This situation came up in my game - I've pretty much decided how I'm going to deal with it, but I'm curious what other people think.

The group got set up by the current uber-villian - created a fake group, set up with plastic surgery (don't have to worry about trid phantasm) and had them blow up a cop car. Lone Star went nuts and put a bounty on the runners heads, and the fake group disappeared - until the real group tracked em down.

Now. Exactly how would Lone Star react to third party people bringing in the stiffening corpses or two, and near dead third (and toss in a confession from the third saying they did it, but they're not the originals)?

This was done in the hopes Lone Star would do some if not all of the following:
1) Get rid of the bounty on the real runners, clearing their names
2) Get Lone Star to back off their contacts (who were being squeezed for information)
3) Get the 50,000 bounty per runner (even tho technically the bounty was on the real ones, not the fake ones)

Would Lone Star be confused as heck? Refuse to pay anything due to technical error? Throw the third parties in the hoosgow because they are dumping dead bodies on their porch (rather than calling the fuzz in to see the crime scene, ala CSI)? Something other than this? Or a combo of some or all of the above?

Fun situation, huh?

My consideration would be for lone star:

Whats cheapest option,
What saves face,
How convincing is either story?

Hmmm....

Arrest them all, seek out evidence to confirm or deny the real group's claims. Check for any unrelated crimes to prosecute on the living individuals.

If the Star finds enough evidence indicating that the mimics were at fault, that crime will be stricken from the real group. If the evidence is inconclusive, sentence all survivors for equal portions of the crime, plus anything else that can be linked to them.

Recruit a new PC and have him claim the prize, or better yet have a lawyer do that. The upside to this would be that Lone Star now believes they are dead.

Remember that the Star can and probably will make use of Analyze Truth/Mind Probe type spells to get the facts. These things might not be admissible in court, but are quite valid tools for investigation.

Nope. Those methods cannot be used to provide any evidence as its a violation of the Fifth Ammendment. If it can be proven that Lone Star used illegal means like that to gain any evidence whatsoever from a citizen, the case can be thrown out of court. Only assensing is considered a legal means to investigate or acquire evidence if memory serves.

The SINless are shit out of luck though.

I don't know about SOTA:2064 as I haven't read it in depth, but those techniques are the equivalence of using torture as part of your investigation. The Fifth Amendment protects citizens from self-incrimination, period. Voluntarily allowing Lone Star to do it is one thing; that's on the level of lie-detector tests. But doing it just because they can is a no-no.

As for SOTA:2064, do you have a page reference that states that those spells are legal?

Actually, Doc, the 5th is for USA. I don't know if UCAS has the same Bill of Rights that we do now...

MitS suggests that it does. It's in the Law section. At least I'm 90% sure it does as I don't have my book handy.

Considering the establishment of the SIN system is the 14th amendment, UCAS probably does not have the same Bill of Rights we have.

They can use those spells on the runners, get the info, and let them go. If the runners are lucky, Lone Star won't make them disappear or arrest them for other crimes.

Well to throw more dice into the pool, so to speak, here is what Lone Star has as far as evidence.

1) One dead dwarf, known as "Slick", looks like runner named Lazarus with bounty 50,000. No SIN. Cause of death - poison and the fact that he has many chunks of flesh bitten out of him. Only has an obvious Lone Star service pistol (the Thunderhawk or whatever it's called). Any other equipment is not evident.

2) One dead ork, known as "Ralph", looks like runner named Jim with bounty 50,000. No SIN. Cause of death - same as 1) Note: Jim has already been cleared of wrongdoing - was in intensive care getting an eye replaced from an overflow of Devil Rats the previous week. No weapons.

3) One unconscious ork, known as "Roy", looks slightly more healthy than Slick and Ralph, has been medkitted and traumapatched to become stable. Also has been poisoned and bitten. No weapons.

4) One audio/(video?) testimony, of Roy admitting to the cop killing and setting up the group for a johnson who in turn betrayed them with insect spirits (explaining the poison/bites). He sounds woozy and not terribly coherent. Other voices on the tape have no names attached.

5) Eyewitness account of one Chaz and one Johnny Chang, who brought in 1-4. They claim to have found the bodies in cooperation with original group, who wishes to clear their name. The three fakes were found in a cemetary surrounded by ghouls (which they had to go through to get back out) Frankly, I don't think Lone Star cares much about ghouls, so I would throw that in there as ancillary but not pertinent to the investigation.

6) Eventually, the place where the bodies were found. At the place are some wrecked drones that match the type in the video tape of the cop killings, plus a drivable bike which matches the vid as well. (The runners didn't stick around - after surviving around 30+ ghouls they weren't anxious to search the place, for some odd reason) There are also corpses of around 20 ghouls that are all finished off with head shots. (I am assuming the cops don't stick around for long either...) There is blood everywhere.

Yes, I run a detailed game. Go figure...

