SD v Mooklyn (Remanded) 2023 Crim 1

SD v Mooklyn (Remanded) 2023 Crim 1

Date of judgment	18th June 2023
Judge	Justice halfcat
Charges	1 charge of Conspiracy to Commit Harassment in the First Degree (Article 52\) 1 charge of Terms of Service Violation (Article 60\)
Verdict	Guilty of all charges
Sentence	Permanent ban
Applicable persuasive precedent	Causal usage of the n-word “is a form of expression that attacks and promote hatred against other people based on protected characteristics”, 7 The “soft version” of the n-word also attacks and promotes hatred, 8 Actions taken to annoy someone to the point of wanting to “end them” qualifies as undue or unjustifiable apprehension, 15 A Defendant who plans to commit crimes before they were even released shows disrespect to the justice system (the purpose of which is to prevent crime), and so should be considered an aggravating circumstance, 27 Original judgment by Judge Yummy Turtle overturned by State of SimDemocracy (Appellant) v Mooklyn (Respondent) 2023 SDSC 7

REMANDED JUDGMENT by Justice halfcat

[1]. The defendant is being charged with 1 count of Conspiracy to Harassment in the First Degree and 1 count of Terms of Service Violation. The defendant has plead not guilty to all charges. The trial on this matter was originally held by former Justice yummyturtle, who in that trial found the defendant not guilty on both charges. However, the Supreme Court overruled the result on appeal and remanded the judgment back to the lower Courts, a task which is now mine to carry out. This ruling will only take into account the evidence and argumentation which took place in the original trial in order to produce a judgment.

On the charge of Terms of Service Violation

[2]. The prosecution alleges that the defendant has breached the stipulations of the Discord Community Guidelines which prohibit hateful conduct when they in Exhibit C used the n-word. The defendant however refutes that this would be against the Community Guidelines and that SimDemocracy even has jurisdiction over the matter in the first place.

[3]. Firstly, the defendant objects that the alleged crime occurred under SimDemocracy jurisdiction, arguing that as they were not a citizen at the time they can not be charged for it. The prosecution and defendant argue this matter extensively, however their arguments will not be examined as they are irrelevant.

[4]. The Court takes citizenship to be equivalent to personhood. As there are currently no restrictions to citizenship, it can be presumed that everyone is a citizen. Any surrounding circumstances like the inability to access rights or being banned do not matter in the question of citizenship. Therefore the Court finds that the defendant was a citizen at the time of the alleged crime occurring.

[5]. Did the alleged crime then occur within SimDemocracy jurisdiction? The Court finds that it did. The defendant satisfies the criteria laid out in Article 1 §5 of the Criminal Code as the defendant is a user who had the capacity and intention to participate in SimDemocracy, and the alleged crime directly affected persons in SimDemocracy.

[6]. Then, if it falls under SimDemocracy jurisdiction was the actual usage of the word criminal? The Community Guidelines definition states (with color, ethnicity, and race being protected characteristics):

“We consider hate speech to be any form of expression that either attacks other people or promotes hatred or violence against them based on their protected characteristics.”

[7]. The Court finds that the casual usage of the n-word is a form of expression that both attacks and promotes hatred against other people based on their protected characteristics. The used word can not be decoupled from its historical and current usage as a racist and demeaning term.

[8]. The counter arguments raised by the defendant do not erase this fact. It is irrelevant that the word used was a “soft version”, or that it was intended to be taken as simply meaning “guys”. It attacks and promotes hatred nonetheless. The equivalence to the British word for cigarettes is also false as that word has a completely separate origin unrelated to the slur, which the n-word very clearly does not. Additionally, the defendant is wrong when they claim that the prosecution has to prove that the defendant is a racist or that the context was somehow hateful. The prosecution need not do any such things, and the expression remains criminal without it.

[9]. Taking all this into account, the Court finds the defendant guilty of 1 count of Terms of Service Violation.

