CoJ Case 009

This article is part of the series:

DB vs Halc was the ninth case tried by the Chamber of Justice. The sitting Justicar was Kir Taldrya Katarn, the Left Hand of Justice (Doni Tzu Tarentae) recused himself, and the Right Hand of Justice was Dacien "BubbaX" Victae.

Basic Case Information

Defendants Name

Halcyon Rokir

Charges

Plagiarism

Verdict

Not Guilty

Sentence

None

Case Summary

When he was Consul of Clan Arcona, Halcyon created a page on the Arcona website that listed the fictional military ground forces of the clan. Once it was posted, members of Clan Tarentum declared that it had been plagiarized from their own military page, and complained to Justicar Firefox, who retired soon thereafter. The case was handed down to Justicar Kir Taldrya Katarn upon his appointment, and he determined that the initial arguments had merit, and a full and detailed investigation and trial should take place. The Chamber of Justice charged Halcyon with plagiarism, and then convened to weigh the evidence and determine his guilt or innocence. The Left Hand of Justice, Doni Tzu Tarentae, recused himself because of his involvement with the material in question. After examining the evidence and discussing it, the Right Hand of Justice and Justicar came to the same conclusion, that while there were some similarities, they did not meet the criteria for plagiarism. Therefore Halcyon was found not guilty of the charge.

Justicar's Opinion

Posted By Kir Taldrya Katarn - 2/5/2007
Justicar's Opinion - Case #009 Dark Brotherhood vs. Halcyon Rokir

The complaint brought against DJM Halc was that of plagiarism. While he was Consul of Arcona, Halc was said to have taken the Military Ground Forces layout of Clan Tarentum and then used them with very few changes for Clan Arcona. Halc also did admit to looking at the Tarentum site prior to creating his. This was later viewed on the Arcona website, and the complaint was registered under Justicar Firefox. An investigation and discussion were begun, and this information was all handed down to me upon my appointment.

The decision was made to formally charge Halc with Plagiarism and proceed from there. Since the penalty for the charge was less than three-grade demotion or expulsion, the Chamber of Justice convened to weigh the evidence and determine his guilt or innocence. Left Hand of Justice Donitz recused himself during this time due to his personal involvement as author of the Tarentum document. After examining the evidence and discussing it, the Right Hand of Justice and Justicar came to the same conclusion, and the decision was announced. Our focus in the investigation and the examination was a comparison of the two documents.

The main similarities include the fact that the planets are listed from innermost to outermost, both have numerically correct (1,2,3) unit designations, they both omit several unit types (command, intelligence, quartermaster, etc), and the general formatting. The order of planets in Brotherhood documents typically go either inner to outer, or outer to inner, giving any posted system a 50/50 chance of matching up with any other. The numerically ordered unit designations would seem normal to anyone not acquainted with real world random designations, which is confirmed by the fact that several other clans use numerically ordered designations as well. The omission of certain unit types cannot be used as fair comparison considering the staggering amount of possible units - all orders of battle will match up many "missing" unit types. Finally the use of tabs to indicate inferior position is used throughout both documents, but this is a very common formating technique.

While a quick glance might make it appear the two are very similar, in reality the similarities have more to do with the way the documents are formatted, than the actual content. For example; Arcona's contains 89 Divisions while Tarentum's boasts 112, Arcona has only five different division types while Tarentum has 10, Arcona is completely devoid of Armor divisions while Tarentum has both heavy and medium armor, Arcona has plain artillery divisions while Tarentum has space, medium, and heavy mobile artillery, finally Arcona uses brigades while Tarentum never does. These are simply a few of the differences in actual content.

Beyond the specific content differences, it is the court's opinion that the authors of Clan Tarentum's document did not create the Army, Corps, Division, etc. nor Infantry, Artillery, etc. designations and thus cannot lay sole claim to their use. In fact, these are easily researched terms that can be found in many online sources. In addition, the format used by both documents (i.e. Army > Corps > Divisions) is a common standard used by nearly all western armies.

This preponderance of facts led the Chamber to the decision that Dark Jedi Master Halcyon Rokir was not guilty of the charge of plagiarism. We included a warning to be more careful in future endeavors because we believe something as simple as minor formating changes or crediting sources could have avoided this entire process. For the record the offending site has been taken down by Clan Arcona, and we received full cooperation from all parties.

Signed and Sealed in Justice,
Dark Side Adept Kir Taldrya Katarn
Justicar and High Protector of the Dark Brotherhood

Points of Interest

Two important developments originated from this case. The first was the introduction of the Justicar's Opinion, a detailed explanation of the case and decisions made by the court, issued by the Justicar at the end of the trial. New Justicar Kir Taldrya Katarn determined that too much of the Chamber was shrouded in mystery due to it's closed proceedings, so he decided to post opinions for each case to open up the details of the process to the members. This was the first case in which such an opinion was issued, soon afterwards the Dark Covenant was amended to make the Justicar's Opinion a requirement for every case. The second development was the Recusal rule - if a Hand of Justice recuses himself, the Justicar may replace him with a Dark Council member for that case. In this case the Left Hand of Justice had recused himself, which left the Chamber shorthanded, with merely the Justicar and Right Hand of Justice to review the case material. After the trial had concluded it was decided that there must be a procedure for filling a position that was vacant due to recusal so the Chamber would have three members during all trials.