Talossan Criminal Code: an outline

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Best to contribute any suggestions for amendments in this thread, for transparency's sake.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Okay.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

5 years maximum civil disability? 500 louis maximum fine (which would be half our total treasury)?

BUMP. Any other suggestions on maximum civil disabilities and fines?

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

5 years maximum civil disability? 500 louis maximum fine (which would be half our total treasury)?

BUMP. Any other suggestions on maximum civil disabilities and fines?

I checked the case again, and ESB got 8 months for each count of violating the Anti-Impostor and Liar Act, and an additional 3 months for each count of violating Wis. Stat. § 947.0125. The way I understand it, a flat maximum of 5 years civil disability wouldnt have affected the sentencing since each individual punishment is well below it, and to be honest I think People v. ESB was somewhat of a special case.

EDIT:
My idea for maximum punishments would be something like this:
Felony -- 5 years of civil disability and/or ℓ500 ($750)
Severe misdemeanour -- 1 year of civil disability and/or ℓ100 ($150)
Misdemeanour -- 6 months of civil disability and/or ℓ50 ($75)

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

More context:

The sentencing in question, from Txec as judge after ESB pled guilty to all charges:

For each of the 17 counts of violating 36RZ10, S:reu Kildow is sentenced to 8 months of civic disability per conviction to run consecutively beginning from today, August 11, 2014 thereby totaling 136 months wherein the defendant shall not hold any national office including Member of the Cosa, Senator, Member of the Cabinet, Seneschal or any office of the Royal Household, including subsidiary positions or any created national office for the duration of the sentence (any questions about whether an office falls under these guidelines may be revisited at the request of any party to this action.)

For each of the 15 counts of violating Wisconsin Code 947.0125, S:reu Kildow is sentenced to 90 days per conviction of civic disability, to run consecutively following the previous sentence totaling 45 months wherein the defendant shall not hold any national office including Member of the Cosa, Senator, Member of the Cabinet, Seneschal, or any office of the Royal Household, including subsidiary positions or any created national office for the duration of the sentence (any questions about whether an office falls under these guidelines may be revisited at the request of any party to this action.)

Additionally, the Court imposes of fine of $100 to be paid by the end of the calendar year 2014 to the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue. The convicted may work out whatever arrangement is necessary with the Court and the Burgermeister.

Additionally, the Court sentences S:reu Kildow to complete 500 hours of community service within five years to be supervised by the Court or its appointed agent. Arrangements for and acceptable forms of the community service shall be completed between the Court and the defendant upon conclusion of this trial.

Finally, the Court hereby revokes the citizenship of S:reu Kildow. The order of revocation is suspended under the following conditions: that S:reu Kildow fully pays his fine by 12/31/2014, that S:reu Kildow makes no attempt at creating another account for any reason, that S:reu Kildow fulfills the terms of his sentence in whole and also that no other criminal convictions occur in any Court of Talossa against S:reu Kildow. At the conclusion of his civic disability, the Court orders the revocation of citizenship to be dismissed.

Total civic disability and length of suspended sentence to equal 181 months. Once the matter of the injunction is resolved, the defendant will be released on his own recognizance.

The decision of Ian T. on appeal was very long, so I can't quote it here, and stands as precedent for Talossa since there could be no appeal.  It's a little hard to read, to be honest, and covered an enormous amount of ground (including a surprising amount of shade cast on Txec as the trial judge, suggesting that the passion of the time had made it impossible to view things coolly and that he was rude to people in his cort).  I have a lot of criticism of it which is immaterial here, but to sum up the result: all the convictions were vacated, and the Cort arrived at a weird middling decision where the time served was both sufficient to cover any possible outcome of a retrial (so therefore there should be no retrial) and also that probably the sentence should have been close to zero, since only one conviction was even conceivably with merit.  The most relevant part here is probably that the Cort decided that no one could be charged with multiple crimes based on one action, since that would require "dual sovereignty."  This might be because the origin of some of the charges were the Wisconsin laws incorporated into our own, although it's really hard to understand the reasoning.  Either way, if we're working on this stuff, adding in some basic provisions about this would probably be a good idea, ie: "A single action of a defendant may be considered to break more than one law and may be charged accordingly."  This is especially because it seems like otherwise no one could ever be punished for being convicted of a crime in another cort, which is one of the express purposes of this bill.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

5.4.   In addition to any other punishment authorized by law, a court may order revocation of citizenship (as described elsewhere in this Lexhatx) upon conviction for a misdemeanour, only if the court determines, based on the offender's potential for rehabilitation and any aggravating circumstances of the offense(s), that any lesser punishment is unlikely to deter the offender from repeating his or her criminal behavior.

