Enforce OOC JB time limits on trials

[Demonmit1]

3 hours ago, Quietthecutie said:

***THE NUCELAR OPTION***

Cut JB down to the absolute bare bones in terms of realism. Lose the facade of realistic criminal cases and paperwork in favour of a more Judge Judy style of kangaroo court that can be organised and executed in a matter of days instead of months.

fuckin love this idea. well thought out with pros and cons, would significantly increase in person interactive RP for everyone involved, would love to see it.

[Quietthecutie]

2 hours ago, Clank said:

I think the common misconception a lot of people in the thread have is that "JB need to prove people guilty or it should automatically be reversed" this mindset clouding everyone's judgement. These aren't your typical criminal case bench trials. You were ALREADY found guilty. You are APPEALING your guilty sentence. 

 

The burden of proof in an appeal is on the defendant. You are to prove yourself innocent as you were already found guilty, hence the phrase "appeal".

What you are saying goes directly against JBs own training. speaking as someone who was a defence lawyer and trainer there. there are multiple sections in the handbook which disprove what you just said.

Yes technically an appeal but only because the wording makes more sense given that the trial happens after the arrest.

The burden of proof is still on the prosecution. both rply and in proccedings.

But i dont want to get dragged into minute, and for the love of all things holy i do not want this to turn into another crim vs cop thread so lets focus on fixing JB instead of arguing over its function.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Quietthecutie

[Bala]

1 hour ago, Quietthecutie said:

What you are saying goes directly against JBs own training. speaking as someone who was a defence lawyer and trainer there. there are multiple sections in the handbook which disprove what you just said.

Yes technically an appeal but only because the wording makes more sense given that the trial happens after the arrest.

The burden of proof is still on the prosecution. both rply and in proccedings.

But i dont want to get dragged into minute, and for the love of all things holy i do not want this to turn into another crim vs cop thread so lets focus on fixing JB instead of arguing over its function.

In fairness, if you want an authority on charging people, maybe the two factions that spend all day arresting and charging people might be the best ones to decide who is guilty and who isn't. Naturally, some of those charges will be wrong (shock, PD/SD isn't perfect) but we don't want to wait 6+ months for a decision on a case any more than the accused do.

We've overcomplicated things on the law side massively, then we jump on people when they haven't got an online law degree.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Bala

[Soupiestfork]

2 hours ago, Bala said:

Normally, I write a full on essay as a response to these things but I can answer this succinctly.
Either we have a way to make the Judicial Branch work efficiently for the server that we have, or we do the right thing and close it.

This was never an avenue of roleplay that suits the player-base of Eclipse and while we will have a minority of players that engage and enjoy it, we do not have the player base nor the depth of quality roleplay to ensure it's an interesting experience.

Rightly or wrongly, it's only useful for the criminally accused when it functions as a get out of jail free card and that only works when that freedom is in a reasonably short time-frame, not months on end. For law enforcement, it's just made doing the job more unnecessarily complicated and added a bunch of stuff that takes away from the more entertaining aspects of police roleplay in Eclipse.

I respect the efforts of people like Colt, Judith, Hope and everyone else involved in trying to make this work and there have been times where it has, but they are too few and far between for a multitude of reasons.

For me, the only way this can successfully work moving forward is to pick the highest profile cases and basically turn them into in-character role-play court events. Those situations where there are significant consequences and high-stakes, which involve a large number of people. 

Cases like the Andy Tyrie or Vince Williams or Mike Luigi. These are the cases that are useful to have that sort of stage. Not whether John_Smith actually murdered two people six months ago. You just focus on these big time cases and you keep the case load low but you maximize the end result.

*Hard* disagree. My main character wouldn't be able to do the role she's in currently if not for the efforts of JB in overturning a past conviction.

It's incredibly important for a number of players, whether you've been personally impacted or not.

That said, I do agree that JB needs something to streamline it as the current system is very slow.

[Quietthecutie]

1 hour ago, Bala said:

In fairness, if you want an authority on charging people, maybe the two factions that spend all day arresting and charging people might be the best ones to decide who is guilty and who isn't. Naturally, some of those charges will be wrong (shock, PD/SD isn't perfect) but we don't want to wait 6+ months for a decision on a case any more than the accused do.

We've overcomplicated things on the law side massively, then we jump on people when they haven't got an online law degree.

Im not jumping on anyone, and this wasnt anything to do with their legal knowlege. they made assumptions about a branch of government they didnt have the correct details on, Declared something in big red swinging dick capslock and got called out for it. I would expect the same for and from anyone.

It is however nice that we are all at lease in agreeance that in its current format JB is a broken thing. and in order for it to work it needs to be rethought from the ground up so that its relatively simple and fun to both interact with and be a part of.