On the charge of Conspiracy to Commit Harassment

[10]. The prosecution alleges that the defendant has committed the crime of Conspiracy to Commit Harassment by offering material assistance to harass another SimDemocracy user in a series of messages.

[11]. This charge is also within the jurisdiction of SimDemocracy on the same grounds as the previous charge.

[12]. Article 52 of the Criminal Code states the following:

Ҥ1. A person commits first degree harassment if they:

   §1.1. Caused a person or group of persons to feel undue or unjustifiable apprehension, and

   §1.2. Had the intention to cause apprehension, or acted with reckless disregard as to whether their actions would cause apprehension.”

[13]. Article 12 of the Criminal Code states the following:

§1. A person shall be considered to engage in a conspiracy, when they order or request, or otherwise direct a person to commit a criminal offense; or to assist or offer material assistance in committing a crime.

[14]. The Court will firstly examine the case for the defendant being guilty. The case rests on three pillars then, the defendant offering material assistance, the thing they are offering material assistance to causing a person or group to feel undue or justifiable apprehension, and the intentional or reckless disregard as to whether it would cause apprehension.

[15]. The Court finds that the thing, namely the planned harassment, falls under the definition of harassment as it is in the Criminal Code. The conspirators explicitly state that they are “more committed than ever now to end these fuckers”, with the method to doing this being “annoying them”. The Court finds that the actions taken to annoy someone so much as to “end them” clearly qualify as causing undue and unjustifiable apprehension. The Court also finds that the conspirators clearly had the intention to cause this apprehension.

[16]. The Court finds that the defendant offered material assistance to the aforementioned thing. The defendant, in response to a call to harass the user fallen, states “I can certainly annoy him” along with other clear statements where they express a wish to annoy other people, even taking joy in these actions.

[17]. The Court will now examine the case against the defendant being guilty. The defendant has four counter arguments to the line of reasoning above, (1) by “annoy them” the defendant simply meant peacefully existing in SimDemocracy as that would be enough to annoy people according to the defendant, (2) if the defendant had the intention to carry out the harassment then why did they never do it, (3) annoyance is not the same as harassment, and (4) the defendant actually argued against harassing anyone not for it.

[18]. For (1) the Court finds it exceptionally unlikely that by annoying them the defendant simply meant to peacefully exist in SimDemocracy. The defendant explicitly says that they want to engage in “trolling” and that they are able to target a specific person which is not consistent with this argument. This argument is therefore rejected.

[19]. For (2) the Court finds that this argument is immaterial to the case. If the defendant had actually carried out the harassment they would have been charged with that, and not conspiracy, but as we are here to try the charge of conspiracy the reason why they didn’t carry out any harassment campaign is completely uninteresting. This argument is therefore rejected.

[20]. For (3) the Court finds that this argument is also immaterial to the case. The defendant is correct in the clever assertion that annoyance and harassment are indeed not synonyms. However, as the dictionary definition of the word harassment is irrelevant, so too is it that such a definition is not the same as the one for annoyance. What matters is whether the defendant’s actions fall under the crime they are being charged for and as established earlier, they do. This argument is therefore rejected.

[21]. For (4) the Court again finds that the argument is immaterial to the case. The Court is not interested in the defendant’s beliefs about God or their or their co-conspirator’s philosophical ramblings. Once again, what matters is whether the defendant’s actions fall under the definition of the crime they are being charged for and established by now, they still do. Offering material assistance and then saying revenge is bad does not erase the offering from ever having happened and certainly does not remove the criminality of it. This argument is there rejected.

[22]. An ancillary note which is not directly relevant to the case but important regardless is the question of why the prosecution has only decided to target the defendant for this charge when there were two other conspirators who, without definitively ruling on any guilt in the matter, participated as much or more in the plan to harass other persons. The Court finds it strange and legally dubious that the defendant of the current case was singled out as the target of prosecution while the others were let go without any charges.

