Ed_Laprade
Adventurer
It's a treason trial. If the government isn't using every resource it has available to discover the truth, then they're in on it.
A question about Magic and Law enforcement interacting
- Thread starter Mordane76
- Start date
Dragonblade
Adventurer
Your logic is quite sound. I run generally high magic campaigns and yet magically obtained evidence is usually considered supplemental, but alone is never enough to convict. The reasoning is simple, magical evidence is not foolproof. Zone of Truth doesn't prevent someone from speaking a lie if they BELIEVE it to be true. Likewise, with all such spells, how do you know the spell is working? In metagame terms, how do you know the person you cast it on failed their "save"? Someone could save and then lie through their teeth and everyone would think they are telling the truth. Nah, such magics can supplement evidence but by themselves are not completely admissible.
But that being said, I tend to stay away from most modern notions of jurisprudence. For example, in my world paladins ARE judge, jury, and executioner. And most constables are just as likely to beat lawbreakers to a bloody pulp and leave them in a gutter somewhere as they are to bring them in, especially for crimes like robbery. There are no Miranda rights, and brutality is the norm. It gives my world a more gritty, pseudo-medieval feel.
But that being said, I tend to stay away from most modern notions of jurisprudence. For example, in my world paladins ARE judge, jury, and executioner. And most constables are just as likely to beat lawbreakers to a bloody pulp and leave them in a gutter somewhere as they are to bring them in, especially for crimes like robbery. There are no Miranda rights, and brutality is the norm. It gives my world a more gritty, pseudo-medieval feel.
catsclaw227
First Post
You should check out Crime and Punishment by Atlas Games. What a great book this is.
Kid Charlemagne
I am the Very Model of a Modern Moderator
More importantly than how do you know the spell is working - how do you know the spellcaster casting the spell is telling the truth? The bad guys could have dominated the LG Cleric with the Zone of Truth spell.
Also - the secular government may not want to set up wizards and clerics as ultimate legal authorities. Use the spells for investigation, but have physical evidence to back it up.
Of course, as others have noted this is kind of a modern approach to law. The actual process could be much more convoluted and inefficient - and easy to fool.
Also - the secular government may not want to set up wizards and clerics as ultimate legal authorities. Use the spells for investigation, but have physical evidence to back it up.
Of course, as others have noted this is kind of a modern approach to law. The actual process could be much more convoluted and inefficient - and easy to fool.
Kid Charlemagne said:
Good points. One way is to have different casters do this independently at different times. First to have the caster's serve as a check against each other, second to better foil defenses. If magical truth finding is critical, a kingdom might have a special room set up to foil counter-measures. Better yet, wouldn't the king just have someone craft him an item that can detect truth/lies. Maybe in a scepter or orb, your typical regalia. Why rely on a spell caster to tell him? Which also address the next well raised point.
Magic of course won't replace a good line of questioning to discern what people believe to be true from facts, to probe for memerory gaps caused by spells etc.
Agreed. For day to day crimes of those of the lower classes magic is a waste of resources. However for high treason, who the king can trust and who he cannot, it is in the king's self interest to know the truth. Convicting a loyal follower is going to weaken the king, not just in losing the loyal person but in still having the very disloyal person (i.e. the one who framed the loyal person) around. My vote then is for kings to have magic items for detecting truth, enchantments, etc. This way they know and decide the issue, and can easily frame someone they wan't to get out of the way.
On the original post, new evidence in such a high crime might be the presentation of evidence of the existance of magic, etc. that foiled the kings truth finding magic items. This could be very hard to find, requiring adventure
and a big bad devious bad guy. If the condemed traitor has always appeared loyal, the king may give the son a long time (a year?) to find proof. However, with the ability to bring people back from the dead, maybe your executed in a manner that allows later for raise dead. Heck the father's ghost could be a very good investigatory aid, just ask Hamlet. 
Wolv0rine
First Post
And this is assuming the king legitimately WANTS to know the truth. This could be nothing more than a bit of courtly maneuvering by a rival, or a way for the king to get someone who is loyal, but in some way inconvenient out of the way.
