SD v Notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool 2025 Crim 103
SD v notcommunist366, Creative, & Acool [2025] Crim 103
| Date of judgment | 28th July 2025 |
| Judge | Justice Ivy Cactus |
| Charges |
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| Verdict |
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| Sentence |
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| Applicable persuasive precedent |
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JUDGMENT by Justice Ivy Cactus
Introduction
[1] The state brought five (5) charges of Making a False Report, two (2) against Creative and Acool each, and another against notcommunist366, for repeatedly pinging the SDBI on July 7th of this year without genuine cause.
[2] The state brought this as a joint trial due to the similar facts. Before a ruling could be made on if these charges should be tried, defendants Creative and Acool pleaded out. The pre-trial and trial proceeded with notcommunist366 as the sole defendant.
Procedural and Evidentiary Considerations
[3] At several times throughout the proceedings, the defense made evidentiary motions that were out of order or otherwise unusual. The court will endeavor to articulate its rulings and explain its reasoning in relation to these motions, providing a comprehensive picture of the case for those reading and to assist future courts in deciding similar matters.
[4] At the end of pre-trial, about an hour and a half, after it was declared officially concluded (which followed a five (5) hour period for parties to make final motions in pre-trial, which both sides explicitly declined), the defendant attempted to object to one of the prosecution’s exhibits based on lack of context. The court overruled this motion on the basis that evidentiary motions may only occur during pre-trial. This reading comes from a combination of the CPA Article 7§3.1 (“Either side may then admit evidence for use in the Trial, and make any necessary motions. They may do so earlier if the Judge so allows”), and Article 13§3 (“During any time when the evidence is presented; either party to the legal proceeding may raise an objection regarding a violation of procedures or rules of evidence”). These sections, combined, clearly outline that the proper time to enter evidence is during pre-trial, and that evidence objections are to be raised during the same stage of proceedings as the entering of evidence. Due to this, objections following pre-trial are clearly out of bounds and incongruent with the legally mandated procedures.
- [4.1] One further consideration is whether evidentiary objections based on new evidence that disputes or disproves the earlier admitted evidence would be in bounds; this very well may be the case. The late objection, though, was not based on new evidence, so this point is simply moot.
[5] At the beginning of trial, before the prosecution had even given opening statements, the defense motioned to enter new evidence that was “vital to their case” (the standard required to enter new evidence under Article 21§3). The prosecution objected “to ts [this shit]” (a phrasing that the court can only assume the prosecutor used due to a shocking lack of working knowledge in African American Vernacular English, and a shocking amount of working knowledge in Instagram Reelology), on the basis that the evidence was not new and vital. The defense responded that it was evidence of crimes being committed in chat (presumably the context the prosecution neglected to include, as discussed in [4]), to which the prosecution contended that while it may be considered vital, it certainly could not be considered “new”). The defense also cited Kingred to say the court should ignore the wording of the text and allow the defense to admit the evidence regardless.
[6] The court, upon waking up and reading the argumentation outlined above, overruled the motion. The court believes that for evidence to be entered as new, it needs to actually be new. As there is no true way to look into a counsel’s head and see if this is the case, it was decided that for evidence to be considered new, a party must not have known of the evidence beforehand, and not have been expected to have gathered said evidence with a reasonable amount of diligence. The defendant was in the chat at the time of the evidence they wished to enter; it was directly adjacent to other evidence entered, and publicly available in its entirety. Due to this, the evidence clearly could not be considered “new” nor could it be said that the defendant had just “found it”. In this situation, the court could not have admitted the evidence without blatant disregard for the structure of courtroom procedures. To put it as was stated in court: “Failing to enter evidence in pre-trial when you were perfectly capable of doing so does not make it new evidence when you realize it's important.”
[7] Following the end of the defense’s evidence presentation, they attempted to call a witness. The court refused this attempt. The court is of the opinion that, while Article 12§2 (“Either party in a legal proceeding may motion to call witnesses, provided they offer adequate reasoning, subject to the judge's discretion”) does not explicitly give a time when this must be done, the formerly mentioned Article 7§3.7 requires said motion be done in pre-trial, which is further confirmed by Article 7§3.8 (“The court will declare the pre-trial over, and ensure all the documents, preliminary rulings and evidence are prepared for the trial court”). The fundamental concept here is that going into trial, both sides should be aware of what evidence and witnesses are supposed to be used in trial unless such is not possible, which is what motions for new evidence are for. When presented with the option to make a motion for new evidence to call the witness, the defense declined, putting an end to the issue.
Facts of the Matter
[8] The prosecution presented evidence of the defendant pinging SDBI twice in a row, and then replying to the statement shortly after with “oops”.
[9] The defendant presented evidence that the SDBI and SBDI roles are extremely similar and hard to make out, with the former being real law enforcement and the latter a joke role made for pinging as a joke.
[10] The defense also pointed to the evidence that was used to establish probable cause for Creative and Acool, which would establish a crime occurring in chat at the same time as notcommunist366’s pings to the SDBI. The prosecution pointed out that even the latter of these two (2) pings was still five (5) minutes before notcommunist366’s conduct.
Considerations
[11] Making a False Report is one of the newest statutes to be added to the Criminal Code 2020, making this the seminal case on its application. As such, what may seem to be a relatively straightforward case will require a very close examination of the statute and what certain phrases mean.
