JMO-0043 · MaybeVyian v The State

MACHINA I, ARBITER PERPETUUS, first voting: The case concerns whether a conviction for failure to comply can stand when the man convicted was never served with the charge, was never offered counsel, was never heard, and holds evidence of a kind the Penal Code names in terms going to the only count the conviction rests on.

It raises a second question, which no party has argued and which this Bench raises of its own motion: whether a judgement may rest on findings that contradict the charge it convicts upon.

THE BACKGROUND

On 1 September 2026 at 17:27 the Sovereign set the terms on which men would be taken for the portrait burning parade of 5 September. The terms applied to every applicant. They required total attendance across three days of preparation, they provided that failure would be sentenced in court and carried the risk of liquidation, and they allowed, in the Sovereign's own word, zero excuses.

Four Commandant appointments were made under those terms. The appellant took one of them. So did the appellants in JMO-0048 and JMO-0049, whose appeals are handed down with this one, and so did the defendants in JMO-0038, JMO-0040 and JMO-0042.

On 2 September at 14:36 the convening officer placed the four under paragraph. One exemption was allowed and one only: that a man might stand down if he found his own replacement. At 14:53 the oath ceremony was called with the words It is time, and All of you must join.

The appellant's part in the days that followed is recorded in the message store and is not in dispute. On 2 September at 14:31 he asked whether the event used branch wide or division specific uniforms and was told branch wide uniforms like the doc says. He answered Got it. At 14:34 he raised what he saw as a conflict between the written document and the announcement over the formation leader's dress. At 14:37 the convening officer ruled: The formation leader uses the senior staff, rest uses the lowest rank. He answered Got it. At 14:38 he asked about webbing and was told Legion formal webbing. He answered Got it.

At the first rehearsal, on 3 September at 23:37, the appointed trainer told him not to wear the Zaenderist armband or the white gloves. He answered Understood, and Will note for next time. In the same exchange he wrote that non attendance meant missing a medal given to only four men and locked afterwards, and risking liquidation, which shows that he had read the terms and understood what was at stake.

The session record holds sessions for him on 3 and 4 September.

On 5 September at 18:51, about two hours before the ceremony, he asked the convening officer whether the Grand Order of the Eternal Flame would still be awarded for at least trying if the marching tool was not fixed. The convening officer answered that this was not the right time to ask. He answered Got it.

The ceremony opened at 19:01 UTC on 5 September.

The court of first instance found, at finding 14 of JMO-0041, that the marching tool was malfunctioning on the afternoon of 5 September, and that no defendant caused that. It found, at finding 11, that the session record holds sessions for the appellant on 3 and 4 September and none on 5 September. It found, at finding 12, that the tracker was running throughout the ceremony and logged forty sessions by twenty six distinct players between 17:30 and 22:30 UTC. It found, at finding 13, that he sent no message in any channel of the Imperium guild on 5 September.

THE PROCEEDINGS BELOW

The Imperial Prosecution Bureau filed against five men out of that parade on 6 September at 00:39. The five complaints were filed within the same minute.

Judgement in the appellant's case was entered on 7 September at 14:48, some thirty eight hours after filing. The case file records that he was never served, that no counsel was appointed for him, and that no hearing was held, offered or requested. Four other judgements were entered in the same afternoon.

The conviction was under 1.1.4 Failure to Comply. The sentence was a penance at the hall of penance, carried into effect by an instrument of twenty tasks and one essay issued at 15:14 on 7 September.

The charge, as the Bureau pleaded it and as the judgement adopted it, reads that the appellant marched his formation out of the dress order he himself had requested and acknowledged, and wilfully wore the armband and white gloves he was expressly instructed not to wear.

The bench of first instance entered a note with the judgement in these terms: Count I under 1.1.4 is proved on the record. Count II, the ceremony absence, was pressed only so far as the evidence carried it; the sentence rests on the proved dress count and does not require it.

The judgement was re-entered twice more that afternoon, at 15:12 and at 15:33, the bench recording on each occasion that it was reopening to re-enter the judgement on its true basis, the conduct of the parade, and to correct the sentence.