 

Edited July 9, 2024 by Quietthecutie

[David Coast]

5 hours ago, Bala said:

Rightly or wrongly, it's only useful for the criminally accused when it functions as a get out of jail free card and that only works when that freedom is in a reasonably short time-frame, not months on end. For law enforcement, it's just made doing the job more unnecessarily complicated and added a bunch of stuff that takes away from the more entertaining aspects of police roleplay in Eclipse.

This whole statement is so incorrect. The Judicial Branch works, it takes along time because it is a court system (like every other court system). I really don't believe that the Judicial Branch is making your LEO characters job "unnecessarily complicated". I am so utterly confused by this statement in everyway shape and form. Are you really upset that you can't go around searching everyone or is a writing an arrest report, which isn't very hard or long, stopping you from having the "entertaining aspects of police roleplay in Eclipse".

So the prosecution sends a request for information to the arresting department, they respond with the evidence (they should already have). That is everything, you have to write a witness statement as well. 

I play an LEO character and I have one piece of mandatory paperwork, an arrest report, I don't see how this making my characters job "unnecessarily complicated". We don't even have a civil court yet, once we do you'll characters job will then be more complicated (by complicated I mean actually following human rights and civil liberties).

 

3 hours ago, Bala said:

In fairness, if you want an authority on charging people, maybe the two factions that spend all day arresting and charging people might be the best ones to decide who is guilty and who isn't. Naturally, some of those charges will be wrong (shock, PD/SD isn't perfect) but we don't want to wait 6+ months for a decision on a case any more than the accused do.

We've overcomplicated things on the law side massively, then we jump on people when they haven't got an online law degree.

Gonna say how it looks, you seem bit biased; so you want an LEO making a verdict on if someone is guilty or not guilty? Let me show you something that will extirpate that idea; https://gov.eclipse-rp.net/viewtopic.php?t=122136. 

[David Coast]

9 hours ago, Dola said:

if manpower is an issue maybe significantly increase the money JB players make which may influence more players to take this route?

id love to see more JB rp in the server!

JB are the most highest paid legal faction in the server to my knowledge.

[Quietthecutie]

1 minute ago, David Coast said:

JB are the most highest paid legal faction in the server to my knowledge.

The issue isnt the money. I have worked for JB in the past and honestly i have more fun working at burgershot.

As ive said, when the actual legal stuffs goin on and trials are happening etc, its great. but between all that its just so much waiting, paperwork, more waiting, even more paperwork. dockets upon dockets several pages long. oh and the waiting.

in a way JB was almost too well designed. we wanted it to ape actual real world courts and it does aspects of that incredibly well. infact it does them too well. the slow wheels of justice and alot of paperwork and proceedure that whilst vital in IRL courts in a videogame is just largely unnecessary.

We need to cut down on the paperwork, shorten wait times, make the courts more accessible and much faster. if we can achieve that more people will want to work for JB.

[David Coast]

1 minute ago, Quietthecutie said:

The issue isnt the money. I have worked for JB in the past and honestly i have more fun working at burgershot.

As ive said, when the actual legal stuffs goin on and trials are happening etc, its great. but between all that its just so much waiting, paperwork, more waiting, even more paperwork. dockets upon dockets several pages long. oh and the waiting.

in a way JB was almost too well designed. we wanted it to ape actual real world courts and it does aspects of that incredibly well. infact it does them too well. the slow wheels of justice and alot of paperwork and proceedure that whilst vital in IRL courts in a videogame is just largely unnecessary.

We need to cut down on the paperwork, shorten wait times, make the courts more accessible and much faster. if we can achieve that more people will want to work for JB.

Yes I read the previous post that you said on all these topics. I was just shedding some light for Dola. 

[David Coast]

 

6 hours ago, Bala said:

For me, the only way this can successfully work moving forward is to pick the highest profile cases and basically turn them into in-character role-play court events. Those situations where there are significant consequences and high-stakes, which involve a large number of people. 

Cases like the Andy Tyrie or Vince Williams or Mike Luigi. These are the cases that are useful to have that sort of stage. Not whether John_Smith actually murdered two people six months ago. You just focus on these big time cases and you keep the case load low but you maximize the end result.

The reason why cases take a long time is because there are a lot of them. So in theory this is an amazing fix! However, you're also just disallowing John_Smith to have any actual RP with the Judicial Branch. 

This also will probably make people leave the Judicial Branch, most of us are in the Judicial Branch because of the courtroom RP so less of it would dishearten the branch. 

Cases like Andy Tyrie, Vince Williams and Mike Luigi are high-profile. However, this doesn't mean they should jump into the front of the queue; these 3 individuals can all get good RP wherever they go. John_Smith can't get good RP wherever he goes, he's stuck rolling labs, so if he wants to have a court case, have some RP and have some fun, let him.

