#2: Appointment with Death

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/legal/legal2.phtml

Summary:

Murder, the law and roleplaying games.

Go to the column (http://www.rpg.net/columns/legal/legal2.phtml) for more information.

[Tylorva]

As a little addendum. :)

Regarding US Laws on murder:

The most visible difference is simply the method of classification. Whereas UK law simply has 'murder' and everything else is classed as 'manslaughter', in the US, murder is divided up into 'first degree', 'second degree' and so on, dependent upon the level of intention.

As far as I can tell, the methods of determining murder are more or less the same. If anyone wants to expand on this, then please do so here. I would be very interested to hear about it. :)

Handling defences in the US may be very different to the UK? But I'll look into that when I do the article on defences.

Also, in the UK, the government is reviewing murder (currently defined only in 'common law') and are planning to revise and make new legislation for it. This includes plans to introduce a classification system similar to the US, but the precise details are not yet known.

[Sepulchre]

Is your next column on Anglo-Saxon law going to deal with notions of weregild, outlawry and the like?

I ask because the classic Edward Coke definition of murder includes the phrase 'under the King's Peace' (not meaning simply 'in peace time': Lefroy, 'Anglo-Saxon Period in English Law' (1917) 26 (5) Yale Law Journal 388).

It seems to me that in many campaign settings, the notion of a unitary 'peace' (and, with it, the idea of crimes against society / the people / the State, etc.) may well be absent and more pragmatic, quasi-'private law' solutions (such as weregild) to murder might be used. In such situations, the seriousness of murder is, in many ways, reduced (provided you have the money to pay the price; being an outlaw in such societies is less fun than it sounds).

I merely raise this as an alternative to sending characters to the gallows every time they kill another PC race. Otherwise, good column.

[Tylorva]

Is your next column on Anglo-Saxon law going to deal with notions of weregild, outlawry and the like?


It does. :)

[Eldir]

Nice article. As a law student and roleplayer I love seeing those two subjects linked. What would be the standard of proof in the prosecution's proving these elements of murder? Does Britain have the famous "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard in criminal law like the U.S. (I assume the Americans got this from the British), or is it called something else?

[Mirkady]

The criminal standard of proof is the same in English law but we tend to express it by saying that the jury must be sure (the phrase beyond reasonable doubt is somewhat old fashioned now).

In the RPG context, of course, such standards might not exist. The fact finder may simply decide who they believe without reference to any standard of proof or to a different one.

[Gully Foyle]

Good column.

Just some thoughts.

In a magical setting, what would pass as evidence? If a magician could be called upon to magically allow the jury to see the crime as it happened, then would that be called evidence? (In the extreme case of a conspiracy) how could the jury not be sure that the magician simply concocted the images to ensure a guilty verdict? Would there then be a state sanctioned guild of magicians under whose duties these kinds of issues would fall, and who would run it, and how then (again in the extreme) could one be sure that this/these individual/s be trustworthy, and not be acting to meet their own ends? When we get psionics involved, the same questions arise. Supposedly, with a psionic, one could simply reach into the victims mind, and pull out the evidence at one go, eliminating the entire need for due process (whatever form it takes in the setting), simply by letting the victim incriminate himself, but how could we trust the psionic? Then, what if someone created the memory, implanted it, and left it there for the state's psionic to find, how would that eventuality be dealt with (even though, I do think that the psionic should have some way of knowing whether or not the 'memory' was really the suspect's to begin with). Most of the settings today do not take these issues into consideration, mainly because (I think) that due to the nature of the kind of play encouraged by the literature and movies, etc., they are never really dealt with. I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

[Tylorva]

These are the sort of questions I hoped would get triggered, so thanks for them. :)

Ultimately though, it is going to depend very much on the individual setting, as to how such things are managed. If the use of magic is commonplace, then systems and regulation would presumably have been set up in some way to manage it.

To give an example though:

My homebrew fantasy setting is centred around a fantasy city called Landston. Magic is commonplace and generally considered to be mundane and 'normal'. One branch of magic is 'scrying', and use of this is accepted in the courts. It is regulated in much the same was as 'expert witnesses' such as psychiatrists are in real life. Scryers have to have very good credentials, be backed up by the relevant governing authority and the profession as a whole, be completely unrelated to the case being examined, and so on.


As for the psionic question... Well, how that may be treated is up to you (and your GM's) imagination. If implanting memories is possible in the setting AND the courts are likely to know that it is possible, then how would they deal with it? Perhaps use other psionics to verifiy? Come up with objective ways to determine whether memories are genuine or fake? Totally up to you! :)