Initial Criminal Code

[Beathan]

We have, both formally and informally, rules and laws that would be best characterized as “Criminal” in nature. For instance, we have anti-griefing rules (which have been administered by our Chancellor) under the TOA. We have anti-litter rules, which have been enforced by vigilante style litter patrols of concerned citizens – especially Dnate. We have statutes such as: NL 4-21 (public building deletion act) and NL 4-22 (Housing Restitution Act), which address specific activities which our community has faced in the past and which we now define as criminal.

To routinize and standardize the criminal rules of the CDS, I propose the following:

General Definitions for a Criminal Code:
Crimes in the CDS shall be categorized by severity of punishment as follows:
1. Infractions, which, in the case of CDS citizens, shall be punished by fine, added to the tier cost of any land owned by a citizen or any citizenship fee paid by a landless citizen, if such there are, of less than L$500.
2. Misdemeanors, which, in the case of CDS citizens, shall be punished by fine, added to the tier cost of any land owned by a citizen or any citizenship fee paid by a landless citizen, if such there are, of more than L$500 but less than L$2500.
3. Gross Misdemeanors, which, in the case of CDS citizens, shall be punished by fine, added to the tier cost of any land owned by a citizen or any citizenship fee paid by a landless citizen, if such there are, of more than L$2500 but less than L$10000.
4. Felonies, which, in the case of CDS citizens, shall be punished by fine, added to the tier cost of any land owned by a citizen or any citizenship fee paid by a landless citizen, if such there are, of more than L$10000.
5. Capital Felonies, which, in the case of CDS citizens, shall be punished by loss of citizenship and forfeiture of property in the CDS.

In the case of noncitizen visitors to the CDS, all crimes shall be punished by banning. Provide, however, that the banning order can be abated, pending trial in the CDS courts of the charge, by payment of a bond equal to the amount that a CDS would paid in a fine for the same offense, which bond shall be forfeited if the noncitizen defendant fails to appear at the trial or if the noncitizen defendant is found guilty at a trial and on exhaustion of appeals of the crime of which he or she stands accused.

All Defendants accused of a crime in the CDS shall have the right to trial in the CDS justice system, then established, and shall have a right to appeal any decision in such a trial to the SC. Other than a noncitizen ban order or a bond posted by noncitizens to abate a ban order, no defendant shall be subject to punishment for any alleged crime until exhaustion of his or her final appeal to the SC. All fines levied against citizens shall be due when the citizen’s next tier or citizenship payment to the CDS is due – and the penalty for nonpayment of any such fine shall be the same as nonpayment of tier or citizenship duty.

[Patroklus Murakami]

As per my comments on the Treason Bill, I think we need some more supporting arguments for this.

One concern I have is that fines are defined in the legislation. SL has not suffered too much from inflation but setting these figures in tablets of stone does not seem very flexible.

This has not been submitted in time to meet the deadline for the Inaugural Meeting but can be put on the agenda for the second meeting if it is submitted in accordance with the RA meeting procedures (needs to be passed to me by notecard inworld or by email by the required deadline).

[michelmanen]

We do not require a criminal code. Moreover, in SL, it makes no sense to differenciate between civil and criminal offences since enforcement measures are essentially the same - fines and banishment. Finally, the very idea of being guilty of a "crime" in CDS is really not consistent with the SL environment if such "crimes" are not RL crimes; and if they are RL crimes, then it is not our place to take action. So, in short: Nope!

[Beathan]

Pat --

Your points are well taken. In my defense, I can only say that I am used to having categories of crime defined in this manner -- both in name and by stating fine amounts (or prison terms, iRL). When inflation requires that the fine amounts be revisited, the Legislature does so. Further, judges fashion specific remedies within the ranges provided depending on the circumstances.

I disagree with MM with regard to the appropriateness of criminal codes in SL in general and the CDS in particular. Given our project, TOS type violations would seem to be best addressed in this manner. My hope was to provide a structural framework of categories to guide our specific thinking about how to regulate behavior. With the categories in place, we can then fill in the details by determining what specific kinds of behaviors we want to prohibit.

