji usage because it does not 'prove anything'. But it does: it proves that they have similar typing patterns. Indian Genius and LY3K shared typing patterns, Peabodia and his alternate accounts shared typing patterns as your honours may remember. This is key to catching alts, and the defence ignores it because they know this to be true. And I would like to entertain this theory that Tomb taught Xernon R/D: let's assume that Xernon and Tomb truly are separate people. If we look at NSHistory, we see Tomb only joined Thaecia by 2020/06/13. This suggests that this is either when Xernon and Tomb met, or when they first discussed NationStates, as Xernon, an avid recruiter pouring in hundreds of dollars, would obviously want to get his new friend to move to the region. And only three columns later, they are both ejected from the World Assembly. In this very short time, could Xernon have learned all about raiding? No, obviously not, especially as his experience dates back 'two years'. Maybe they did meet before and Tomb simply didn't want to join Thaecia: but we know he was interested in joining NationStates again, becasue during this two year period, Tomb did exist as a nation, WA or not. In fact with his WA missing for so long, how did he teach Xernon R/D? The explanation is that he didn't, and Xernon knows about it from Tomb because Xernon is Tomb.

The defence states that "there are plenty of armies in NationStates", and as our evidence shows, there are plenty of regions too. So it is quite funny that Xernon and Tomb were both part of the same regions and raider organisations back in their day: this is just yet another thing that connects them, it is just yet another piece of circumstantial evidence that proves that the defence is guilty.

Your honours, I hope that after reviewing my explanation, and the defence's, and my initial submission of the evidence, et cetera, you will come to the right decision of finding Xernon guilty, as the evidence together proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Xernon is guilty of this heinous crime. To the defence, I hope that our plentitudes of circumstantial evidence can be forgiven with the 'smoking gun' that the defence seeks so hard and proved themselves in their cross-examination.

[Spoiler=Justices][nation=noflag]Democratized Peoples[/nation]

[nation=noflag]Sma Cyrillic[/nation]

[nation=noflag]Creckelenney[/nation][/spoiler]

(Procedural post just to request that any new and updated Court to be pinned to the WFE be telegrammed to this account.)

The Court rejects the Defense's motion

The Defense is now invited to present their evidence

Cerdenia

Brototh

Sma Cyrillic wrote:The Defense is now invited to present their evidence
Your honour I object. The rules and procedures of the court clearly state that after the re-explanation of evidence by the plaintiff, it is time for the "Presentation, explanation, and examination of approved evidence by the defendant".

However, the defendant has not submitted any approved evidence for the high crime charge. The prosecution did submit one evidence form for the charge, but it was dismissed. https://www.nationstates.net/page=rmb/postid=47873797

The defence themselves later took issue with exhibit B of the prosecution's evidence, which the prosecution accepted and withdrew, but in the same message they state "The defence has no wishes to submit any evidence forms of its own" https://www.nationstates.net/page=rmb/postid=48092498

As such the defence has submitted no approved evidence and so there is no reason for the Court to proceed with this, as again, there is nothing for the defence to be able to present, for me to cross-examine, or for them to re-explain.

Court procedures also clearly state that evidence may only be submitted during the pre-trial phase: "Evidence may be rejected if it was created after the beginning of the pre-trial phase". By allowing the defence to now create an evidence form after they did not do so previously, and stated that they had no interest in doing so, the Court would quite literally be allowing the defence to submit evidence after the start of the trial, which is not an accepted practice in any legal system. Additionally this would create an unfair burden on the prosecution as the defence will have been given the privilege to bring forward more evidence whereas the prosecution is unable to do so.

Marvinville

Upon further review, I made a stumble error.

Prosecution, call your first witness

I call upon my sole witness for this charge, Snowflame.

The witness will testify that when a nation violates World Assembly rules, they are informed of this via telegram by NationStates moderators in order to resolve the situation before being ejected from the WA.

This will establish that Xernon knew what he was doing as he would have received such a telegram prior to his ejection- he knew what he was doing, was given a chance to resolve it, but did not and pushed ahead. This crime was fully in actus reus and mens rea

Witness, please confirm your presence in the Court so that I may ask my first question

Snowflame

Snowflame wrote:I am here.

As an accomplished raider, you obviously have a lot of experience in managing your World Assembly membership, and we all know that under game rules, you are only permitted to have one World Assembly nation at a time. Can you confirm for the Court that you have, at least at one point, accidentally had more than one World Assembly nation during an R/D operation?

Brototh wrote:As an accomplished raider, you obviously have a lot of experience in managing your World Assembly membership, and we all know that under game rules, you are only permitted to have one World Assembly nation at a time. Can you confirm for the Court that you have, at least at one point, accidentally had more than one World Assembly nation during an R/D operation?

I can confirm that I have accidentally had more than one World Assembly nation during an R/D operation.

Snowflame wrote:I can confirm that I have accidentally had more than one World Assembly nation during an R/D operation.

And at this time, you had decided to communicate with the moderators to inform them of this, to let the moderators know that it was as a result of a mistake and not to gain an advantage in-game?

Brototh wrote:And at this time, you had decided to communicate with the moderators to inform them of this, to let the moderators know that it was as a result of a mistake and not to gain an advantage in-game?

This is correct. I communicated with the moderators and explained to them how it was a mistake.

Snowflame wrote:This is correct. I communicated with the moderators and explained to them how it was a mistake.

They were understanding of this, right, and accepted that it was just human error? Did they reprimand you in any way?

Brototh wrote:They were understanding of this, right, and accepted that it was just human error? Did they reprimand you in any way?

The moderators were completely understanding and accepted the fact that it was a mistake. I was also not punished in any way, shape, or form.

Snowflame wrote:The moderators were completely understanding and accepted the fact that it was a mistake. I was also not punished in any way, shape, or form.

To open up a related thread on moderation action surrounding WA Multiing, can you confirm for the Court that the moderators send out telegrams to warn players that are in multiple WA Nations at once, in order to encourage them to leave?

Brototh wrote:To open up a related thread on moderation action surrounding WA Multiing, can you confirm for the Court that the moderators send out telegrams to warn players that are in multiple WA Nations at once, in order to encourage them to leave?

I can confirm that the moderators do send telegrams to warn players that they have multiple World Assembly nations and to encourage them to leave.

No further questions for the witness, your honours. As per the Court Procedures, in my closing statement I will expand further on these questions and what the answers show us.

[spoiler=Justices]CJ Sma Cyrillic

AJ Democratized Peoples

AJ Creckelenney[/spoiler]

The Defense is called to cross examine the witness.

Cerdenia

Your honours,

The defence sees no flaws in the testimony of the witness, we believe it is in accordance with the story the defence has presented so far. It is completely plausible to say that the defendant, not being the owner of the nations in question, did not give much attention to the telegram he received. It is an established fact that nations often receive telegrams without having violated World Assembly rules. Considering the defendant committed no crime, but rather likely someone he knew in real life, the defendant likely didn't think much of any telegram he possibly received.

The defence will not cross examine the witness and thanks him for his honest testimony.

The Prosecution is called for closing arguments

Brototh

Cerdenia

Closing argument will be delivered within 168 hours

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