Let's say I'm a Speaker's Way adept. I decide on a career path on Law because I love the subject matter and I'm very, very good at public speaking and debating.

Assuming I'm a registered Adept and a normal SINner, whats to stop me using my adept powers in the courtroom? Is that legal?

- J.

Come on.... 19+ views and not a single post??

- J.

If the court were working properly, then decisions would be based on logic and the law only. We all know how likely that is. It would seem to me that there would be as much resistance to adepts in the courtroom as there is on the football field.

Other than Commanding Voice, most of the social powers don't really let you do anything superhuman - they just let you do human social-fu very well. It's not illegal to be very Charismatic or highly skilled at speaking, so I'd imagine Speaker's Way adept lawyers would be fine.

I'm picturing the Pornomancer in the courtroom defending PCs against being caught on the job. It would be almost impossible to prosecute unless they were caught in the most scathing of circumstances. Even with negative modifiers, surely... ?

- J.

What's the negative modifier for trying to convince someone that solid in-your-face evidence is wrong? Pretty hefty I'd imagine. This is where the other Attributes (Intution, Logic, and Willpower) will pull ahead of Charisma and Knowledge skills will rule.

It is far easier to get dice to add to social rolls to persuade someone than it is to logic based rolls.

- J.

True, but that doesn't mean you can always use your persuasion to counter a legal challenge - something that's not really a social test at all. In some situations, a non-AI computer could make a fine lawyer, and it has zero social ability.

I would say it would depend on a jury trail or not.

If it is, a big freakin roll on the closing argument by the pornomancer could potentially seed enough doubt that they would go with not guilty.

Not that i see runners defended that way, unless they have valid sin's and didn't get shot on sight "resisting arrest"...

Consider that many criminal courtrooms might have background counts that could nip magic a bit.

Lets see if you can identify the double homicide case in which the following closing argument was used. The fact that DNA evidence tied the accused to the crime in many ways wound up not mattering at all. In the end, a good bit of social wrangling left 12 men and women with some amount of doubt.

"If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit!"

Now, I know that it wasn't this argument that made the case for the defense. But, the point is that charismatic lawyers made the jury doubt the solid evidence (by challening how it was collected and the people who collected it mostly).

Here are a few other points to consider:

• Lawyers have a fairly specific definition of what they can and can not do, as well as how they must behave.
  
• Magic, a rare commodity, has huge potential to negatively affect the income of many lawyers since most of them are not magically active.
  
• Most laws, including those that relate to how law is practiced, are written by lawyers.

When I put those together I see a system in which lawyers themselves would have collectively banned this type of practice. They are smart enough to know that evidence is only one part of the case; presentation is just as important.

It really depends on if you are even allowing a jury trial. The enitre system could easily be automated.

Actually I'd see it as the lawyers themselves would work to entrench exactly this type of practice. An adept barrister and a very highly skilled (though mundane) solicitor. Imagine if you can actually bill a client for 2 person doing essentially the work of one. The cynic in me likes this double milking of the cash cow.

Since none of the skills of a lawyer are Active, you could just represent youself with a few Rating 4 Knowsofts running on your commlink's sim module. Not that I'd recommend this for big cases, but for little things it should do fine.

As for Evidence:
with SR's MAgic/Technology, how sure can you be that the evidence is not fake?
Great, now i have the image of a Troll-Pornomancer on a Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney BTL-Trip . .

How does one automate the right to Trial by Jury? I would believe that, actually, a Shadowrun team with SINs and an Speaker's Way Adept Lawyer would be very effective at these sorts of situations.With the right traits and build, said Lawyer could probably do the following things:

1) Phrase questions in such a way as to make the expert and prosecution witnesses trip up(or phrase followup questions to twist the words of the original statements in a very unfavourable light for the witness)

2) Undermine creditability of a witness through questions subtly phrased to make the Jury just not like them.

3) Deliver a stirring closing arguments that make whatever the prosecution says look dishonest and a lie.

It would be a very interesting sort of things, for sure.

By not giving one, ofcource.

Where does it say that this right still exists?

Accused actually have rights? Imagine that...

If I were a cuththroat law firm I'd hire as many Speaker's Way adepts as I could grab... and a few Savants while I was at it. Never discount the man with the encyclopedic knowledge of the law and the ability to perceive the tiniest flaw in his opponents arguments.