Obvious choices are: littering; destruction of public and private buildings; actions which undermine our project or expose our builds and citizens to danger; misuse of office or public funds; and griefing in all its various forms. These are certainly activities we want to prevent in the CDS. I think that setting up a criminal code structure is the right way to go because: 1. if would clearly define the bad actions, allowing people to avoid committing them; 2. it would allow us to disintinguish between the truly bad and merely annoying; and 3. it would provide due process protections that are (arguably) currently lacking.

Beathan

[michelmanen]

As long as we have an inependent and professional judiciary, everyone will benefit of due process. I stll see no reason to have "crimes" when clearly they only acts which would deserve of such a name will come under the jurisdiction of LL 0r RL systems of justice. All other infractions do not qualify as "crimes". As for penalties, fines and banishment in whatever combination are not adequate penalties for *crims*. Importing this category from RL to SL at the level of community self-governance is clearly inappropriate, confusing, and unnecessary.

That being said, I am perfectly willing to let the Judiciary Commission hear what our citizens think about this, and not anticipate its conclusions.

[Beathan]

Michel --

At present our Code is organized based on date of enactment. That is about as poor an organizational method for creating a searchable and useful Code of laws as I can imagine.

We will need, soon, to reorganize our Code by grouping like statutes by subjects. Part of this reorganization -- indeed the first step -- will be to determine the categories into which we will group the statutes.

The statute of "criminal code" is one such -- and it is the obvious category into which we should group statutes regulating individual behavior. However, not all bad individual behavior is equally bad -- and we must be prepared to distinguish the godawful from the merely annoying. My proposal makes a first step toward this project -- and I think it is a critical step for us to take.

Other categories should be: organic statutes (those creating the state); administrative and constitutional statutes (those regulating the government; corporate statutes (those regulating NGOs); land use statues (the covenants); and civic statutes (establishing holidays, naming streets, etc.)

Beathan

[Aliasi Stonebender]

I agree things should be organized, but I also (shock!) agree with Michel in that a 'criminal code' isn't really needed. In our case, all offenses are essentially civil offenses; our 'government' does not have a special place other than being the administrator of the law.

[Beathan]

Aliasi wrote --

[quote:2yr3rcus]I agree things should be organized, but I also (shock!) agree with Michel in that a 'criminal code' isn't really needed. In our case, all offenses are essentially civil offenses; our 'government' does not have a special place other than being the administrator of the law.[/quote:2yr3rcus]

If this is the way people want to go, I don't have a problem with it. I am not sure that it matters much what we call the mechanism we use to regulate and prevent bad behavior, as long as it works.

However, we already have a history of banning noncitizens for misbehavior. Misdeeds of citizens have, heretofor, been resolved by voluntary exile. I don't think that we can expect to continue to be so lucky.

Beathan

P.S. I am happy to see that I am no longer the only active poster who "needs a hobby." Welcome to the club, Michel -- you, me and Ashcroft (a list to make most right-thinking members of our community groan in anguish, surely.)

[michelmanen]

LOL! Indeed, Beathan

[Aliasi Stonebender]

[quote="Beathan":3r9txn73]
However, we already have a history of banning noncitizens for misbehavior. Misdeeds of citizens have, heretofor, been resolved by voluntary exile. I don't think that we can expect to continue to be so lucky.
[/quote:3r9txn73]

This is where I point up the "community/co-op" aspects.

If I join a club, or an organization, or a co-op of some kind, and they have rules, and I break them, they may certainly throw me out. However, this does not necessarily make it a criminal case.

I suggest our status, playing at virtual nation-state or no, is much closer to that. We ban noncitizens because we reserve the right to control access to our sims. We can ban citizens if they violate the agreements to which they affirmed when they joined. The purpose of criminal law, to dimly recall my classes in this related thing (Law of Business), is to punish those actions the State finds undesirable. Those of a libertarian mode of thought find most such laws fairly repellent, which tolerances varying according to just how far out that libertarian is. However, even the most extreme will concede the 'big offenses' - murder, assault, theft, rape, that sort of thing.

In SL, these offenses are not really possible. Anshe Chung might have screamed 'virtual rape' when she was assaulted with prim penii, but honestly, the control over land and one's avatar is sufficent that no assault comes close to the real thing in the least. Which leaves us with 'criminal' acts such as deleting city property... which is already a violation of agreement. Trying to set up 'criminal' law just strikes me as an attempt to cutely pack a real-life 'government' and 'legal system' in miniature scale into SL, simply because it's what 'governments do'.