[23]. Taking all this into account, the Court finds the defendant guilty of 1 count of Conspiracy to Commit Harassment.

Determining the Length of the Sentence

[24]. Having established the guilt of both counts, we must now determine the sentence. The prosecution has recommended a 1 year ban for the charge of Conspiracy, and a permanent ban for the charge of Terms of Service Violation.

[25]. The Criminal Code states the following when it comes to determining a sentence:

Ҥ1. The court shall rely on their best professional judgment to punish a criminal offense, within the bounds set by legislation; the punishment shall be fair and proportional to the offense committed.

§2. While determining the sentence, the court should consider the severity of the offense, the social harm caused, the damage caused to the victim (if applicable), the motivations of the offender, and the intent with which the offender has committed the offense, and any defenses invoked.”

[26]. The Court finds that while the defendant did violate the Community Guidelines, the social harm caused was not excessive and the motivations, while not innocent like the defendant has claimed, were not excessively negative either. Taken together, the severity of the crime was on the lower side, while still being severe due to being hate speech, but cannot justify the punishment of a permanent ban. The Court therefore finds a ban of six (6) months to be a fair and proportional punishment.

[27]. The punishment of the charge of Conspiracy to Commit Harassment however is different. The purpose of the justice system is to prevent crime from occurring. As can be seen in the evidence however, the defendant has no respect for it. The defendant went so far as to make plans to commit a crime before they were even unbanned for the previous ones they had committed. In addition, the potential severity and social harm of harassment should not be diminished. As for the motivations and intent of the offender, there can be no doubt. They offered material assistance in order to “end those fuckers”.

[28]. If the defendant, as a consequence of being in SimDemocracy cannot help themselves from committing crimes, the Court has no choice but to remove them from SimDemocracy. The Court therefore finds a permanent ban to be a fair and proportional punishment.

Verdict

[29]. The Court finds the defendant, Mooklyn, guilty of 1 charge of Conspiracy to Commit Harassment and 1 charge of Terms of Service Violation and sentences them to a permanent ban from SimDemocracy.

[30]. This sentence shall take effect immediately.

ORIGINAL JUDGMENT by Judge Turtle

A1 On the charge of Conspiracy to Commit Harassment in the First Degree, the court finds the defendant, Mook, not guilty.

A2 On any criminal charge the prosecution has the burden of proof and must show the court, beyond a reasonable doubt, all aspects of the crime are true. For my decision on this charge I would like to highlight that on this charge the prosecution had to show that any actions that would have taken place would have caused a person or group of people to feel apprehension and cause social harm. The prosecution’s evidence showed that the defendant wanted to simple annoy people. Annoyance can be many things and comes in many forms. A friend of mine like to send me the song “Let It Grow” from the Lorax at 3:00pm every single day. Is this annoying? Yes, it is extremely annoying. Does it give me a feeling of apprehension or cause social harm? No, not in the slightest. Therefore the simple act of annoying someone does not necessarily mean that it will always cause social harm or give a feeling of apprehension. The prosecution in this case did not prove that the acts of annoyance the defendant claim that they may do would cause a feeling of apprehension or social harm, therefore I must find the defendant not guilty.

A3 On the charge of Violating Discord Community Guidelines on Hate Speech, the court finds the defendant, Mook, not guilty.

A4 Discord has clarified that context is important in this case so I would accept 3 reasons why use of the n-word would be prohibited under this charge. 1\. The speaker is not black and the word was not used in a direct quote. 2\. The speaker used the word in a way as to direct unjust hate towards black people. 3\. A person in the conversation notified the speaker that they were offended and the speaker actively decided to ignore this rather than apologizing or censoring themselves.

A5 For me to convict someone on this charge for the use of the n-word the prosecution needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that one of these is true, however none of these reasons were proven beyond a reasonable doubt thus the defendant must be found not guilty.