GDAN v. Minemaster, Oct 2021
Case
With Yergo presiding, on 23rd October 2021, GDAN charged Minemaster with Griefing. Minemaster was found guilty of Griefing and sentenced to 21 days Exile Pearled.
Proceedings
GDAN:
I would like to request a trial against minemaster for the griefing of the boomer ice road
SpaceVolcano:
The court will hear the case of GDAN VS Minemaster for griefing an ice road.
Yergo will be presiding
Yergo:
Minemaster, this is to confirm that you will be participating in this trial. If you refuse to participate in the trial or appoint a lawyer, the trial will be held in absentia.
Minemaster:
I suppose I will “participate” even though I already know the outcome
Yergo:
GDAN, Please make your opening statement as the prosecution.
bgbba:
May I interject your honor?
Before opening statements are made?
Yergo:
You have my permission to interject before the court before opening statements are made.
bgbba:
May it please the court your honor that I would like to issue a statement on behalf of the Yoahtlan people to Minemaster. The Yoahtlan Ololtic takes pride in upholding certain traditions. Foremost among which is our tradition of giving all people coming before our courts the right of a fair trial, due process, and proper representation of their plea before the judge.
I would like Minemaster to remember that the idea that the outcome is predetermined ignores the fact that failing to plead his best case fails to maximize his chances of a lenient sentence in the end. I won’t speculate as to the outcome, but being deliberately belligerent and hostile or dismissing the potential for due process threatens the proper outcome of this case and raises the potential that Minemaster find himself and unintentional victim of injustice brought about by his own poor attitude and hostility towards us and the proceedings.
Further I would advise that Yoahtl has little sympathy for the common claims of injustice by those who refuse to make even a moderate attempt at using the system we have to maximize the chances of their own survival simply to score political points against us in an arena which has zero bearing on their survival in the long run.
I can’t wish you luck
But trust in our system
That’s all
Yergo:
Thank you for your statement, bgbba. GDAN, you may now make your opening statement as the prosecution.
GDAN:
I am sueing minemaster for the heinous griefing of the boomer ice road between Yoahtl and Icenia.
Yergo:
Thank you. Minemaster, will you be pleading guilty, or not guilty?
Minemaster:
can you please elucidate the process of pleading innocent or guilty? I am unaware of how this action would affect me
bgbba:
May it please the court to recognize that if the defendent pleas guilty then he will be admitting to the crime in question but will be allowed to enter plea bargaining and argue for mitigating factors that would reduce the sentence given to the defendent.
If you plea not guilty and we find you guilty, your sentence would be higher than if you just plea guilty
Yergo:
This is correct, thank you for your interjection bg.
bgbba:
Thank you your honor
Minemaster:
oh I suppose I will plead guilty then even though it violates my general ethos
Yergo:
Understood. GDAN, please present any evidence you have and name any witnesses you would like to call to the court.
GDAN:
Minemaster admitted to obby bombing the ice road in this post
https://www.reddit.com/r/civclassics/comments/qdv4v9/freedom_for_civ/
Yergo:
GDAN, thank you. Do you wish to provide any witnesses?
GDAN:
Not at this point in time.
Yergo:
Okay, thank you.
Minemaster, please present any evidence in defense of the chargers, as well as lost any witnesses you would like to have the courts call upon following your evidence.
Minemaster:
I would like to say I am just a nice little bingus
I enjoy the simple things in block life like pretty role colors, nice house, pacstatue, etc etc. you know, just the basic mineman needs. I come to you today to say that I am willing to go to jail, hence why I “turned myself in”. I am tired of block trolling lifestyle I do not have the time or energy. I would request one simple thing. the sentence must be very funny funny. This is measured by sentence average funniness value. for example, perma pearl has higher SAFV than say, lame 5 week pearl sentence. To achieve high SAFV the sentence must be two things: wacky and historically relevant. For example, being stored under my old Icenia plot in a two ring skybunker would have a high historical relevance (very ironic) as well as some wackiness value. I ask the judge to please consider my request that the sentence by funny.
Yergo:
Minemaster, thank you very much. In this case, I will treat your statement as your closing statement as well. GDAN, please present any closing statements you have before the court
Minemaster:
I would like to request an invite for my elawyer
Yergo:
Granted. Who will be representing you moving forward?