Now, setting up a wider variety of penalties than "ban" and "warning" is most certainly called for. We don't have any formal list, there aren't even any informal [i:3r9txn73]suggestions[/i:3r9txn73] for penalties. I suggest working out this issue would be best, and not to worry about 'civil' or 'criminal' (because to a real-life court system, it will ALL be 'civil') law, just worry about THE law.
[/i]

[michelmanen]

I couldn't have said it better myself....

[Beathan]

Aliasi --

Even as a libertarian (perhaps a libertarian lite), I believe that there are many actions possible in SL which are either prohibited by the Lindens in a woefully ineffective way or worthy of other prohibitions within our project.

Two come immediately to mind:

1. griefing in all its various forms; and
2. attempting to influence internal CDS decisions by threatening to invoke an outside jurisdiction, either LL or a RL jurisdiction, to intervene (which is contrary to the sovereignty of our effort).

It is true that the range of possible crimes in SL is far, far less than in RL -- but that does not change the fact that there are some activities that should be prevented or prohibited, even in our SL co-op.

Beathan

[Aliasi Stonebender]

[quote="Beathan":2uspzmjj]
1. griefing in all its various forms; and
[/quote:2uspzmjj]

Griefing is not as big a deal as people like to make it out to be. Sim crashes and the like, of course, are obvious bans, and if it makes you happier to have a law clarifying such, so be it. But all lesser forms can be controlled by land or estate permissions, or through the client. If someone is spamming sound and particles, you can mute them and eliminate both. If someone is pushing in the rare push-enabled area (or using weapons that get around that) you sit down on a block of trusty plywood, or a wall, or a floor. Most other things really boil down to "see griefer, ban from land".

[quote:2uspzmjj]
2. attempting to influence internal CDS decisions by threatening to invoke an outside jurisdiction, either LL or a RL jurisdiction, to intervene (which is contrary to the sovereignty of our effort).
[/quote:2uspzmjj]

This can't be meaningfuly legislated against, especially when we are sovereign only to the extent my town might be, compared to the state it is in, and the nation in which that state resides. Which is to say, not all that sovereign at all. We have to care about Linden Labs. We have to care about real-life law, on those few points it is applicable.

[michelmanen]

Hmmm... I must again say.... I agree with every word....

[Desmond Shang]

[quote="Beathan":2uwit67v]In the case of noncitizen visitors to the CDS, all crimes shall be punished by banning. Provide, however, that the banning order can be abated, pending trial in the CDS courts of the charge, by payment of a bond equal to the amount that a CDS would paid in a fine for the same offense, which bond shall be forfeited if the noncitizen defendant fails to appear at the trial or if the noncitizen defendant is found guilty at a trial and on exhaustion of appeals of the crime of which he or she stands accused.

All Defendants accused of a crime in the CDS shall have the right to trial in the CDS justice system, then established, and shall have a right to appeal any decision in such a trial to the SC. Other than a noncitizen ban order or a bond posted by noncitizens to abate a ban order, no defendant shall be subject to punishment for any alleged crime until exhaustion of his or her final appeal to the SC. All fines levied against citizens shall be due when the citizen’s next tier or citizenship payment to the CDS is due – and the penalty for nonpayment of any such fine shall be the same as nonpayment of tier or citizenship duty.[/quote:2uwit67v]

I am definitely going to discard a prim on the platz next time I pop by for a visit!

Just one, nothing extravagant.

Maybe a candy wrapper, or maybe a reprint of Caledon's avatar rights declaration... whatever suits the mood at the time. The criminal code fascinates me, and I'm willing to give it a firsthand, personal test!

If fined and ordered to appear I doubt I'd show up - but who knows, I might.

I ain't paying any stinkin' fines though. I'd have to be banned (or banned with contempt of court - make sure you save the transcripts, I'll definitely be entertaining!)

Incidentally, Neufreistadt and Caledon don't have any treaties per se. We'll definitely develop a diplomatic stance should I be banned for dropping a candy wrapper, though...

...and hey, if I *do* come before the court, could I try to get Ulrika to represent me? Or maybe Prok. Or Ashcroft. Or all three? With SLNN, the Metaverse Messenger and Reuters in attendance? Is that allowed?

Serious questions!

*pokes Beathan in good fun*

I love the CDS.