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Posted by: James McMurray May 19 2006, 02:32 AM

The thread about rape got me thinking about a concept Robert Heinlein used in a few of his books. The one that springs instantly to mind is Stranger in a Strange Land. Before I start, this thread has nothing to do with rape, the failings of modern judicial sytems, or what we could do to improve jury selection today.

The basic premise is that there are people called Witnesses that have been trained in perception, memorization, and the ability to split hairs to their finest. These people are then hired to witness events or provide evidence. One example of how a Witness views the world is a scene where another character asks his Witness friend what color a house in the distance is. Rather than just say "the house is red" she responds with "the portions of the house facing us are red."

She also had the ability to watch something and then play it back frame by frame in her mind. When a character made something seemingly disappear her testimony of twhat happened matched exactly what the cameras recorded: it seemed to recede away into the distance almost instantaneously.

With cybereye cameras and headware memory Witnesses in Shadowrun could be a very profitable. Cameras installed in meetings could be tampered with by the owner, but the eyes of a Witness would be practically beyond reproach.

An offshoot of the witnesses would be Jurors. These people would be fully trained in law, evidenciary procedure, and the bability to disregard emotional overtures in testimony. They would then be used by governmental and corporate courts to ensure people receive a fair trial.

Is it a workable idea? What flaws does it have? If it is workable, what would be a good price to charge for services?

Posted by: Kanada Ten May 19 2006, 02:43 AM

Memory modification, magical and non, is one problem for Witnesses. This might have been covered, but I'm not up for searching (I think Long Day is a -4 Dice Pool).

I've always liked the idea of Jurors, but knowsofts could provide the skills to a random jury.

Posted by: James McMurray May 19 2006, 02:53 AM

At some opint you have to trust someone. Memory modification and mind control is a potential problem for regular jurors and notaries. Presumably witness would be trained to resist it (high willpower, antimagic edges, magical ability and counterspelling, and similar defenses against mind control). To protect their headware memory they use the things that anyone would use to protect memory: heavy IC, data bombs, heavy encryption.

The system isn't perfect, but no system is. It would be better than relying on conflicting testimonies from the involved parties. ("He spilled my milk!... No I didn't!!! Waaaahhhh").

Jurors would have something knowsofts can't provide: the ability to set emotions aside. Pleas of how evil the defendent is by going over and over how brutal the crime was wouldn't matter. Knowsofts can tell you to disregard it, but human emotion might still prevail.

Posted by: hyzmarca May 19 2006, 03:26 AM

It would be much simpler for the government to certify Witnesses like noteries and give them a recording program that automaticly watermarks everything. Changing the recording would be difficult to do since it would require prefectly recreating the watermark. The witness would file the recording at a government office and keep a copy for his own records. If there is any dispute then there are at least two copies of the recording and the witness can certify that they are accurat erepresentations of what actually happened.

As for specially trained jurors, I don't see it. Training jurors would defeat one of the main points of the jury system, to have people who are not obliged to the government deciding the cases. If being a juror required a great deal of training then, presumably, these people would be government employees since the skillset has very little worth outside of performing jury duty. Since they rely on the state for their paychecks they would presumably be biased in favor of the state and it would be possible to punish unpopular verdicts by firing, demoting, withoutholding pay from, or blacklisting jurors.

A personafix can create an impartial jury but I doubt that will fly very far due to possibilities of tampering. Mathmatically quantifying reasonable doubt as a matter of law and having a computer decide would have similar results overall.

Posted by: mfb May 19 2006, 03:34 AM

Posted by: SL James May 19 2006, 03:45 AM

Posted by: ChuckRozool May 19 2006, 04:08 AM

Posted by: SL James May 19 2006, 04:18 AM

Sounds like something they'd put in SR. Then again, most of the stuff about law and law enforcement in SR makes no sense if you base it on real life.

Posted by: Laser May 19 2006, 07:38 AM

I like the idea. Tampering could be an issue, but there are antitampering methods that people have already pointed out.

Posted by: Witness May 19 2006, 08:12 AM

Interesting.

Posted by: James McMurray May 19 2006, 04:01 PM

True, it's no longer a jury of your peers, but this ain't America anymore. I personally would rather have someone trained as a juror on my case. Then I don't have to worry about people who are stupid, people who don't understand it whent he judge says "disregard that," or people that don't like me because I'm Whitey.

They could be government employees. Or they could be corporate employees. They could even be hired by the defendant or prosecutor. The point is that no matter who hires them they're impartial. The future of Jurors Inc. would depend upon that fact, and for that reason Jurors would be paid well enough to make them not automatically jump at a bribe. Likewise they would be policed by their company and suffer harshly should they lose their impartiality.

There would of course be problems witht he system, but most of the problems I can think of involve them being suborned, which can happen with any juror.

I like the Witness Adept idea. I'll have to swipe it. A Path of the Witness would involve bonus dice in evidence analysis, logic, assensing, and some other stuff I can't think of right now.

Posted by: James McMurray May 19 2006, 04:03 PM

I just thought of something else: perhaps Jurors could be optional. Somebody wanting to ensure a fair trial would request jurors, whose pay would then get added tot he court costs and paid by the loser of the case. That would also add to the stratification of society because poor people can't afford Fair Trial by Impartial Jury (the motto of Jurors Inc.).

Posted by: Teulisch May 19 2006, 04:25 PM

it sounds to me, like the skills to be a witness are very similar to the skills of covert ops, at least regarding perception. add some guns and stealth, and there ya go. use knowsofts to understand whatever area is your goal, so you know what details to watch for.

personafix would have some serious problems- just add one run to swap the fix chips. congradulations, now your jurors are humanis policlub fanatics (even the orc).