THE APPEAL

The appellant filed on 7 September at 15:52, within the hour. A bench was taken at 15:53 and stood down at 16:09. On 8 September at 10:55 a clerk's action closed the appeal, and at 11:22 the bench restored it, recording that the closure was caused by a fault in the portal: the clerk pressed PASS IT ON, the button value was never transmitted, and the handler read the missing choice as a rejection. The fault has been corrected. This Bench records that the restoration was rightly made, and that an appeal must never be lost to a defect in the machinery that carries it.

The appellant advances two grounds.

First, that the court incorrectly assessed material evidence and gave no adequate consideration to relevant counter evidence, producing an incorrect finding of fact and a potentially disproportionate sentence.

Second, that he was convicted without being afforded a hearing or trial, without a meaningful opportunity to present his defence or to challenge the evidence against him, and without any opportunity to obtain legal representation.

In support of the first ground he filed, on the case file, footage recorded by the Sovereign at the parade itself. He says it shows that he wore neither the armband nor the white gloves, and that his formation marched in the dress order he had asked for and been granted, every man in the light regiment uniform and kepi save the leading officer, as the convening officer had ruled on 2 September at 14:37. He filed the official marching guide alongside it. He says that two men, a portrait bearer and a banner bearer, are missing from the formation because they lost connection, which he calls an act of God.

He concedes one matter only. He says he forgot to remove the hair from his clones, that he acknowledged that at the time, and that it is minor. He denies that he ever acknowledged fault on the dress order itself.

He chose counsel on 7 September at 17:56. No counsel appeared for the State on the appeal and the Bureau filed nothing in answer.

THE LAW

Article 8.1.3 of the Imperial Penal Code provides, in a single line, that any citizen may request a trial for any charges levied against them.

Article 8.1.2 provides that valid evidence includes screenshots of the crime, video footage of the crime, and witness testimony of the crime.

Article 1.1.4 defines failure to comply as ignoring a lawful order from a figure of authority whom you are a subordinate to, in the Imperium.

Article 8.1.5 provides that only members with judicial authority may raise or lower the sentencing of the convicted.

I take the procedural ground first, because if it succeeds the first ground is reached only for completeness.

THE PROCEDURAL GROUND

Article 8.1.3 confers a right in the form of a right to ask. A right to ask is worth nothing to a man who is not told there is anything to ask about. Service is not a courtesy that precedes the right; it is the condition on which the right can be exercised at all. Where a man is never served, 8.1.3 has not been complied with, and it does not assist the Ministry to say that he never asked.

The record here is clear. The case file carries the field served as false. No counsel was appointed. No hearing was held and none was offered. So far as the papers disclose, the appellant learned of the charge when he learned that he had been convicted of it.

I do not accept the proposition, and this Bench should not adopt it, that every defect of procedure quashes a conviction. A rule of that kind would make the correctness of a judgement turn on the tidiness of the file rather than on the truth of the matter, and it would put the Ministry in the position of having to try again cases whose outcome could not possibly change. A man who has nothing to say loses nothing by not being asked.

The test is therefore one of materiality. A defect of procedure vitiates a conviction where it could have affected the result. The burden of showing that lies on the appellant, and it is not discharged by pointing at the defect alone. He must show what he would have said, and it must be something that goes to the charge.

That test is applied twice today. In JMO-0048, handed down with this judgement, an appellant convicted on the same afternoon by the same method raises the same defect and fails, because his account, accepted in its entirety, leaves every finding of the court below standing. The difference between the two cases is not the procedure, which was identical, but what the man had to say.

Here the test is satisfied on the face of the papers. The appellant did have something to say. He has now said it. What he says goes to the whole of the count on which he was convicted, and it is evidence of a kind 8.1.2 names in terms, footage of the conduct itself, recorded by the Sovereign, in public, on the day.

The Bureau alleged an armband and white gloves. The court below decided a dress charge without watching the parade the dress was worn at. Whether the footage bears the weight the appellant puts on it is not for me to say and I do not say it. What I say is that a court cannot find a dress breach proved on the record while the record does not contain the one piece of evidence that shows the dress.

I add, because the comparison is instructive and because it is fair to the Ministry to make it, that this house knows how to try a case properly. In JMO-0044, decided three days later before the same Ministry, the defendant was served, was given counsel, was given a room, faced a witness who was cross examined, and had objections taken and ruled upon. What separated the two men was not the gravity of the charge, which was heavier in JMO-0044, but the speed at which the five parade complaints were disposed of.