Edited July 9, 2024 by David Coast

[Clank]

6 hours ago, Quietthecutie said:

What you are saying goes directly against JBs own training. speaking as someone who was a defence lawyer and trainer there. there are multiple sections in the handbook which disprove what you just said.

The burden of proof is still on the prosecution. both rply and in proccedings.

If this is the way you are being trained as a member of the judicial faction and or training other members of the judicial faction this is inherently incorrect and will be brought up for discussion to be corrected in the near future. These are appeals, appeals are the ONLY thing that was developed from the start was to treat them as appeals and this is probably the reason that there is such a long wait time because of this exact reason you've stated in your post.

 

While I don't agree with the only court being open right now being appeals court, that is just the sad truth at the moment.  

[David Coast]

3 minutes ago, Clank said:

If this is the way you are being trained as a member of the judicial faction and or training other members of the judicial faction this is inherently incorrect and will be brought up for discussion to be corrected in the near future. These are appeals, appeals are the ONLY thing that was developed from the start was to treat them as appeals and this is probably the reason that there is such a long wait time because of this exact reason you've stated in your post.

 

While I don't agree with the only court being open right now being appeals court, that is just the sad truth at the moment.  

Okay, please do some research before stating more incorrect information. 

There are 3 courts that are open, the superior court, the court of appeals and the supreme court. These all have active cases within in them. 

In no shape or form has the defendant ever had the burden of proof put on them. Do you understand how little sense that makes, "hey you've been charged, now please prove your innocence." 

This is not only, how we are trained and how we train people. This is also what the constitution brings to light. Colt himself who developed the current system that we use has literally replied to your post stating how incorrect it is.

[Clank]

42 minutes ago, David Coast said:

Okay, please do some research before stating more incorrect information. 

There are 3 courts that are open, the superior court, the court of appeals and the supreme court. These all have active cases within in them. 

In no shape or form has the defendant ever had the burden of proof put on them. Do you understand how little sense that makes, "hey you've been charged, now please prove your innocence." 

This is not only, how we are trained and how we train people. This is also what the constitution brings to light. Colt himself who developed the current system that we use has literally replied to your post stating how incorrect it is.

What I was trying to explain was that current system in place completely contradicts what was the intended development of the court system. Realistically, people in the server should all be appellants. Currently people serve prison sentences, suffer fines and penalties then a case is opened in the criminal courts if they wish and then after if they don’t like the result they can file in appeals court which is basically taking what happens in real life except a small inversion at the start of the process. Realistically what should happen if we want to call it “criminal court” is you should serve your time in DOC and if you open a case and found guilty you should go back into prison to serve a longer sentence afterwards to make up for the jail=/=prison situation. To make up for this, if you are sent to DOC for whatever reason that isn’t a serious or violent felony, I’d have no problem with people being offered bail to skip the initial sentence and then if found guilty return to serve their original hold + longer.

During its inception, the purpose was to give people that were truly wrongfully charged a way to appeal their sentences issued by law enforcement. 
 
Criminal court or as you mentioned the “superior court” was going to be worked on in the future to allow for a person in the immediate arrest process to request a bench trial BEFORE being sentenced to DOC by law enforcement.

 

The court of appeals was intended to be used if a member of judicial was not available at the time of sentencing and shifted burden of proof over to the appellant. 
 

This system was originally proposed to lessen the load of cases that would come in and cause inherently prevent a bottleneck on the branch (as it currently is).

The issue with the current system is exactly that, too many people appealing cases with minimal effort simply stating “I wish to appeal my sentence” in the narrative. 
 

This might come as a shocker to most but during the initial development, appeals were always intended to be something only for high profile cases and serious charges with hefty penalties to losing and “wasting everyone’s time” such as heavy fines and even further prison sentence as a way to encourage only actual innocent people to appeal and not just someone looking for a loophole or plea deal. 

While I do respect a lot of the members in the judicial branch OOCly, I completely disagree with the current state of things and am disheartened by the state of everything such as wait times, the lack of US caselaw etc. 

 

While the initial concept was to create a Justice system that was better fit for the server, it was also intended to be based off US caselaw to have a strong backend of things. With no disrespect to the current caretakers of the faction I think what we have now is a mismatched amalgamation as opposed to a good fusion.

 

 

[Demonmit1]

6 hours ago, Soupiestfork said:

*Hard* disagree. My main character wouldn't be able to do the role she's in currently if not for the efforts of JB in overturning a past conviction.

It's incredibly important for a number of players, whether you've been personally impacted or not.

