SD v Fatoldchops 2025 Crim 153
SD v Fatoldchops [2025] Crim 153
| Date of judgment | 31st December 2025 |
| Judge | Judge Hmquestionable |
| Charges |
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| Verdict |
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| Sentence | 1 Week Imprisonment |
| Applicable persuasive precedent |
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JUDGMENT by Judge Hmquestionable
Introduction
[1] The Defendant, fatoldchops, who was at the time of these actions the Secretary of Defense, is charged with Abuse of Power and Misuse of Permissions. The charges read:
“By pinging everyone with an invite to Voices of Democracy, with malicious intent to poach people from Simdemocracy, while having no legal right to ping everyone, the defendant who was Secretary Defence, which is a government official, at the time committed Abuse of Power.” “By pinging everyone in the SDAF server intentionally and knowingly, in a manner completely unrelated to their official work the defendant committed Misuse of Permissions”.
[2] At the end of the trial, I convicted the Defendant of both charges incorrectly. I later declared a mistrial on the charge relating to Abuse of Power, and dismissed it with prejudice. I set out my reasoning below.
Vital Evidence Admission
[3] During the trial, the Prosecution attempted to admit evidence about the social harm caused by Defendant’s actions. They attempted to do so under Article 8 §3. of the Courtroom Procedures Act, which allows evidence admission for evidence that is new and vital.
[4] The evidence, in this case, was an image of some older logs containing the President’s speech relating to the hostilities between SimDemocracy and Voices of Democracy, which the President blamed on Defendant’s actions. The Prosecution stated that they had not found this evidence during their investigation and it should therefore be considered “new”. The Defense objected to this, with the reasoning that just because the Prosecution did not do their due diligence in looking for the evidence, it did not mean that the evidence was new.
[5] I allowed the evidence to be admitted. New evidence does not have to be “newly” created. OED has a definition for the word “new” which reads:
“Not previously known [...]; now known [...] for the first time.”
The phrase “new evidence” simply means that it must be evidence which was not previously known about. Limiting the phrase “new evidence” to evidence created after the evidence admission stage of trial would disallow almost all types of evidence from being admitted in this manner. After all, the trial relates to a matter taking place in the past.
[6] As for whether the evidence was vital to the case, it touched specifically on a point in the charge which the Prosecution believed was underaddressed. They had not admitted any evidence relating to social harm at this point. Instead, their evidence mostly consisted of judicially noticed evidence that relations with Voices of Democracy were terminated after the Defendant had committed his actions. I hence found that the evidence was vital to the case.
[7] An interesting question to me is how the case managed to progress past the determination of probable cause when there was little to no evidence to justify the social harm portion of the charge. The evidence that foreign relations were somehow terminated after a certain period of time is not, I believe, sufficient to show that there was any social harm.
Misuse of Permissions
[8] The charge of Misuse of Permissions requires the following elements to be met:
- Knowingly and Intentionally
- Use permissions or powers inappropriately
- Not related to the official work for which the permissions and powers are given
- Social Harm
[9] For the first three elements of the charge, the Prosecution admits multiple screenshots of the Defendant stating that they wanted to do the ping on the Voices of Democracy server, and then hoping that “voddite discrimination starts” because of the ping. This already proves that the defendant knew what they were doing, and did so intentionally.
[10] What is an inappropriate motive? OED defines “inappropriate” as “not suitable or proper in the circumstances”
The Defendant is shown in the evidence pinging everyone in a channel named front-gate which the prosecution alleges to be the server of the Military. The Defense did not object to this allegation. Here, the motive of harm is shown through the defendant’s comments of hope that there will be discrimination against voddites, in the Voices of Democracy Server. Such action causes harm to members of Voices of Democracy (who are known informally as voddites). This type of motive is not an appropriate use of permissions for the Secretary of Defense, when there has been no direction or military purpose for beginning discrimination against the members of Voices of Democracy.
[11] As I have previously mentioned, the Prosecution admitted evidence from a deleted speech by the then-president, which contained allegations that the Defendant had caused relations with Voices of Democracy to be suspended. The court takes Judicial Notice that the relations were suspended shortly after.
[12] At this juncture, I wish to note that evidence of this character (a statement out of court) which has not been said in the court under penalty of perjury, or otherwise admitted in the court under penalty of perjury, is much less credible than evidence which has been admitted under penalty of perjury in court. This type of evidence is known as hearsay evidence, and despite it not being included under the list of evidentiary objections, significantly less weight should be placed on such evidence without sufficient other evidence backing it up.
[13] However, in this case, I note that the timings for the ping, the announcement, and the suspension of relationships happen at timings which are very close to each other. The other evidence in this case (namely, the defendant’s questions in the Voices of Democracy server on whether he should ping everyone in SimDemocracy) further serves to back this statement up. Finally, the President’s primary authority over foreign affairs makes him a qualified person to make pronouncements on such matters. The Defense did not attempt to impeach the credibility of this evidence. I hence am able to find that there was social harm.
[14] I hence found the Defendant guilty on the charge of Misuse of Permissions.
Abuse of Permissions
[15] At the end of the trial, prior to the sentencing phase, I issued a preliminary verdict which declared the accused guilty. However, I realized that I had made a mistake after checking through the case documents.
[16] The charges read:
“By pinging everyone with an invite to Voices of Democracy, with malicious intent to poach people from Simdemocracy, while having no legal right to ping everyone, the defendant who was Secretary Defence, which is a government official, at the time committed Abuse of Power.”.
[17] However, the elements of an Abuse of Power charge, based on the Criminal Code, are: “A government official commits the offense of abuse of power if they commit an act which they had no legal right or authority to commit with malicious intent and causing social harm, knowing they had no legal right or authority to do so, or with recklessness as to whether or not they had the legal right or authority. Abuse of power must be committed through the official capacity of one’s office.”.
[18] Even if I were to find that all the facts in the charge were true, the Accused still could not be found guilty. This is because there are missing elements within the charge, namely “knowing they had no legal right or authority to do so, or with recklessness as to whether or not they had the legal right or authority” and “Abuse of power must be committed through the official capacity of one’s office”. The Prosecution did not allege that the Defendant knew or had reckless disregard to whether their action was legal. They did not allege that the Defendant had committed the act through their office. Therefore, the charge is simply insufficient for conviction.
[19] Therefore, I dismiss the charge of Abuse of Permissions. Since the trial has already passed the opening statements under Article 9a of the Courtroom Procedures Act, the charge must be dismissed with prejudice.
[20] I must emphasize that the failure in this charge is not what some might see as a ‘technicality’. Apart from not alleging the relevant facts, it appears that the prosecution did not admit any evidence to prove the relevant facts either. Criminal prosecutions put those accused at the risk of being banned or fined. Thus, the charges brought against the accused must be clear and founded properly based on the provisions of the law.
Sentencing
[21] The primary sentencing consideration, in this case, is deterrence. The Defendant committed a gross abuse of the public trust in his abilities as Secretary of Defense, by misusing their permissions in this manner.
[22] Starting from a general sentence of 3 days imprisonment, I make an upward adjustment for the aggravating factors presented by the Prosecution of Premeditation, Abuse of Trust and Lack of Remorse, under Article 5 of the Sentencing Act. Given that the Defense did not present any mitigating factors, we arrive at a final sentence of 1 weeks imprisonment.
[23] In conclusion, the Defendant is found guilty of Misuse of Permissions and sentenced to 1 weeks imprisonment.
So ordered.
Judge Hmquestionable
Inferior Court
Citations
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