Perhaps the father is simply brought before the king, both sides state their arguement, and the king judges the father guilty. The father is then thrown in the deepest, dankest dungeon under the castle to rot until such time as his family can somehow prove he is innocent. In the meantime; he is malnourished, cold, mistreated, probably soon falling ill... father could die in the dungeon waiting for you to secure proof (assuming it exists) if you take too long, boy!
And my opinion is that having a time constraint because your father IS suffering, and could very well die while you are gone is better than "Hurry, find evidence before the very modern process of justice plays out and his trial ends!"
Perhaps the father is simply brought before the king, both sides state their arguement, and the king judges the father guilty. The father is then thrown in the deepest, dankest dungeon under the castle to rot until such time as his family can somehow prove he is innocent. In the meantime; he is malnourished, cold, mistreated, probably soon falling ill... father could die in the dungeon waiting for you to secure proof (assuming it exists) if you take too long, boy!
And my opinion is that having a time constraint because your father IS suffering, and could very well die while you are gone is better than "Hurry, find evidence before the very modern process of justice plays out and his trial ends!"
Mordane76
First Post
I have to be careful how much I say here, because I know at least one of my players reads ENWorld...
In my campaign, there is an overarching world organization left over from an empire that fell millenia ago called the Tribunal of Arcane Law. It is an accepted part of the remaining human kingdoms for the adjudication of arcane spellcasters, but only one of the human kingdoms is an (evil) magocratic society (the case in question does not take place in that kingdom).
Magic as a whole is accepted as a part of life, but most people are leery of magic because of its role in the fall of the empire millenia ago (big bad magical cataclysm like stuff from a war, ancillary to the matter at hand). The Tribunal knows that people accept them mostly out of fear, so it puts reins on spellcasters to try and keep a good image for mages everywhere. In this sort of atmosphere, the rule of law is first, with magic being used to support it if necessary... except maybe in the evil magocratic kingdom on the eastern seaboard, but that's another story entirely.
The primary religion in my campaign is a duality - Creator versus Destroyer. There are a number of Usurper gods gaining steam in the past thousand years or so, and they are generally accepted throughout most of my campaign world, but religion does not hold any major political clout in any kingdom, human or humanoid.
Primary, I want to maintain a separation between the magic and the rule of law so that mundanes can keep control...
In my campaign, there is an overarching world organization left over from an empire that fell millenia ago called the Tribunal of Arcane Law. It is an accepted part of the remaining human kingdoms for the adjudication of arcane spellcasters, but only one of the human kingdoms is an (evil) magocratic society (the case in question does not take place in that kingdom).
Magic as a whole is accepted as a part of life, but most people are leery of magic because of its role in the fall of the empire millenia ago (big bad magical cataclysm like stuff from a war, ancillary to the matter at hand). The Tribunal knows that people accept them mostly out of fear, so it puts reins on spellcasters to try and keep a good image for mages everywhere. In this sort of atmosphere, the rule of law is first, with magic being used to support it if necessary... except maybe in the evil magocratic kingdom on the eastern seaboard, but that's another story entirely.
The primary religion in my campaign is a duality - Creator versus Destroyer. There are a number of Usurper gods gaining steam in the past thousand years or so, and they are generally accepted throughout most of my campaign world, but religion does not hold any major political clout in any kingdom, human or humanoid.
Primary, I want to maintain a separation between the magic and the rule of law so that mundanes can keep control...
Graf
Explorer
Lots of different opinions here….
Personally I’d go with whatever you want.
A few comments:
Legal systems frequently use imprecise (i.e. possibly incorrect) methods of “proving” something.
Fingerprints turn up false negatives & positives regularly but they are still used in US courts of law.
Polygraph tests are heavily contested and –equally- heavily used (also in the US).
DNA testing is necessarily imprecise but also frequently used.
The fact that Zone of truth doesn’t always work doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be regularly used.
Assume to take a human commoner and bring him to a zone of truth while asking a few questions. He gives you some answers.
Assume you stick him back in his cell and bring him out the next day. Ask the same questions.
By the 3rd or 4th time you’ll have a pretty good chance of confirming what he knows.
Is it a perfect system? No. But it’d be pretty cheap and the people who are disadvantaged (having to sit in jail for days and days) are the criminals.
