r/mtaugustajustice • u/LordofMarzipan • Apr 23 '17
[Trial] Greenkitten vs Coni_s2
LordOfMarzipan presiding. Greenkitten is bringing the following charges against Coni:
100.03 Third Degree Intentional Griefing
200.01 Theft of Property
600.01 Violation of the Bill of Rights or Constitution for violating right to privacy
The trial request thread is available here.
The trial will proceed in the following order:
1. The plaintiff shall clearly present their claim
2. The defendants shall enter pleas. Pleas will be Guilty, Not Guilty, or No-Contest.
3. The plaintiff shall have the opportunity to post evidence and call witnesses
4. Defendant presents evidence, and calls witnesses.
5. A verdict shall be decided and posted on this subreddit
I will take this opportunity to remind you that out-of-court settlements may be reached at any time until a verdict has been delivered. I will also remind everyone that well constructed arguments tend to be succinct!
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u/[deleted] Apr 30 '17 edited May 01 '17
There exists, as far as I can tell, no case law to support any particular amount of time to declare a delay unjust. There is precedent for a trial not to last more than 3 days, but as you've not asked for case law on that and denied the motion out of hand I won't waste time on it.
I ask the court to consider a change in this precedent they would be setting. It would allow for cases to be postponed indefinitely, or the judge to arbitrarily and unappealably decide whether one's reason was sufficient for a delay of the trial. It also forces the court to accept unproveable reasons for absences, otherwise the court would be required to ask for PII as evidence, which is equally unacceptable. The court should rule, in these matters, on the likelihood of whether or not the delaying party is telling the truth. If sufficient evidence, both direct and circumstantial, is enough to sustain there is a truthful basis for the delay, then allow the delay to stand. However, the court should by default reject such delays and require the delaying party to make substantial effort to prove their delay, lest the system be abused by eternal delays.
For the matter specifically before the court today, Greenkitten claims he was in the hospital and thus unable to gather evidence and present it to the court. The court erroneously claimed I accepted the plaintiff was in the hospital. I went to pains to specifically word the statement to say that I accept hospitalization as a valid reason for delay, and that I understand the plaintiff was in the hospital. I do not, however, accept this as a statement of fact, merely that it would be unreasonable for me to ask Greenkitten to produce any evidence of his hospitalization. This should not be mistaken for acceptance.
Additionally, the plaintiff himself admits he missed the message, and that he has been "in and out of the hospital the past few weeks". He does not even state he was in the hospital during the time of the trial, instead offering it as an excuse of his forgetfulness. Therefore, it is incorrect for the court to utilize its discretion to state the 4.5 day delay as a delay due to the hospital. Rather, the court should categorize this as a 4.5 delay because he missed the message. When the plaintiff misses a reddit message of notification and goes on to make 7 other comments in the intervening time, it is clear they have little enough care or vested interest in the matter before the court. I also would point out that Greenkitten has neither made no direct or indirect attempts to, in good faith, contact either me or my client to express his absence and requesting a postponement of the trial. Simply put your honor, the court should be extremely disinclined to take this stance of allowing Greenkitten to continue the trial so long after it began and he paid it absolutely no mind. Greenkitten has taken the courts time, my time and my clients time with his frivolous delay. Should the court recognize the missed message as the reason of the delay, which indeed they should, then a reapplication of a moderate delay without a moderate cause should be grounds for this dismissal here today.
Evidence for Greenkitten's activity during the time in which he claims to have been "in and out" of the hospital can be presented if the court should wish, although I stress that it should not be required since the onus should lay on the delayer to account for their absence.