That said, I do agree that JB needs something to streamline it as the current system is very slow.

yep, im actively being prevented from doing RP i have spent months working towards, and invested 100's of thousands of IC dollars, with probably well over a couple hundred hours of time invested, because of a flimsy charge and JB's inability to process cases within a reasonable time. by the time my case comes up, the RP i am involved with will be over and forgotten, and by the time my case is concluded, who knows whats going to happen in 12 months from now... lol

i'd be lying in saying it hasnt crossed my mind in just saying fuck it and quitting due to how drastically its derailed stuff i wanted to do and having fun playing on the server.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Demonmit1

[David Coast]

21 minutes ago, Clank said:

Criminal court or as you mentioned the “superior court” was going to be worked on in the future to allow for a person in the immediate arrest process to request a bench trial BEFORE being sentenced to DOC by law enforcement.

With the expansion you've given to your original statement, I see more where you're coming from. 
 
I see one problem with the current system and that is it takes a long time. I agree with some of the things you're saying in theory and I have brought up some of these things to JB in the past myself. However, I still believe the responses I got to be true or even more true; we do not have enough judges to implement a system like this.
 
There are other problems with this idea as a whole; I don't know what the stats were but I do know that PD and SD arrest a lot of people every week. I don't see this being done in a way that JB can handle. I don't think we will ever have a system where you will stand trial before being sentenced other than indictments. 
 

34 minutes ago, Clank said:

The issue with the current system is exactly that, too many people appealing cases with minimal effort simply stating “I wish to appeal my sentence” in the narrative.

No, the issue with the current system is:

• We don't have enough judges;
• We don't have enough members as a whole.

We can only deal with a few cases at a time, due to a lack of members. This leads to a backlog. People who say “I wish to appeal my sentence” in the narrative are normally told to do so by someone like me, why provide information that can potentially harm your defence? It's not that they are putting in minimal effort at all; it's that they don't want to provide evidence against themselves, same with pleading the 5th in a questioning. 

The current system would work well if we had more judges. The problem with getting more judges is that there is no path to becoming a judge which was promised to be worked on by the leader of the branch who has since become inactive. 

If we had more judges, we could activate more cases and cases would go faster.

Everyone knows there is a problem, in a sense, with JB. I don't understand why you are taking this suggestion and not replying with any solutions, ideas or useful information,

[Buggs]

As someone who is actively working to fix this issue in the faction, and knows what happens behind the scenes, I can tell the OP and everyone who wrote an opinion after came at this with the best of intentions. However unfortunately it is clear that there is a misunderstanding of the internal workings of the judicial branch or individuals have not worked on the prosecution side of things.

The judicial branch has had many things cause the significant amount of cases that you currently see in the backlog.

1. Judicial Response times. I can go back in writing to May 2023 where my character was emailing the previous AG Roderick Marchisio to get a judge to respond after waiting MONTHS on a verdict. This is actively being worked on as we speak with different innovations, promotions, and activation's happening within the branch. However this does not negate the fact that this was and still sometimes can be the issue with the cases. Prosecution and defense can be perfectly on top of things on the docket, but they still must wait for the judge to provide a ruling on motions.
2. Manpower. While everyone may want to sit here and say JB could be better and give suggestions, not many are willing to step up and join us in the RP to see how long and what work we are doing to make sure that everyone here has the option to enjoy the judicial branch and its services. It is in-depth and long-term RP. I know for a fact prosecution sometimes works for months on cases, which is why shortening the time we have to gather evidence would not be profitable as the level of RP would significantly reduce as well as the burden of proof on the prosecution, given that we'd get little to no IRL time to gather evidence. How would it feel to get to court as an observer or defendant and listen to the prosecutor have 0 response to the holes the defense pokes in the case other than "we only had 7 days to prepare evidence"? We try to make courtroom RP as fun and in-depth as possible for cases so that the arguments and verdicts feel realistic. Is that something we want to sacrifice? Would it really be rewarding to win a case simply because the other party was given little to no time to prepare? Would it really matter if despite all this we still had to wait for months for judges to respond with a verdict?
3. Law enforcement's dedication to seeing the charge through. This is not a bad quality as it means that the individuals believe the charges to be RPly correct or want to defend them, but it does make it difficult for the prosecution to suggest a dismissal to LEO's. This means that at times the prosecution is forced to pursue charges and cases they may not necessarily agree with or have the evidence to prove. Overall I believe the fix with this problem comes from trust building between factions and more autonomy for the prosecution to determine the outcome of their cases.

Prosecution does not work off of emails and can typically have a case concluded with evidence and everything within a month of it being submitted, this is through the diligent work of the LSPD, DOC, LSSD, LSEMS, etc. Meaning prosecution has the PROBABLE CAUSE needed to prove a charge at court A MONTH after someone has submitted. Realistically this is the system that the Judicial Branch is supposed to function. We have had cases take 9 days after activation, but that was when ALL parties were available and eager to move the case forward (meaning we had a judge that actively responded). Putting the timeline for the average case at 1-2 months after submission.