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree applies to all evidence gathered subsequent to the initial act. The evidence can be thrown out. There's nothing that says it must be thrown out.

It also only applies to the defendant attacking the illegal search since a third party does not have standing to challenge the admissibility. So you can still use poisoned fruit against another suspect.

Like I mentioned elsewhere the Fifth only applies to the Federal government, and there is no longer a 14th (Well, there is but it's not the same) to impose it upon the states. While every state now has a due process clause, there's nothing in the UCAS Constitution that requires a person in the state's jurisdiction to be provided with Due Process.

Federal habeas rights still exist, though. Except where they don't.

Of course, this assumes you're a SINner. SINless have virtually no rights.

Actualy, I think that a mind probe, even a consentual one, would fall under hearsay rules. He told me "so and so" is no different than "I saw "so and so" when I probed his mind. In both cases, there is no way to independantly confirm the truth of the testimony. It is simply one person's word against another's.
Testimony of a mage casting analize truth would influance the jury's perception of a witness's credibility and, again, we only have the mage's word. Thus, it would probably be disallowed in most cases. However, the most likely exception would be perjury cases. Ancored or quickened analize truth spells would be very useful in ensuring that witnesses uphold their oath.

On the other hand, they are perfectly reasonable investigative techniques for they can lead to other evidence, so long as they are consentual or a warrent has been issued. If not, then any evidence that they lead to, directly or indirectly, will be thrown out. The entire case won't be thrown out unless that was the only evidence. There is also the "inevitiable discovery" doctrine, which means that, even if a mind probe and shock-gove interogation had led to the evidence, it can still be used if the prosecutor can show that it would have eventualy been found using lawful methods.


As for this case, which all the evidence it woul dbe difficult for Lone Star to deny the truth. However, the Star will may be curious about the poision. If the poision came from the ghouls, there aren't any problems. If it came from th erunners, there are potentially two counts of murder/manslaughter and another count attempted murder/assault with intent.

First of all, if the ringers did the dirty deed and they were disguised as the originals. Then evidence collected from the crime scene would correspond to the ringers (fingerprints, DNA, etc), not the originals (other than the looking like the originals).

Yeah, but what you're missing is that it's heresay on the cop's part. The cop is the one saying "the Mind Probe told me this" as opposed to a signed confession.

Edit: The original content of this post based around flawed argument.


Normally, confessions are admissible, even verbal confessions. However, a mind probe isn't a confession. It is something else entirely. Also, it is nearly infallabile compared to other tests. Because of this, the reported results of a mind probe would prejudice the jury to the point where they would probably convict without evenconsidering other evidence.

The real problem is that the mind probe defeats the purpose of the advisarial system, if they are used cosistently then the only question would be the trustworthyness of the prober. If they were admissable it would be simple enough for any guilty defendant to hire a mage to probe his mind and make a liberal interperation of the results. Instant reasonable doubt.

Given that Lone Star is a corp and has a reputation to uphold the answer to probelm depends on a lot of how the Runners handle things. If they take all evidence to Lone Star without having backups ready to be transmitted be sure to kill all characters with head shots from panther assault cannons for their stupidity. If they have the back ups then Lone Star might begrudgingly remove the bounty and help clear the 'criminals' but then more than likely arrest them for being SINless. Are we getting the picture here?

If you want to get all "CSI" on us, then the bite marks are not just "by large animals". The bite marks would exactly correspond to the shape and size of roaches. A true CSI-type lab can tell the difference between a bite from a dog, human, wolf, etc. In most cases, they can even trace the breed.

The confession was woozy and if Lone Star cared a wit about coercion and civil rights, then they would have a justifiable issue with it. Right now though, I'm not getting that impression.

The DNA/fingerprints stunt might have been cute if the fakes had gotten away but because the fakes were found, the DNA and fingerprints are now going to work against them. Lone Star has the DNA and fingerprints of the perps who actually committed the crime because they went over the original crime scene with a fine toothed comb, right? Now 2 bodies/1 suspect with exact matching fingerprints and DNA show up delivered at their doorstep. In addition, the location that the witnesses will take Lone Star to has matching drones, the Lone Star's gun, powder burns on "Ralph's" body and easily identifiable places where the bodies/witnesses were found that can be confirmed by DNA (the runners didn't bother to cast Sterilize before picking them up). If you were Lone Star, what would you do? To be quite frank, "Roy" would have a hell of a hard time denying the crime, even if he didn't do it (confession or no confession).

Heh...that's the next question.

Does anyone know in canon sources what kind of investigative arm Lone Star has? I mean, this is not CSI, but 2059 (in this case).

Also - if they do issue bounties like the old Wild West days do they have a place where dead bounties can be delivered? I'm also pretty sure bounty hunters still require permits, I remember reading that somewhere in all my novels.

