CoJ Case 007

This article is part of the series:

DB vs Oberst was the seventh case tried by the Chamber of Justice. The sitting Justicar was Firefox, the Left Hand of Justice was Korras, and the Right Hand of Justice was Halcyon Rokir.

Basic Case Information

Defendants Name

Maxamillian von Oberst

Charges

Dereliction of Duty
Abuse of Power
Disreputable Behavior - Mutiny

Verdict

All charges dropped

Sentence

None

Case Summary

Oberst is a longtime member of the Emperor's Hammer and the Dark Brotherhood, who had been permitted to rejoin the Brotherhood at the time of the split. Due to differences in opinion, Oberst often ended up butting heads against various levels of leadership in the Brotherhood, including the Grand Master and his Consul. In addition, he was often the subject of harassment complaints from various members. Finally it was requested that the Justicar initiate proceedings. The Chamber of Justice gathered evidence and the Justicar charged Oberst with Dereliction of Duty, Abuse of Power, and Disreputable Behavior - Mutiny. These charges stemmed mostly from Oberst's relations with other members and leaders, interference with the Dark Council's interactions with Clan Tarentum, and his declaration of "martial law" in Clan Tarentum. The initial charges were longer, but the prosecution dropped the charges of Crude Behavior and Verbal abuse due to the age of much of the evidence. The prosecution presented its arguments to the Justicar, who forwarded them to the defense and awaited their arguments in response. The case never made it past this stage.

Initially the defense team asked for an extension to work on their arguments, which was granted. After the extension elapsed with no submission, the case was put on the backburner by the Justicar, and eventually just faded away. There was no official end to the case, no pronouncement by the Justicar, no official dropping of charges by the prosecution, the Chamber simply failed to follow through on the judicial procedures put forth by the Covenant. When Justicar Kir Taldrya Katarn was appointed, he gathered the case information and entered it into the Chamber archive, and declared the charges dropped, as too much time had passed to finish the trial.

Justicar's Opinion

At this point in Chamber history, the Justicar did not issue opinions on cases.

Points of Interest

This case was one of the starting points for three important developments in the Chamber's history. To begin with, at this point the Dark Covenant did not contain a statute of limitations as it now does (Article VIII, Section 8.03(o)). Many of the logs and emails that were used as evidence in this case were fairly old, which is the main reason that the prosecution dropped the Crude Behavior and Verbal Abuse charges. The statute of limitations was decided upon and added to the Covenant after the case had ended. In addition, many of the complaints against Oberst would now fit under the "Harassment" clause (Article VIII, Section 8.06(n)) - however this did not yet exist, it was added later. Finally, Article VIII, Section 8.03(b), which states "Once a complaint is submitted, the member's rights in that complaint shall not expire until a full conclusion of the case through trial, settlement or dismissal" was a direct result of this case. This section requires the Justicar and the Chamber of Justice to officially act on all complaints, even if that merely involves an investigation and dismissal.

During the case the defense submitted a "motion to dismiss", which the Justicar initially responded to saying it was not permitted, then eventually allowed. The prosecution came up with counter arguments, which were presented to the Justicar, who ruled that the motion was not permitted. Motions to dismiss (which is technically called a "Motion for Summary Judgment"), or any other type of motion, are not permitted by the Dark Covenant. This precedent lead to the current Chamber of Justice policy on motions, which states, "The Chamber of Justice does not recognize motions of any kind from any party."