CaseOOC

A case records charges against someone in a register of known persons, and how they were judged.

• Two kinds. A guard whose rank may judge on the spot decides a case there and then, under the law of a court its watch reaches. A court (a Hold, a ruler, or a faction’s own court for its members) holds a trial, with hearings, and a jury if it wants one. The rank needs Hold trials and record fines paid.
• Opening one. Choose Open a case on the accused’s entry in the register, beside an offender or suspect on an incident report, in the cells, or on an arrest warrant once it is carried out. Each charge cites a law (or, unless the Hold must cite, words of your own), picks a severity when the law has them, and may be an attempt or an accessory. The law’s words for that severity show beside it, and how often they were found guilty of it before.
• Warnings. The case warns when the accused is entitled to a trial, is under exile from the Hold, or was found guilty before.
• Send for trial. A guard may send an open case to a court over it (or to the court whose warrant arrested them). The court is told and the trial opens with the same charges.
• Deciding. A verdict on each charge (guilty, not guilty, dismissed), then the sentences if anyone is guilty. The judgement is a paper in the decider’s files; a copy may be handed to the accused if they gave a calling card. A trial’s judgement may be proclaimed on a public board.
• Hearings. A trial records each hearing: when, who presided, notes. A hearing still to come can go on a public board as an event.
• Private. A case is read by the guard’s or the court’s people only. A warrant searching them can open their cases.
• People in the case. Name the defence, witnesses, experts, the injured party and claimants.
• Summons. A court can summon the accused to a trial by a day and time. Guards deliver it in person (like a warrant); then the court records whether they appeared, and can charge them for not appearing.
• Appeals. A guard’s case goes to the Hold whose law it was judged under; a Hold’s trial to the ruler of the Hold. The higher court chooses Hear an appeal on its Cases page and enters the number on the judgement paper (a copy will do). It upholds the judgement, overturns it (every sentence set aside) or varies the sentence.
• Evidence. Once the case is decided, the guard holding goods kept as evidence (from its reports or a seizure) returns them with a receipt, or keeps them as forfeit. Coin goes back only when the guard confirms it.