Posted by: James McMurray May 19 2006, 04:31 PM

In my version there would be no persona fixes. The Jurors are trained to be able to recognize pleas to emotion and disregard them. Any trained debater today gets the same skill, but they frequently ignore it or use it in reverse to add emotional overtones to their arguments. Despite being a logical fallacy, arguments based on feelings are some of the most powerful you can use.

Posted by: SL James May 19 2006, 07:57 PM

Posted by: James McMurray May 19 2006, 08:28 PM

Yes, but Jurors will get real money. Regular jurors get squat. This would also extend it into criminal cases, where jurors get a little money (parking and lunch) but Jurors would cost true cashola.

Posted by: Kanada Ten May 20 2006, 12:00 AM

If it's optional, then there's no difference between using people Jurors and Virtual Jurors. The latter actually have no emotion and use the same knowsofts, but don't get paid nearly as well.

Posted by: Toptomcat May 20 2006, 05:00 AM

Um. Are fair trials really in the interests of any of the major powers of Shadowrun? They hold all the cards, after all- and anything that would keep them from rigging a trial would probably be unwelcome.

Posted by: hyzmarca May 20 2006, 05:10 AM

Professional Jurors would not make fair trials because they can easily be blacklisted if they make the wrong verdicts.

Posted by: SL James May 20 2006, 08:29 AM

Posted by: Kanada Ten May 20 2006, 08:38 AM

Yeah, but good work for runners.

Posted by: James McMurray May 20 2006, 11:16 AM

The point of professional jurors is that they would be fair. Any juror, whether professional or amateur can be gotten to. The Juror would have the benefit of a well paying job (not by the government or any ruling body who would be holding trials). He would have the benefit of extensive psyche profiling and magical / medical examination to ensure that he was highly unlikely to do anything unfair.

You could just as easily say "security gaurds don't work because they can steal your stuff." While it's true that security guards can steal, there's ideally a pretty good process in place to make sure that thieves don't become security guards and security guards are put in positions that make theft undesirable and/or hard.

Suborning Jurors would be a very bad idea. As soon as word leaked out they'd never get hired again. The company could make a fast buck up front or a long buck over time.

But then again, finding out that the professional Jurors aren't as well policed as people think might be a fun run in and of itself.

Posted by: Witness May 20 2006, 12:38 PM

I like the idea that a professional Witness (cyber or magical) might be something that corps or criminal orgs occasionally employ. Two rival powers meeting might each bring a Witness to the table, or hire a neutral Witness much like they might hire a neutral arbiter. The Witness is trained in monitoring the body language, auras, exact language used etc and making sure that nothing is overlooked by their employer. They might also double up as lawyers I guess, but it seems like if there is a difference between a Witness and a lawyer it is that the former is passive and does not actively intercede in the proceedings.

A Johnson might also send a Witness along with a team of shadowrunners, openly or covertly, for a variety of reasons.

But to me the concept of Witness sounds like it fulfils some sort of magical/initiatory purpose. You might be employed by some mystical group or cult. They want you to escort a Witness to simply be present at some event (it might be an event of great import or something that seems rather mundane and unimportant). Why does the group need to do this? What's so important about having somebody witness this event? That'd be the mystery I guess, but maybe there's more going on than meets the eye, and it takes the trained Witness to read between the lines and see the events for what they really are. Lots of fun conspiracy mileage in something like this.

Posted by: James McMurray May 20 2006, 10:28 PM

I definitely wouldn't have them be lawyers. Totally impartial observers is the goal. Basically a living camera trained in body language, observation, assensing, and the other skills needed to make sure that nothing goes unnoticed.

Posted by: Slump May 21 2006, 03:45 AM

I do like the idea of Jurors. Being simply used in courts is too much of a niche role, in my opinion. I think that Jurors would be perfect for the role of Arbiter, as well. They should have strict confidentiality agreements, much like doctor-patient confidentiality. I could see them being well respected in the shadows.

Posted by: Nikoli May 21 2006, 04:00 AM

Well, given that the point of a Trial by Jury is to mostly deliver Justice not Law. Someone highly trained could remain impartial, you make their pay, benefits, etc. completely separate from the judge or state's machinations. Of course that would be silly and nigh imposible.

Here's another possibility. Publically, the Juror system is staffed by volunteers who undergo minor cybernetic augmentation (a modified data lock equipped jack with the persona-fix loaded up) and they each have their own powerful jamming device (to keep extraneous radio signals out and tampering with the programming) while watching from behind a warded jury box.
In reality these are convicted felons, sentenced to a life of public service, they are little better than drones. They are persona-fixed near automatons who receive no pay and are kept in a constant state of sequestering. To maintain a "fair" trial, both councils and the judge for the trial have independent experts certify the chips are untampered and then each juror is loaded with the skillset pertinent to the case, rendering each one a relative expert in the fields necessary for the duration of the trial. The Defense cannot say it's unfair because they have their own experts going over the chip.
Could make an interesting run to extract such a Juror and de-program them, or replace one with your own juror.
That is of course assuming they still hold a trial by jury in any government in 2070.

Posted by: Gyro the Greek Sandwich Pirate May 21 2006, 07:07 AM

I think Witnesses could be excellent if for little else than witnessing contracts and the like. Excellent setup for a run, too-all the copies of the contract have been destroyed and the team needs to either extract or neutralize the Witness that still retains the information.