 

As for individuals that are banned and are not active, that is something we already do as a branch when a case is activated.

 

As for cases that are petty and the prosecution has solid evidence, we typically reach out ICly to the public defenders office to dismiss the case. If the defendant wants to pursue the charge regardless of the evidence, the defense council still has to.

 

Prior to the judicial branch ECRP operated as a police state. LEO's could place charges and your only option for appealing was IA reports or letters to the Governor after it failed. The Judicial Branch was implemented as a check to this. The issue is that people sometimes use JB as an IA department.

 

Overall, I believe that reducing the backlog starts at the ground level. LEO's being willing to talk to criminals about WHY they are getting all the charges they are getting (instead of just saying to appeal it with the Judicial Branch, if you disagree). Both parties being willing to accept that criminals may not be nice to LEO's and LEO's may not be nice in response, but that doesn't mean your charge isn't correctly placed or that they should be over charged. Defendants being willing to accept charges when they are clearly guilty. Law Enforcement being willing to listen to a prosecutor when they say the charge either doesn't have enough probable cause, evidence, or does not fit (sometimes it doesn't mean the person isn't guilty, it just means we don't have the evidence to prove it). And finally, judges being active and responding to cases.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Buggs

[Mikazuki Ueno]

It is clear that there is a misunderstanding of the internal workings of the judicial branch or individuals have not worked on the prosecution side of things. Thankfully this has opened discussion up and potentially helped give context.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Mikazuki Ueno

[Bala]

12 hours ago, Soupiestfork said:

*Hard* disagree. My main character wouldn't be able to do the role she's in currently if not for the efforts of JB in overturning a past conviction.

It's incredibly important for a number of players, whether you've been personally impacted or not.

That said, I do agree that JB needs something to streamline it as the current system is very slow.

You're hard disagreeing because it's benefited you.
I'm not disagreeing because it hasn't benefited me. In fact, I've never had any kind of charge or case thrown out. I don't have anything against the individuals involved either, I think in the circumstances they've done pretty good work.

I'm disagreeing because in it's current form, it's a honestly detriment to the player base. The daily external expectations placed upon the law enforcement factions and the wait period for people to understand if their case will be accepted lead to nothing but frustration. Bare in mind, how many cases actually go to trial? Very few, but we have to approach them all the same.

It's not simple but I think it's straight-forward. Focus on the cases that will have the biggest consequences and generate the most RP out of it. Everything else, they can go through Internal Affairs.

Perhaps even re-consider the hiring policies of legal factions, like we did with the firearms. I'd much rather look the other way on that, than persist with something that will eventually collapse.

If JB ain't got enough people to handle cases and there isn't enough good quality roleplayers to staff it properly, what else is there to say?

Edited July 9, 2024 by Bala

[Dola]

44 minutes ago, Bala said:

You're hard disagreeing because it's benefited you.
I'm not disagreeing because it hasn't benefited me. In fact, I've never had any kind of charge or case thrown out. I don't have anything against the individuals involved either, I think in the circumstances they've done pretty good work.

I'm disagreeing because in it's current form, it's a honestly detriment to the player base. The daily external expectations placed upon the law enforcement factions and the wait period for people to understand if their case will be accepted lead to nothing but frustration. Bare in mind, how many cases actually go to trial? Very few, but we have to approach them all the same.

It's not simple but I think it's straight-forward. Focus on the cases that will have the biggest consequences and generate the most RP out of it. Everything else, they can go through Internal Affairs.

Perhaps even re-consider the hiring policies of legal factions, like we did with the firearms. I'd much rather look the other way on that, than persist with something that will eventually collapse.

If JB ain't got enough people to handle cases and there isn't enough good quality roleplayers to staff it properly, what else is there to say?

Do you have any solution or idea that would help JB gain the man power needed for faster and more frequent JB RP?

[Soupiestfork]

13 hours ago, Clank said:

If this is the way you are being trained as a member of the judicial faction and or training other members of the judicial faction this is inherently incorrect and will be brought up for discussion to be corrected in the near future. These are appeals, appeals are the ONLY thing that was developed from the start was to treat them as appeals and this is probably the reason that there is such a long wait time because of this exact reason you've stated in your post.

 

While I don't agree with the only court being open right now being appeals court, that is just the sad truth at the moment.  

How do you manage to continue arguing a point you were specifically, demonstrably proven wrong about?

Also... we really need to focus on the actual issue here, not anyone's specific interpretation of the dept.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Soupiestfork

[Soupiestfork]

6 hours ago, Bala said:

I think it's straight-forward. Focus on the cases that will have the biggest consequences and generate the most RP out of it. Everything else, they can go through Internal Affairs.