We're still talking a United Canadian American States (at least for Seattle) with a Constitution in line with that of its predecessors. Asking whether the right to a fair trial exists is like asking where is states the sky is still blue.

Not all campaigns take place in the UCAS...

Hence the notation of "at least for Seattle." If your campaign doesn't have a legal system with representation, then this entire thread is irrelevant to you.

In the UCAS, magic is still fairly frowned upon, especially for useful things like, oh, mind-probing a suspected criminal or for magical healing. I'd say that in the UCAS, a mage or adept using magically-enhanced (or outright magical) skills, techniques, or tricks would be outright banned from a courtroom. Just being known as a social adept would likely make judges suspicious, even if you didn't use your amazing social abilities, and I'd bet that having an adept on the opposing side of a trial would be grounds for a mistrial.

Now, in the NAN? Oh, hell yes. Then again, in the NAN, the cops can just mind-probe you, see if you committed the crime, and convict you. Jury trials? No, move directly to being staked out in the sun next to a fire-ant hill. When magic is used more in every-day life, some things become less necessary... But for non-criminal cases, like, say, petitioning for corporate rights... oh, yeah. Speaker way adepts would be so useful.

Heck, I am sure they make great lobbyists and politicians, too!

The UCAS has dramatically reduced 'rights' for SINless, something that is FAR different than todays US laws, and right to a fair trial is thus by no means assured for a large number of people. So, are you so sure the sky is blue?

Then there is that thing about corp extraterritoriality...

A SINless doing anything not liked by the corp on corp property could be in for one hell of a time...

As with the aformentioned country without trial by jury, this strays from the topic at hand. The topic asumes trial by jury is already granted just by virtue of being about adepts in the courtroom.

To say 'what if the country has no juries' or 'what if you've got no SIN' is ignoring what the question of discussion actually is.

On topic: There are some compelling points being brought up about magic's acceptance in the UCAS and other societies. Regulation as opposed to banning an Adept in the courtroom might be entirely possible as well. With a Mind Probe you're messing with the realm of psychic manipulation and invading someone's mind; both of these are things that people are leery of. A Speaker's Way Adept is merely a jacked up silver tongue, able to compell people through enhanced argument. They can't point to a pencil and say "this is a car," where some mojo can do that quite handily.

Much like today's bar system, a lisencing and testing board that holds Adepts to a standard of ethics would allow people to feel better about the system, without doing anything too major to stop abuse.

Social Adept Lawyers get Matrix Agent Judges on the bench.

Gut reaction is that any powers that affect only the adept would be okay but once you got into powers that directly affect other people like the judge, jury or witnesses then that would be out. That said the world doesn't run on logic and for average Joes in the sixth world magic is still probably a bit scary so I could see it heavily frowned upon and regulated. as Tiger Eyes said being known as magically active could mean some large negative modifiers, and even if you were allowed to practice you'd be under a lot of scrutiny. Depends on the jurisdiction and how they generally treat magic, as people mentioned the UCAS is usually highly sceptical whilst in the NAN the judges are often shamans. I'm sure that the courts already have magical protection to keep from people tampering with trials so any magically active lawyers would be watched like hawks.

Think about all of this makes me consider running a game where the players are part of a high priced defence team. Social adepts as the lawyer, the jury specialist and general psychological strategist, mages for their magical knowledge and expertise, deckers likewise for the matrix angle and to do some digging, riggers to do the drone work and lend their skills, faces/private investigators to gather evidence, plus street samurais and weapons specialists for their fields of interest and to maybe look after/bodyguard any important witnesses etc. Play it straight as defenders of the innocent willing to 'bend' a few laws here and there to see the truth come out or play dirty and have them do the occasional run to destroy inconvenient evidence or tamper with it, destroy key witnesses credibility or scare off/kill them. Whatever it takes to win, you get the best justice that money can buy.

Mob defence team? When they don't want heavies traced back to them?

- J.

The bench, witness stand, jury box, and jury room could all be warded to prevent this sort of thing. None of this would stop Analytics, Kinesics, Improved Ability with social skills, or even emotive software.

Mana static? Background count?

- J.

Background count might factor in, but I can't really see a courtroom having Mana Static anymore than having Silence and forcing all communications to be via wireless commlinks.