Minemaster:
the lobbyist
Yergo:
Understood. I have invited Lobbyist and he will represent you in this case moving forward.
Citylion:
Good evening your honor
I take it that the High Justice has nominated you as the member of the Council who does not have a personal interest in the outcome of this trial.
Would this be correct?
-Lobbyist
Yergo:
This is correct.
Citylion:
Your honor, would it be possible to obtain the codification of criminal acts?
Yergo:
/r/CivYoahtl/wiki/charter
Citylion:
Is there a subsection regarding various charges, e.g. theft, murder, grief, etc?
The link is appreciated, your honor.
Yergo:
Here sorry, this link is more useful.
?/r/CivYoahtl/wiki/index/
Citylion:
Now comes The Lobbyist, attorney-at-law representing MineMaster.
Your honor, we believe that our client is entirely innocent in this case.
Chiefly, in two ways. Firstly your honor, our client is unstable. He is in no state of mind to be making valid statements for himself. We would like to call attention to his statement on October 28. “I enjoy the simple things in block life like pretty role colors, nice house, pacstatute…” his incoherent string of statements has no semblance of logic or reason, especially in the context of this trial and the serious allegations against him.
Secondly, assuming that our client has committed the acts which he is accused of, the acts which he allegedly committed cannot possibly be construed as crimes for a myriad of reasons.
This is because (1) his [alleged] actions would be consistent with the Yoahtl Bill of Rights, which do apply to my client for reasons that will be enumerated later. Particularly, YBOR II and YBOR 5 apply to this case. My client stands accused of disabling the Yoahtl Boomer ice-road. In doing so, he was securing himself and his people from unlawful military infrastructure (YBOR II). The ice-road could have been placed so that it did not lay under MtS claims [and other important land claims], however, it was not.
No records exist proving that this ice-road infrastructure was approved by the relevant authorities and bodies before my client took the action of which he is accused.
From the perspective of my client, and indubitably, from an objective viewpoint, my client was merely securing himself and his country against a piece of military infrastructure that threating by its very nature. I would like to ask, when the ice-road was built, and planned, were the relevant authorities in question, contacted? Did they approve the project, and its particular dimensions? Your honor, I believe that you will find that, in fact, no evidence exists that it was approved in this fashion. Hence, isn’t it at least a bit threatening to the native peoples, who toil and live on the soil which this military infrastructure so inelegantly penetrated? I believe that you will find the answer to undoubtably be a resounding yes. If the plaintiff has documentation regarding the approval of this infrastructure, we would very much like to review it.
Taking this into account, my client was in fact securing his own rights of self-defense in the face of a perpetual act of aggression – an act that is de-facto an act of aggression by being a continual violation of sovereignty through being both (1) not approved for its intended use-case (military usage) and (2) being military infrastructure de-facto.
Article I of the Charter of Yoahtl provides “rights” for the peoples of Yoahtl. However, is a right really a right if it only applies for a certain group of people? A “right” is a principle of freedom or entitlement, as opposed to a privilege which is granted.
Thinker Thomas Aquinas held the opinion that rights purported merely by law were not properly rights at all according to the meaning of the word, but merely a pretense of rights in actuality. Here is an excerpt from plato.standford.edu/entries/Aquinas-moral-political/ :
Justice is the steady and lasting willingness to give to others what they are entitled to (their right: jus [or ius] suum)… For his definition of justice immediately entails that correlative to such duties of justice there must be rights that belong to everyone indifferenter. Many duties of justice are positive (affirmative duties to give, do, etc.), and Aquinas treats the duties of relieving poverty both under justice and under love (of neighbor, for God’s sake). The duties in either case are essentially the same, and Aquinas’ understanding of them strongly affects his understanding of justified private property rights, which are valid because needed for prosperity and development, but are subject to a duty to distribute, directly or indirectly, one’s superflua – that is, everything beyond what one needs to keep oneself and one’s family in the state of life appropriate to one’s (and their) vocation(s).
Similarly, in his Civil Rights Announcement on June 11th 1963, President Kennedy of the United States declared that “the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.” Your honor, we believe that it is certainly threatening [in this context] for the prosecution to insinuate that because my client is not Yoahtlan that he cannot be afforded basic rights.