Perhaps you don't see it as you are an LEO, but giving LEOs the ability to decide whose guilty and whose not is a tremendous conflict of interest.

Also, I would argue that the majority of ECRP's player base do not trust IA. I'll be honest, I struggle with it myself. So... it's difficult to not read this as being dismissive, though I'm not saying that's what you're doing.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Soupiestfork

[Woot_beerfloat]

There's a few things on here I'd like to comment on or suggest things.

One of my "crims" Stelio as most of you know is mainly around to have some fun and generate interesting RP. So taking that into account, even though I know I'm fully guilty for something I like take things to court to see if some pleasant RP can be made. so the suggestion of throwing out petty cases doesn't sit with me well. Ive waited just like everyone else, hell my case finally got moved on after 7 months.

 

As for my LEO there have been a few situations where I've been asked to provide bodycam from the incident which is totally cool and awesome! however I only save my recording for maybe 2 weeks until I don't need them or I've edited all I need to, so that makes it go to screenshots of /dos and stuff which is annoying. and as everyone else has stated its because its 5 months after the fact.

 

I think a good solution to this would be a bench trial system of some sort. Meaning that after being arrested and before being processed at DOC (something like that you could tell DOC you want a trial. Following that DOC could reach out to JB/SD/PD to see if 

1. There was an available judge and or attorney 

2. If the arresting LEO is still on duty/online or those involved

If both of those conditions were met a speed trial could happen.

 

This would obviously need to me limited to things that are not huge felonies or something that would take more that 20 minutes or so ( I don't have a time frame in mind) to gather information on 

 

This would provide HUGE RP opportunities pretty much every facet of the process tbh, It would give both Lawyers and Prosecutors a bunch of RP and many more things to do  as well as give LEOs and criminal more chances to RP in a different situation.

Then if the charges are dropped, you walk out of the door a free person, if not you go back to DOC 

OR

If the charges are dropped, your fine is reimbursed and record deleted. 

 

I feel like this would add MUCH more RP opportunities for pretty much everyone (weazel could report on them, random civilian RPers could come and watch. sky's the limit really. 

 

I could go into much more detail but this is just a rough outline.

 

I don't think this is "Kangaroo Court" because if you use IRL logic a lot of things in the server do not apply, as stated above this is an RP server and I think that this would be a good way to stimulate it. 

[tigerpet15]

+1 I totally agree with the neede JB change. I am playing mainly on my crim character and yeah I think there is a PD pattern of overcharging people with no possible IC way how to defend against it there the Jb comes into picture. I was huge fan of the implementation but I never got to get my case to court. Lets be honest my case is submitted for more than 6 months and after this time I dont even remember what happened. I dislike when Im charged with my crimes with some added petty charges which would not hold up at court with no chance to reasonably combat it. Im not saying LEOs does a bad job but they are in a possition of judges what is unfair especially when usually noone gives u chance to present your point of view. Basically I hoped this would change with the implementation of JB but it didnt.

I think it would be good if there would be put 90 day limit for JB to present a case against you otherwise it would be dropped - it would push the faction to get inside more people etc. Though think that there should be limit for all players to have only one case they are disputing (unless its something high RP impact and persen would be able to do that after getting alt RP approved). I think it might be helpful push the faction this way to making it bigger/more efficent.

[tigerpet15]

On 7/9/2024 at 1:01 AM, Quietthecutie said:

I worked for JB for about 6 months so ill try to shed some light on the major issues you see in both the slowness of cases being finished and in retention/recruitment of staff:

1. Its a job very few players are interested in doing.

What do JB members do when they are clocked on? mostly spend their time tabbed out on the gov website, responding to emails, moving cases along if they can, things like that. now even on your busiest day out of court, there wont be enough of that to even fill an hour of game time and even if there was, its mostly boring and tedious paperwork for the sake of realism. Occasionally you will get some sort of Op where a defence lawyer meets with a defendant or a prosecuting attorney will meet with law enforcement but these are rare and usually over email also. you could pay a JB lawyer 10k an hour it wouldn't matter because no amount of money would motivate you to do this. If youve ever thought to yourself "huh i barely see any JB on ever." that's because most of us would just keep up with our gov paperwork without even logging into the game.

Now, when all the ducks are lined up and the time has finally come to go to court, JB can be alot of fun! some of the best RP ive seen on the server were tense battles in the court where no one watching actually knew which way the judge would swing. but getting to that point is so hard. because.....