What SR book has stats on DNA re-mapping? I'm just curious, because that seems a little out of line for the capabilities of SR technology. (not to mention completely physically impossible)

You do realize how much "DNA" would be at a public place? They were gunned down outside in a parking lot. Not much to go on, frankly. Eh, it really all comes down to what kind of resources does Lone Star have that would be equiv to a CSI lab?

Umm...one of them (Roy) beat the cops up in close-quarters combat. Very tough not to leave at least a trace there. For Ralph and Slick, yeah, OK, not much to go on there. But there are the smashed Drones that match the assault at the cemetary.

EDIT: You're right in that it depends on what resources Lone Star has in its forensics team. I don't know that; perhaps someone else here does, based on canon. I do believe though that, if they have any credible lab resources at all, they would put them to use to solve this crime that they would (understandably) want solved as quick as possible.

I'd say that canon doesn't really have much to do with this. It all depends on how the GM wants to use this in regards to the players. Despite their clever plans, the bad guys got caught and turned over to the Star. If this brings the adventure more or less to a close, I see no reason why the innocent runners shouldn't get the reward, and get their records cleared of the charge.

If however, being under pressure from LS is going to be part of a continuing campaign, then for whatever reason, things don't pan out that easily.

However, in my game I'd say it's reasonable to assume that Lonestar has its own competent forensic lab, and in a case like this would be able to verify the story (and evidence) supplied to them in a reasonable time frame.

And would be very motivated to do so properly. Cops are cops, whether corporate or not, and cop-killers are hated.

I would also submit that not only does LS have a compitent forensics-investigation department, they have a magical forensics investigation department.

As for the law, although I would agree that the UCAS and US wouldn't have the exact same constituation, I would suspect that many of it's amendments would be in there somewhere, even if they have different numbers.

As for Mindprobe, I would guess that if an officer is legally "certified" to use Mindprobe on a subject, then the evidence would be submisable. granted if it goes to trial, the officer's certification may be put to the test on the witness stand, but as long as the court upholds that the certification is valid, so too is any evidence. I kinda think of it like a traffic officer today running RADAR to see if you're speeding. By the current arguement, it's just "hearsay" when an officers says "that machine said you was speeding".

Or it might be like a lie detector, the results are generally not admissable in court, but if the cops have poor ol' Roy grilled while under a truth verification spell, and then run him through a questioning about just why there are people claiming his friends aren't really who they say they are... If the explanation that the runners had the third party give the Star hold out, then I'd say they're in the free and clear (plus whatever other evidence pertaining to their innocense has come up).

I'd say that the mage running the magic would be treated the same way as whoever examines the results of a lie detector test. That they be truthful about the matter is expected, and if they lie then they're in for a world of hurting.

It is specifically stated that evidence from mindprobe is not admissible in UCAS courts. Whether or not it can be used as part of an investigation is a matter of conjecture.

~J

MitS says it cannot be used to produce any evidence.

MitS p. 11, The Law: "Because the UCAS and CAS retain major elements of the U.S. Bill of Rights in their legal systems, magical methods such as mind probe and aura reading cannot be used to produce evidence, as this violates the Fifth Amendment prohibition against self-incrimination. However, reading astral signatures has achieved the same status as fingerprinting or DNA testing in forensic science."

According to that, mind probe and similar spells cannot be used to produce *any* evidence whatsoever; doesn't matter if it's for a court case or as part of an investigation. As I stated before, it's closer to using torture to forcefully obtain a confession or learn information about a suspect.

I suppose that Mind Probe would be out due to the intrusiveness, but I don't see any problem with analyze truth or aura reading, since there is no evidence being generated.

you don't, but then, you're not a citizen who has been suddenly and violently thrust into a world where magic exists. it's only been 50 years since the Awakening; that's not a lot of time to produce enough solid data about magic to fit it into the law. i'm kinda surprised that it's been integrated to the degree which it has, to be honest.

Fortunately for my runners, due to the damage done by insect spirits, and their own stunbolt (cast at Deadly, staged up to Deadly +1, and he was one box short of Deadly physical) Lone Star won't be able to get anything intelligible until Roy comes out of his coma. (i.e. a month)

Why fortunately? Because that means that they'll be able to track down the Johnson before the cops will. Well...at least the ones who didn't go to Lone Star.

Edit: Thanks everyone for your input. You can now go back to debating the merits of magical interrogation in legal theory. *grin*

Although I would argue that a mindprobe isn't anymore self-incriminating than the defendant having a video tape of his crime inside his house, I won't go against canon.

Just another "dumb law" that's keeping the cops from doing their job...

Any law that restricts any cop who considers that a part of his or her job is fine by me.

~J

How many times do I have to tell you: The Fifth Amendment does not apply to the states in the UCAS. The states might have their own, but they just as likely may not consider Mindprobe violative (and it's a lot easier to get state constitutions amended if the public really wanted it).

The FBI can't Mindprobe you. Lone Star... might.

And I say they can, as long as they don't use it for evidence, or they get your permission.