At the same time a person of noble birth may have a right to not go into the zone. (he doesn’t want to be exposed to a prosecutor who is under the thumb of an enemy and who could request embarrassing information or else secrets that the king doesn’t want to be revealed).
At which point you have a person who ‘looks’ guilty (he’s not going into the zone) but has good reasons (he’s been entrusted with secrets of the crown that he doesn’t want revealed) and who needs to be exonerated in some other manner.
This zone of truth system also has two good points from a gameworld standpoint:
It doesn’t require interpretation of third parties (unlike detect x), and its cheap (2nd level spell)
And one good point from story angles
It takes a while, so you can have lots of options for chicanery and adventure (someone tries to replace the divine caster and cast zone of lies, someone tries to provide an item or effect that grants SR, bonuses to saves, etc
Since someone who remains silent when charged is presumed to be guilty you can still have that “I kept my silence for fear that my enemies would discover secrets that must be protected for the good of the kingdom”.
I.e. you get to keep the drama of a trial that goes on for days without making up a complex legal system and doesn’t ignore the existence of magic.
Personally I’d go with whatever you want.
A few comments:
Legal systems frequently use imprecise (i.e. possibly incorrect) methods of “proving” something.
Fingerprints turn up false negatives & positives regularly but they are still used in US courts of law.
Polygraph tests are heavily contested and –equally- heavily used (also in the US).
DNA testing is necessarily imprecise but also frequently used.
The fact that Zone of truth doesn’t always work doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be regularly used.
Assume to take a human commoner and bring him to a zone of truth while asking a few questions. He gives you some answers.
Assume you stick him back in his cell and bring him out the next day. Ask the same questions.
By the 3rd or 4th time you’ll have a pretty good chance of confirming what he knows.
Is it a perfect system? No. But it’d be pretty cheap and the people who are disadvantaged (having to sit in jail for days and days) are the criminals.
At the same time a person of noble birth may have a right to not go into the zone. (he doesn’t want to be exposed to a prosecutor who is under the thumb of an enemy and who could request embarrassing information or else secrets that the king doesn’t want to be revealed).
At which point you have a person who ‘looks’ guilty (he’s not going into the zone) but has good reasons (he’s been entrusted with secrets of the crown that he doesn’t want revealed) and who needs to be exonerated in some other manner.
This zone of truth system also has two good points from a gameworld standpoint:
It doesn’t require interpretation of third parties (unlike detect x), and its cheap (2nd level spell)
And one good point from story angles
It takes a while, so you can have lots of options for chicanery and adventure (someone tries to replace the divine caster and cast zone of lies, someone tries to provide an item or effect that grants SR, bonuses to saves, etc
Since someone who remains silent when charged is presumed to be guilty you can still have that “I kept my silence for fear that my enemies would discover secrets that must be protected for the good of the kingdom”.
I.e. you get to keep the drama of a trial that goes on for days without making up a complex legal system and doesn’t ignore the existence of magic.
Endur
First Post
Mordane76 said:
If this were a magical version of the 21st century (i.e. today) then yes, I think that would be an appropriate law.
However, if it is a magical medieval society, I think the law will be a bit different. Medieval trials as well as modern trials were very focused on credibility, but in a medieval society credibility was much more likely to be determined by who you were (social status) and how well the jury and judge knew you.
Example: If you are the Duke's brother, the social status will help you considerably in a trial against a commoner. If you are the local bartender, the jury of your peers probably knows you much better than some wandering adventurer they had never heard of.
Modern juries seek jurors who know nothing (The Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes as a joror). Medieval juries sought people who knew both sides of the conflict and who could be trusted to reach a fair verdict.
Under this approach, if King's Court Wizard told the jury what his divinations were, the jury is likely to accept it as fact. If some wandering cleric of a god nobody has ever heard of gives testimony on divinations, the jury is likely to discount the testimony.
So, I'd follow the medieval magical society idea, and let all testimony in.
On the other hand, magic is relatively rare and expensive, so my Judges wouldn't hire their own spellcasters for divinations (except for very important cases). Only private parties in a lawsuit might use their money on magical divinations (i.e. the PCs, etc.), just as they might hire their own attorney instead of defending themself.
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