This should be deleted, or we should be honest and just state that revocation is a possible punishment for all crimes.  Putting it this way is just misleading, I think, since it basically says, "Only serious and terrible crimes that we call felonies may lead to losing your citizenship but not really, actually anything can."

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

A court may order the suspension of all or part of any sentence, for a period of time not to exceed two calendar years. At the end of the period of suspension ordered by the court, the suspended punishment is rescinded if the offender has not violated any condition of the suspension.

This seems weird.   Two years is not a long time for probation, especially for serious crimes.  I'd suggest five years.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Are you open to some more work on the crimes definitions?  Since the goal is to throw out all precedent except for Talossan precedent (not a goal I agree with, but c'est la vie), then a few of these definitions become way too broad.  Some are great, but I'm looking in particular at things like fraud and harassment.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

7.2.10.  Bringing Talossa into disrepute. Any Talossan citizen who has brought Talossa into disrepute, through being convicted by a credible foreign court which is deemed to abide by Talossan values, of a crime established at trial to have involved fraud, harassment, bribery, physical or sexual violence or threats thereof, commits:
7.2.10.1.        A felony if sentenced to penal servitude of more than 2 years.
7.2.10.2.        A serious misdemeanour otherwise.

Quick rewrite for readability:

7.2.10.  Bringing Talossa into disrepute. Any Talossan citizen who has been convicted by a credible foreign court, which has been deemed to abide by Talossan values, of a crime established at trial to have involved fraud, harassment, bribery, physical or sexual violence or threats thereof, has committed the crime of bringing Talossa into disrepute to the following degrees:
7.2.10.1.        A felony if sentenced to penal servitude of more than 2 years.
7.2.10.2.        A serious misdemeanour otherwise.

First quick read suggests the following problem: we are asking that part of the trial judgment include judging whether or not a foreign court is both credible and abides by Talossan values, but we're not defining either of those very squidgy ideas.  Definitions of these terms should be added to the definitions section.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

I've noted all the above and will hopefully reply when other events are less pressing. In the meantime it would be good to hear other voices.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

adding in some basic provisions about this would probably be a good idea, ie: "A single action of a defendant may be considered to break more than one law and may be charged accordingly."

Sure, why not. (now section 1.3)

5.4.

This should be deleted, or we should be honest and just state that revocation is a possible punishment for all crimes.  Putting it this way is just misleading, I think, since it basically says, "Only serious and terrible crimes that we call felonies may lead to losing your citizenship but not really, actually anything can."

Sure, why not - it was only there because it's in the existing law (as A.5.2.2). Should we think about something else to deal with the "habitual criminal", though?

Two years is not a long time for probation, especially for serious crimes.  I'd suggest five years.

Sure, why not.

Are you open to some more work on the crimes definitions? ... Some are great, but I'm looking in particular at things like fraud and harassment.

Sure, why not; but I don't want them to become too complicated. The definition of harassment comes from Wisconsin law, whereas the definition of fraud comes from the dictionary.

Quick rewrite {of 7.2.10} for readability:

Thanks!

we are asking that part of the trial judgment include judging whether or not a foreign court is both credible and abides by Talossan values, but we're not defining either of those very squidgy ideas.  Definitions of these terms should be added to the definitions section.

Hmmm. You know, I forgot that I put the term "Talossan values" in there, and I'm not sure I still like it, so happy to hear alternatives. I think honestly we have to go at this through a negative definition - i.e. it's far easier to declare that a Court is not "credible" or doesn't abide by our values than the other way around (i.e. it doesn't provide a fair trial in the way we would recognize it in Talossa, because of lack of judicial independence or serious bias against certain kinds of people.)

But honestly, very glad to hear you seem to like the direction I've gone in with this. Thanks again to Marcel for the idea. Speaking of which...

My idea for maximum punishments would be something like this:
Felony -- 5 years of civil disability and/or ℓ500 ($750)
Severe misdemeanour -- 1 year of civil disability and/or ℓ100 ($150)
Misdemeanour -- 6 months of civil disability and/or ℓ50 ($75)

An ordinary misdemeanour doesn't carry civil disability, by definition - but apart from that, sure, why not.

Check out the updated version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OfQlUZrowS4frssyea6-SLxz8Pcss5WNNxyKud82lQw/edit?usp=sharing

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Sure, why not - it was only there because it's in the existing law (as A.5.2.2). Should we think about something else to deal with the "habitual criminal", though?