2. Serious Integration problems

Why does a case take 11 months to go to trial? Integration or a lack thereof between various departments internal and external. JB has extremely limited access to information from other departments like DOC/MD/PD/SD. so when the judge orders a motion for discovery (basically the judge telling the prosecutor to go get all the evidence to prove the crime was committed.) The lawyer basically gets on his email, writes one off to PD/SD sometimes both. PD/SD have to then dig through their records to find the correct arrest report/case file/ evidence locker etc and get all that information back to the prosecution, usually with an accompanying witness statement that they have to write too. and PD/SD have no motivation to do this quickly. typically discovery can last a week but you can always get that extended and ive seen them last a month.

Now, that is just for discovery. there are alot of different motions that can be set up and each one requires an email to be sent, a response to come back and a decision to be made. Players go on leave, players go inactive, sometimes everyone's schedules just dont line up. some cases are extremely complex and the back and forth on every motion can go on for MONTHS. now, in reality, if everyone was sat down in the same room together ic, you could knock that out in an afternoon. but thats not the case. and its the waiting for a reply that kills ya. which leads me to....

3. JB players have nothing to do.

Alright I know there's gonna be alot of "if they have nothing to do why is my case taking so long." see point 2 for that. Its not that JB are overworked or even seriously understaffed to be honest. its because the system that JB use is based on realism. and realistically court cases do take months/years to complete. and again most of that time is just spent waiting on someone else to deliver something to you or for a decision to be made. Theres very little for you to do.

When you think of the minute to minute gameplay for each faction, PD/SD chase crims and fight crime, MD saves lives, Mechanics fix cars, DOC look after inmates, what does JB have to do on a minute to minute level? absolutely nothing. once you've checked your emails and replied there is nothing for you to do but wait, and most of the time to log off/play an alt. VERY occasionally you will get a call from DOC about someone asking for a lawyer but honestly that might happen once or twice a week, and even when it does, that requires a defence attorney to be clocked on and DOC being willing to let the interview happen. its moby dick rare.

 

TLDR;

So, we have a job where the employees are rarely clocked on because they can do most of their work tabbed out on the government website, a system that has so many checks and balances in place that the wait for replies and scheduling means that cases take months to conclude, and a department that is bored out of their head when physically clocked on.

Is there anything worth salvaging in this?


***THE NUCELAR OPTION***

Cut JB down to the absolute bare bones in terms of realism. Lose the facade of realistic criminal cases and paperwork in favour of a more Judge Judy style of kangaroo court that can be organised and executed in a matter of days instead of months.

The Pros:

-because the wait time is massively reduced, basically every case where the prosecution has received the arrest report is ready to go. we dont go through discovery or supression on the docket, that will now happen in the trial itself. if either side wants something suppressed they object to it on the spot and the decision is made on the spot, not in 7-10 IRL days time. 

-JB Will become relevant again. most people dont bother with JB anymore because they cant be arsed waiting. with the wait time cut to inside a week, suddenly JB will have an influx of cases, meaning they have more stuff to do in the city, but less paperwork weighing them down. more interaction, less time spent tabbed out on the gov website.

-More time in the courts! the actual fun part of JB is during trial. with more things having to be settled in court instead of on the docket trials will become less of a rehearsed back and forth with the occasional objection, and more like "reality" tv courts where theres more back and forth, more gavel banging and more fun. both the lawyers and the judges will have to think more on their feet because of this.

The Cons:

-JB will end up being less realistic. I think that is unavoidable as the attempt at realism is what has slowed everything down to a snails pace. there will be less docket work and less realistic due process.

- Anyone expecting JB to be a source of IC justice should rethink their expectations. JB would become and honestly always should be a source for RP, not an internal reports system. honestly anyone operating as a judge or lawyer should have mammoth amounts of leeway when it comes to making decisions and strategy, and I don't care how realistic it is, I don't care if your case strategy is based on a feverdream fanfic between saul goodman, jerry springer and lionel hutz. so long as its fun the decision shouldn't matter. 

OK this has been a good hours worth of writing im just gonna leave this here for now.



 

BIG +1. Yeah I dont think the RP is more important than the justice and if your case gets resolved in few days/weeks and you have fun RP doing it lets go for it. Also yeah if even 20% of cases against criminal are won its worth for them.

[tigerpet15]

On 7/9/2024 at 1:01 AM, Quietthecutie said:

I worked for JB for about 6 months so ill try to shed some light on the major issues you see in both the slowness of cases being finished and in retention/recruitment of staff:

1. Its a job very few players are interested in doing.

What do JB members do when they are clocked on? mostly spend their time tabbed out on the gov website, responding to emails, moving cases along if they can, things like that. now even on your busiest day out of court, there wont be enough of that to even fill an hour of game time and even if there was, its mostly boring and tedious paperwork for the sake of realism. Occasionally you will get some sort of Op where a defence lawyer meets with a defendant or a prosecuting attorney will meet with law enforcement but these are rare and usually over email also. you could pay a JB lawyer 10k an hour it wouldn't matter because no amount of money would motivate you to do this. If youve ever thought to yourself "huh i barely see any JB on ever." that's because most of us would just keep up with our gov paperwork without even logging into the game.