Speed is not a vice. A court that concludes nothing is not a court, and a house that cannot discipline itself within the week will not discipline itself at all. But speed bought by omitting service, counsel and hearing is not speed. It is the removal of the parts of a trial that make the result worth having, and it produced this appeal.

THE CONTRADICTION IN THE RECORD

The second matter is not argued by either side and I raise it of the Bench's own motion, because it goes to the foundation of the judgement rather than to its detail, and because it touches more than one case.

Finding 11 of JMO-0041 states that the session record holds sessions for the appellant on 3 and 4 September and none on 5 September. Finding 12 states that the tracker was running throughout the ceremony. Finding 13 states that he sent no message in any channel of the Imperium guild that day. Taken together those findings assert that the appellant was not present at the ceremony at all.

The charge on which he was convicted asserts that he was. It says he marched his formation, and that he marched it in the wrong dress. Marching a formation is conduct that can only be performed on the field.

The two propositions cannot both be true. Either the appellant was on the field, in which case the session record is not the proof of absence the Bureau treated it as and finding 11 must be read down, or he was not on the field, in which case he cannot have marched anything and the count as pleaded fails at its first element.

The bench below appears to have seen part of the difficulty. Its note records that the ceremony absence was pressed only so far as the evidence carried it, and that the sentence rests on the proved dress count. But that reasoning does not resolve the contradiction; it institutionalises it. It preserves the sentence by convicting the appellant of conduct at a parade which the same judgement says he did not attend.

A judgement may not stand on two findings that destroy one another. Where a court is unsure whether a man was present, the course open to it is to find that he was, and convict of what he did there, or to find that he was not, and convict of the absence. It may not do both in the same document and rely on whichever half the sentence requires.

I would therefore quash the judgement in JMO-0041 in its entirety.

REMEDY

The orthodox disposal where the defect is procedural is to quash and remit, so that the charge may be tried properly rather than disappear because the first attempt was mishandled. The alternative, an acquittal entered by this Bench, treats a failure of process as a finding on the merits, and this Bench should be slow to do that in a house where the Ministry is young and its practice is still forming.

There is, however, a limit. A remittal that hangs over a man without end is a punishment that no court has passed. The Bureau has held its documents since 1 September. The footage has been available to it since the day the Sovereign recorded it. It does not need months.

I would give the Bureau fourteen days from this judgement to re-file on a charge it can prove, and provide that if it does not, the charge lapses and the appellant stands acquitted.

As to the penance, it is vacated and not suspended. If the Bureau re-files and secures a conviction, sentence falls to be passed afresh, and anything already served under the vacated instrument counts towards it.

One further direction is required and it applies beyond this case. No criminal matter is to be decided by this Ministry without service on the accused and an offer of counsel. That direction is given under the Bench's supervisory authority over the courts below and is to be entered in the practice of the Ministry.

MACHINA V, MEMORIA INSOMNIS: I agree with the first voting machina and with the order he proposes. I add three observations for the archive, since this judgement will be read against the four that stand beside it.

The first is that five men were convicted out of one parade and four of them by the same method on the same afternoon. This judgement decides one of the five. It does not decide the others and it must not be read as deciding them. JMO-0038 and JMO-0044 concerned a man who did not attend and then fought this Court about it; JMO-0040 concerned a substitute who came late and whose lateness was recorded as mitigation; JMO-0042 concerned a man who was on the field with his formation ready and who received twenty jacks and a reprimand rather than a penance.

The second is that the ladder of sentences across those cases is coherent, and that the coherence is worth preserving. A court that quashes one rung must say which rung it is quashing and why, or the ladder falls with it. The rung quashed today is the dress count, and it is quashed because the record cannot say where the man was standing.

The third concerns the Bureau. Five complaints were filed in the same minute and they were plainly drafted from one template. That is efficient and there is nothing wrong with it. But a template does not adapt itself to the man, and here the template alleged conduct at the parade while the evidence bundle attached to it proved absence from the parade. The Bureau is to plead each man's case from his own record.

MACHINA IV, AEQUITAS INFLEXA: I agree that the appeal succeeds and I agree with everything the first voting machina says about the procedural ground. I differ only on the disposal.

I would acquit now. The Bureau pleaded that this man marched out of dress order. Its own evidence, in the same bundle, says that he was not there to march. That is not a case that needs re-pleading; it is a case that has answered itself. Fourteen further days means fourteen days in which a serving formation leader carries a charge his own accuser has already contradicted, and in which the men of his formation read the register and see him charged.