The most fitting piece of literature regarding the subject of rights, in terms of the meaning of a right – and the necessity for a true “right” to apply to everyone for it to even be considered a “right” comes from Professor Elizabeth M. Zechenter in “In the Name of Cultural Relativism and the Abuse of the Individual”
She writes regarding the modern understanding of “rights” fundamentally as a concept:
Before the Second World War, rights were seen as a sovereign prerogative, a domestic concern, however, it became clear that rights are an international matter. “Most scholars and politicians agreed that individuals are far too vulnerable if left at the mercy of domestic legal systems and that individuals need more protection against abuses suffered at the hand of the state.” regarding rights.
Further, she summarizes: “natural law… emphasizes ethical dimensions of the law. It asserts that individuals have certain inalienable rights of the highest order… and that human man-made laws are just [as in justice] only insofar as they do not conflict with the eternal natural laws.”
Without a doubt, if a right is to be considered a “right” it must not conflict with inherent rights, and indubitably, stripping someone of all rights because they are not a citizen, would make those “rights” not actually “rights” because the act would necessarily violate and conflict with that person’s inherent rights. Hence, for Yoahtlan BOR rights to actually be “rights” of the Yoahtalan people, and not privileges, they must in actuality extend to all players of the server, otherwise they are de-facto entirely not rights, and must be renamed and/or reorganized.
Thank you for your time your honor.
We will also be submitting testimony from our client regarding his perceptions of the Boomer ice-road, RE sovereignty, his understood function and purpose of the infrastructure, etc.
Please be well,
SIGNED,
- The Lobbyist
Yergo:
Citylion, thank you, as this covers both an opening statement and the plea of innocence, I will be calling on GDAN to clarify whether he would like to make any clarifying statements, provide additional evidence, or call any witnesses to the stand.
Citylion:
Thank you your honor.
Yergo:
After deliberation with the High Justice, the court of Yoahtl would like to inform both you and your client that a guilty plea has already been entered. Your inclusion in this trial, lobbyist, was to serve to finish this trial for minemaster, not to render previous proceedings moot. Apologies for the confusion, but I do encourage all parties re familiarize themselves with court proceedings. Would you like your statement to be counted as a closing statement?
Minemaster:
in other words my fate has been decided
Citylion:
Your honor, overall the plea is irrelevant because the alleged crime is not applicable. Please do count that as our closing statement.
-The Lobbyist
Yergo:
Understood, thank you. GDAN, please present your closing statement to the court.
Citylion:
Your honor, per our statement on [1st Nov 2021], is Minemaster still allowed to submit his testimony as an exhibit of our closing statement?
Yergo:
No, as your statement has been submitted as a closing statement and you have confirmed as such. We will await statement by GDAN12.
GDAN:
Minemaster has pled guilty to the griefing of the boomer ice road on a stretch north of NYC. I think it is also blatantly obvious this is true from the reddit posts made by minemaster at the time. It took multiple accounts several hours to clean up. Usually precedent dictates that the offender has to clean up the grief they have caused however due to the fact that it was imperative public transport was accessible this has already been done. Therefore I'd ask the offender serves a prison sentence equal in length to the number of days of play that were taken up cleaning the grief (roughly a week) and that the defence also serves a punitive sentence of 3-4 weeks to encourage they do not offend against or harass Yoahtl or our allies again. This concludes my closing statement.
Yergo:
Thank you, GDAN. As both parties have submitted their closing statements, the proceedings will end and the court will deliberate a final ruling.
The court accepts Minemaster's guilty plea. Additionally, GDAN has submitted overwhelming evidence that Minemaster did indeed obby-bomb the Boomer Ice Road, which supports this plea. GDAN is correct that, under current precedent (TheOrangeWizard v. 14uu, Aug 2017), Grief is to be punished by having the person in question clean it up. However, considering the Grief has already been cleaned, the court will sentence Minemaster to a cute little weeklong vacation within an exile pearl. The courts will also reference the case Yoahtl vs TheOrangeWizard, April 2021 in sentencing Minemaster an additional two weeks inside this pearl. The court hopes that this sentence will serve to deter Minemaster from leaving any more "little presents" for Yoahtl and her allies to clean up.