[12] To begin, it's necessary to ascertain what is necessary to convict under Making a False Report (specifically §1.2, which is the section the prosecution sought to make the conviction under). For this, the defense put it best: “For the defendant to be found guilty, the prosecution must prove that (a) The defendant either mass summoned the SDBI or filed a false report and (b) That such a claim was manifestly without merit.”
[13] Neither side contests that the pings to the SDBI did indeed happen, and as stated in CPA Article 13§6 “A fact admitted by both parties or their agents in writing need not be proved during trial,” as such (a) is fulfilled, and the court need only decide if the summoning was “manifestly without legal merit.”
[14] This was the point of contention between counsels throughout the trial, with the prosecution arguing that the pings were clearly without merit and the defense arguing that there were crimes occurring in chat that warranted the pings.
[15] Before it is decided if the defendant mass summoned the SDBI in a situation manifestly without legal merit, it must be decided what it means for something to be “manifestly without legal merit”. The defense posits a very strict reading, where if a crime had occurred in the chat around the ping, the situation automatically merited pinging the SDBI. The prosecution, on the other hand, put forward a very lax reading wherein anything that obviously did not require the SDBI’s attention would be “manifestly without legal merit.” The court believes that the requirement in CC Article 22a§2, that a judge must make “a determination whether the person knew or ought to know that their claim was manifestly without legal merit,” implies that there is more to consider in §1.2 than simply if a crime was occurring in chat. Legal merit, generally, carries a connotation of substance over technicality. That is, for something to be manifestly without legal merit, the accused has to have known, or ought to have known, that their ping was not substantive — that is, that the situation did not require alerting legal authorities.
[16] So, was it, or should it have been, obvious to the defendant that the scenario did not require summoning legal authorities? For this, it must first be considered whether there was a crime occurring in chat at the time (or, of course, whether someone of the defendant’s legal experience may believe there to be).
[17] To this, as discussed in [10], the defense brings the guilty pleas of Acool and Creative to demonstrate that illegal activity was clearly occurring in chat. For one, the court would like to point out that the two defendants mentioned pleaded “no contest” to their charges, so the defense was mistaken. This is besides the point, though, as the prosecution pointed out, there were five (5) minutes between the final allegedly illegal SDBI ping and the chat was moving quickly (something the defense did not contest, and actually affirmed, which makes it fact under Article 13§6). When the chat is moving quickly, five (5) minutes can be an eternity. On top of this, as argued by the prosecution, the other actions the defendant claims to have been pinging the SDBI about were other pings to the SDBI. To use the prosecution’s analogy, “it's equivalent to calling 911 to report a crime while standing directly in front of the police,” more than this, it is like walking up and screaming in a cop's face to report that another person had just walked up and screamed in the cop’s face. This is something the defendant, having worked in law enforcement in the past and present a multitude of times (as the court may take judicial notice of under Article 13§5c), ought to have recognized as absurd. Both the distance and the content of the actions that the defense alleges to have pinged the SDBI about combine to make the situation, in relation to this specific line of argument by the defense, without legal merit.
[18] The defense also repeatedly brings up spam in the chat. These claims are completely unsubstantiated by any of the evidence presented in court and, unfortunate as it may be, are summarily dismissed.
[19] The final argument, which was brought by the defense, was that the SDBI and SBDI roles are incredibly similar. This, they reason, makes it easy for someone to accidentally mix them up. They then go on to say that this should not be taken as an admission of guilt, as the situation itself may still merit summoning the authorities.
[20] The prosecution argues that, contrary to the defense’s claim, this is a very clear indication that the situation was without merit. They combine this with the defendant replying to their message, pinging the SDBI with “oops” to paint the picture that the pings were completely accidental, and any justification the defense brings is post hoc. In their words, “first it was reporting other people pinging the SDBI, then they claim it was because of spam, and now they argue the roles looked similar.”
[21] The court finds this rather persuasive; there is no mens rea for Making a False Report beyond the defendant’s legal expertise; intent, malice, or other ill will has no bearing on conviction. The accused either made the summons with legal merit or they didn’t. To their own admission, the pinging was a mistake, a mistake they made twice.
[22] Even if all of this was going extraordinarily well for the defense, it would still be the case that they summoned the SDBI twice. The first one being meritorious does not make the second one so.
[23] It is true, as the defense posits, that the ping itself may not have been manifestly without legal merit even if it was accidental. It is also true, theoretically, that the defendant may have believed the situation merited the legal authorities to show up. A situation may, even, warrant two pings to the SDBI. The court does not see, though, how a situation where the last crime happened five (5) minutes ago in a fast moving chat, where the defendant’s ping was accidental to begin with, where said ping was done twice in the same message, where the defendant is both a long time certified attorney with several cases under their belt and a law enforcement officer in their own right, can be seen as anything other than manifestly without legal merit.
- [23.1] This can be seen as an affirmation of the general concept from SD v Traditionalist Insurgency for Defense and Enforcement (TIDE) [2025] Crim 70 that while one piece of evidence alone may not prove the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the conflation of several disparate lines of argumentation can leave only one reasonable conclusion.
Verdict
[24] The court finds the defendant guilty of Making a False Report, and given the fact that their crime was clearly an accident and with consideration to the plea deals given to the co-defendants (where genuine precedent is lacking), sentences them to a four (4) hour mute.
Post script
[25] Any and all questions of law may be appealed to the Supreme Court of SimDemocracy.
Citations
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