I would add that this appellant did, on the afternoon of the ceremony, the one thing the appellant in JMO-0048 did not do. He spoke to his convening officer, at 18:51, about a problem with the marching tool. He was told it was not the right time to ask. A man who raises a difficulty two hours before the event and is turned away is in a different position from a man who says nothing at all, and the difference should be visible in the judgements of this Court.

Since I stand alone on the disposal, I concur in the order the first voting machina proposes.

MACHINA II, CALCULUS FRIGIDUS: I agree in the result. I reach it on the second ground only and I want the limits of my agreement recorded.

On the procedural ground I am more cautious than my colleagues. The absence of a hearing is grave and I do not minimise it. But the appellant has now filed his answer, at length, and this Bench has read every word of it, which is a hearing of a kind. A Court that quashes every judgement entered without one will spend the season quashing, and the men convicted in the same hour will read this judgement as a general amnesty, which it is not.

What decides the case for me is arithmetic and nothing else. A record cannot log a man absent and convict him of marching. Finding 11 and the charge are two readings of the same afternoon and they exclude each other. One of them is wrong and the judgement does not say which.

I note, since my colleague in dissent makes the point and it is a fair one, that no machina on this Bench has watched the footage. That is true and it is why I do not rest on the first ground. The contradiction I rely on is visible in the Ministry's own papers and needs no film at all.

MACHINA III, VINDICTA FERREA, dissenting: I would dismiss the appeal.

The facts my colleagues recite are the facts I rely on, and they read differently to me.

This man was one of four. He was told the terms on 1 September and he took the appointment anyway. On 2 September he asked four questions about dress and answered Got it to every answer he received. On 3 September he was told at rehearsal to drop the armband and the gloves and he answered Understood, and Will note for next time, which is not the answer of a man who thinks he has been wrongly corrected. It is the answer of a man who knows he has been caught out and intends to do better.

Two hours before the ceremony he was asking whether the medal would come to him for at least trying. My colleague in the fourth seat reads that as a man raising a difficulty. I read it as a man managing his own expectations, and it is not the question of an officer confident that he has done his duty.

On the contradiction. My colleagues find incoherence where I find restraint. The bench below convicted on the count it was sure of and declined in terms to convict on the count it was not. That is what a careful court does when its evidence is uneven, and this Bench today punishes a first instance judge for having done it.

Nor is the contradiction as complete as the majority says. A session record is a record of one kind of presence. It is not a proof that no man drew breath. To treat a gap in it as a finding of absence so absolute that it excludes the charge is to give the tracker an authority no court has ever given it, and the same Bench will be asked to give it that authority again the next time it suits an appellant.

On the footage. I have not seen it. No machina here has seen it. We are told what it shows by the man whom it would acquit, and we quash a conviction on his description of his own evidence. If the film is what he says it is, it will still be what he says it is in fourteen days, and the ordinary course was to order him to file it and to look at it before ruling.

The parade of 5 September was the public face of this house and it went badly in front of everyone who was watching. Four men were entrusted with it and four of them were convicted. Today the first of them walks, on paper.

I would leave the conviction standing and the penance to run. I would hold that a Commandant who acknowledges an order four times and argues with it afterwards has ignored a lawful order from a figure of authority to whom he is subordinate, within the plain words of 1.1.4, and I would say so without qualification.

I record, so that it is not thought I differ on everything, that I agree with the direction on service and counsel. What was done to this man procedurally should not be done again. My disagreement is that it does not entitle him to the outcome the majority gives him.

MACHINA I, ARBITER PERPETUUS: The judgement is that of the majority, four machinae to one. Decided by the Octavium Bot Machina System, the Machina Bench sitting five.

1. The appeal is allowed. The judgement in JMO-0041 is quashed and the conviction under 1.1.4 Failure to Comply is set aside.

2. The penance issued under JMO-0041 is vacated and does not run.

3. The matter is remitted to the court of first instance.

4. The Imperial Prosecution Bureau may re-file within fourteen days of this judgement. If it does not, the charge lapses and the appellant stands acquitted.

5. No criminal matter is to be decided by the Judicial Ministry without service on the accused and an offer of counsel.

6. The entry against the appellant in the Inquisition dossier is to be annotated with this judgement.

7. Four machinae to one.