I would be inclined to simply leave that up to the discretion of the sentencing judge, myself, but I don't feel strongly either way.

Hmmm. You know, I forgot that I put the term "Talossan values" in there, and I'm not sure I still like it, so happy to hear alternatives. I think honestly we have to go at this through a negative definition - i.e. it's far easier to declare that a Court is not "credible" or doesn't abide by our values than the other way around (i.e. it doesn't provide a fair trial in the way we would recognize it in Talossa, because of lack of judicial independence or serious bias against certain kinds of people.)

Looking at the text again, I think we're going to need to put in an actual process for the "established at trial" bit, since it's very ambiguous about what that would mean.  I would suggest that the best way to accomplish this would be to create a special kind of judicial hearing.  This is something that happens in all sorts of ways in different courtrooms.  For example, many American courts that have abolished cash bail will decide whether or not to keep someone in custody based on a special "dangerousness hearing."  This would just put in place a process to resolve the standard you're setting into law.

As I see it, you're suggesting two things need to be resolved to meet this standard:

1. Was someone convicted of a crime that matches the definition of stuff we really don't like?
2. Was this conviction fair (ie, was it in a place like Auckland or a place more like Tehran)?

I think that in the vast majority of cases, the second question will be one of just checking the box.  It's not often going to be in dispute about whether or not a conviction was actually fair, especially if we are clear that the specifics of the trial really aren't the question.  We don't want people trying to argue that they had ineffective counsel, for example.  So we can probably handle these questions in that order, and the central part of the process will just be the very simple question of whether a conviction qualifies as "bribery" or whatnot.  I don't really worry about anyone getting persecuted or railroaded with such a process.

Before continuing, does all of that seem correct to you?

[Ián Tamorán S.H.]

A court may order the suspension of all or part of any sentence, for a period of time not to exceed two calendar years. At the end of the period of suspension ordered by the court, the suspended punishment is rescinded if the offender has not violated any condition of the suspension.

This seems weird.   Two years is not a long time for probation, especially for serious crimes.  I'd suggest five years.

Be careful to define, within Talossan Law, the meaning of the word "probation"... I believe its meaning differs on the two sides of the Atlantic.

[Ián Tamorán S.H.]

....
Hmmm. You know, I forgot that I put the term "Talossan values" in there, and I'm not sure I still like it, so happy to hear alternatives. I think honestly we have to go at this through a negative definition - i.e. it's far easier to declare that a Court is not "credible" or doesn't abide by our values than the other way around (i.e. it doesn't provide a fair trial in the way we would recognize it in Talossa, because of lack of judicial independence or serious bias against certain kinds of people.)
....

My personal opinion is that Talossa should accept NO other court as binding over Talossa. That is, if a citizen is convicted in some foreign court of some offence, then it is up to a Talossan Cort in the first instance to accept or ignore that foreign ruling. "Does the alleged offence contravene Talossan Law?" is the first question, and "Has the foreign court reached its opinion in a manner that seems, to Talossa, to be just?".  Thus we, in Talossa, should decide, case by case, whether to proceed under Talossan Law and jurisdiction, and are not inevitably bound by any external judgement (except, as I try always to remind us, for offences against human rights as internationally recognised).
In most cases this will be an easy decision - for example, an offence committed in and tried in California is very likely to be accepted within Talossa with no further real questioning; but an offence allegedly committed in Iran, and tried there, requires careful - very careful - inspection by us before we proceed. I have Iranian friends whose tales should not be listened to if you are at all queasy; some of my friends are refugees here in the UK on the basis of their having spoken publicly about police brutality.

Thus, I suggest, Talossa should accept the rulings of NO foreign courts, except those upholding internationally recognised human rights.  This would mean that we have no obligation to define within our Laws the meaning of "just" and "unjust" in foreign courts, but only in our own.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

A court may order the suspension of all or part of any sentence, for a period of time not to exceed two calendar years. At the end of the period of suspension ordered by the court, the suspended punishment is rescinded if the offender has not violated any condition of the suspension.

This seems weird.   Two years is not a long time for probation, especially for serious crimes.  I'd suggest five years.

Be careful to define, within Talossan Law, the meaning of the word "probation"... I believe its meaning differs on the two sides of the Atlantic.

The probation process is already included in the bill as devised by the Seneschal.  But I do agree, Senator Tamoran: sometimes people can come to startling conclusions about the meaning of words, and we should sharply scrutinize anything that might be ambiguous.