And what is the background count in a courtroom, considering the worst places in the haulocaust have a BC of like...4 I think...

I'm thinking "0" myself, since unless they are executing people IN the courtroom, or have cyberzombies living there, it can't get very high at all.

I'd imagine that some criminal courts could get up a 1, very rarely a 2.

Considering, that there's places in and around seattle that could get background counts of 2 to 3 and THEN compared to the holocaust example . . how bad IS seattle? O.o

Perhaps what we're missing is that in the SR world, the holocaust was 'greatly exaggerated' and perhaps never even happened. The PR spin of the 'holocaust myth' still generated a background count of 3.

I think the reason why the lower background count from places of the holocaust is accounted for by a) Time passing(It has, after all, been over a century), and b) it happened before the Awakening so it did not have as large an effect on the local mana flow as it would have if it had happened after the Awakening.


That said...I wonder if it is saying that a Dryad could not be a trial lawyer, since they would have the Glamour effect, but if they did something to them, that would fall into the realms of racial discrimination...

I don't remember what Street Magic says but didn't Magic in the Shadows mention that you can get background counts of 1 even in large office buildings? Considering the heightened emotions that you're likely to see - witnesses testifying and having to remember/relive bad experiences, hostile cross examinations, stress from the defendants their lawyers or the prosecutors, the impact of getting told you're going to be losing the next 10 years of your life, or in non-criminal cases like messy divorces etc. - I could easily see courtrooms having a similar rating. And considering how badly most governments are funded in the sixth world I can't see them spending much cash on mages to come in and cleanse the place that often.

I could see a temporary background count cropping up, especially during a lengthy trial where emotions ran high. In such a case you may have a background count for a period of time before it fades.

Heh, if there was a Speaker's Way adept lawyer, well then he/she'd probably be, like, the ONLY one since those particular types of adepts are fairly rare.

Rarity plus skill would equate to HUGE (and I mean HUGE) payments for cases. Thus this Speaker's Way adept would only be hired by the incredibly powerful or wealthy (er, you know, the corps) and thus it'd be irrelevant that Shadowrunners would have access to said lawyer (unless it was a condition of the run which seems downright silly for a disposable asset).

That having said, this type of power would become relatively meaningless since corps could also just bribe their way through a court hearing, easy as that.

Anybody ever watch Boston Legal?

You could come to the chat this Saturday (10 AM Pacific) and ask about this. We'll have at least two shadowtalkers who know all sorts of stuff about the law (and all of them know about breaking it).

No dice, have to work 50 hours this week.

Bah, quit your job and become a stay-at-home mom (or dad). No pay, the hours are horrible, but eventually the kids go to school. And you can get an hour for a SR chat once a month.

neither me, nor my girl, intend to be parents anytime soon o.o
and damn it, i just found myself a job i actually like <.<
but yes, i WOULD seriously love to stay at home ._.
i am a lazy slacker like that i guess x.x

I imagine an adept lawyer would live quite comfortably, and no doubt be retained by a corporate entity if so inclined. However, you can't discount the passionate Speaker's Way public defender either. Skill and gift don't automatically become corrupted... it takes time.



An excellent chance I'll be missing due to being at sea... well, there's always September.

Unlike a shadowrunner, this bane to the corps would be in public sight and very exposed. He's likely to be eliminated in one fashion or another very quickly.

I didn't say it was easy. I'm just pointing out theoretical ways it could be done.

Bringing a cyberzombie into the courtroom for the purpose of screwing with a trial would be an interesting hypothetical circumstance to say the least....

-J.

Unlike a shadowrunner? The Public Defender has the luxury of being in a very spotlit position, and thus he's got the media, the law, and people who empathize with him in general to sheild him from the big bad corp. Sure, it's not much, but a Shadowrunner's livelyhood is held in the hands of men and women who work for corporations, and anonymity is a double edged sword. Their next 'job' might just be someone looking to off them, whereas a lawyer doesn't meet in shadowy corners of existance or private booths in bars so often.

It creates a lot of investigation/speculation when an influential and well loved public figure dies. When criminals die, there's just not that much of either. Runners are deniable assets for a reason, people don't look so hard when they go missing.

Not to say there aren't accidents, but there's protection in being public.