Now, when all the ducks are lined up and the time has finally come to go to court, JB can be alot of fun! some of the best RP ive seen on the server were tense battles in the court where no one watching actually knew which way the judge would swing. but getting to that point is so hard. because.....

2. Serious Integration problems

Why does a case take 11 months to go to trial? Integration or a lack thereof between various departments internal and external. JB has extremely limited access to information from other departments like DOC/MD/PD/SD. so when the judge orders a motion for discovery (basically the judge telling the prosecutor to go get all the evidence to prove the crime was committed.) The lawyer basically gets on his email, writes one off to PD/SD sometimes both. PD/SD have to then dig through their records to find the correct arrest report/case file/ evidence locker etc and get all that information back to the prosecution, usually with an accompanying witness statement that they have to write too. and PD/SD have no motivation to do this quickly. typically discovery can last a week but you can always get that extended and ive seen them last a month.

Now, that is just for discovery. there are alot of different motions that can be set up and each one requires an email to be sent, a response to come back and a decision to be made. Players go on leave, players go inactive, sometimes everyone's schedules just dont line up. some cases are extremely complex and the back and forth on every motion can go on for MONTHS. now, in reality, if everyone was sat down in the same room together ic, you could knock that out in an afternoon. but thats not the case. and its the waiting for a reply that kills ya. which leads me to....

3. JB players have nothing to do.

Alright I know there's gonna be alot of "if they have nothing to do why is my case taking so long." see point 2 for that. Its not that JB are overworked or even seriously understaffed to be honest. its because the system that JB use is based on realism. and realistically court cases do take months/years to complete. and again most of that time is just spent waiting on someone else to deliver something to you or for a decision to be made. Theres very little for you to do.

When you think of the minute to minute gameplay for each faction, PD/SD chase crims and fight crime, MD saves lives, Mechanics fix cars, DOC look after inmates, what does JB have to do on a minute to minute level? absolutely nothing. once you've checked your emails and replied there is nothing for you to do but wait, and most of the time to log off/play an alt. VERY occasionally you will get a call from DOC about someone asking for a lawyer but honestly that might happen once or twice a week, and even when it does, that requires a defence attorney to be clocked on and DOC being willing to let the interview happen. its moby dick rare.

 

TLDR;

So, we have a job where the employees are rarely clocked on because they can do most of their work tabbed out on the government website, a system that has so many checks and balances in place that the wait for replies and scheduling means that cases take months to conclude, and a department that is bored out of their head when physically clocked on.

Is there anything worth salvaging in this?


***THE NUCELAR OPTION***

Cut JB down to the absolute bare bones in terms of realism. Lose the facade of realistic criminal cases and paperwork in favour of a more Judge Judy style of kangaroo court that can be organised and executed in a matter of days instead of months.

The Pros:

-because the wait time is massively reduced, basically every case where the prosecution has received the arrest report is ready to go. we dont go through discovery or supression on the docket, that will now happen in the trial itself. if either side wants something suppressed they object to it on the spot and the decision is made on the spot, not in 7-10 IRL days time. 

-JB Will become relevant again. most people dont bother with JB anymore because they cant be arsed waiting. with the wait time cut to inside a week, suddenly JB will have an influx of cases, meaning they have more stuff to do in the city, but less paperwork weighing them down. more interaction, less time spent tabbed out on the gov website.

-More time in the courts! the actual fun part of JB is during trial. with more things having to be settled in court instead of on the docket trials will become less of a rehearsed back and forth with the occasional objection, and more like "reality" tv courts where theres more back and forth, more gavel banging and more fun. both the lawyers and the judges will have to think more on their feet because of this.

The Cons:

-JB will end up being less realistic. I think that is unavoidable as the attempt at realism is what has slowed everything down to a snails pace. there will be less docket work and less realistic due process.

- Anyone expecting JB to be a source of IC justice should rethink their expectations. JB would become and honestly always should be a source for RP, not an internal reports system. honestly anyone operating as a judge or lawyer should have mammoth amounts of leeway when it comes to making decisions and strategy, and I don't care how realistic it is, I don't care if your case strategy is based on a feverdream fanfic between saul goodman, jerry springer and lionel hutz. so long as its fun the decision shouldn't matter. 

OK this has been a good hours worth of writing im just gonna leave this here for now.



 

Can you please post this as a suggestion on its own? I think this would solve literally everything and that it deserves a lot of attentio.