Firebrand's agenda...

When/if the Manties get hold of Firebrand, they won't put him on trial straight away. He'll be sent to one of SIS or ONI's dungeons and wrung dry of any information he holds about the Alignment and their plans.

Depending on the level of his subsequent cooperation(or lack thereof), he may not ever stand trial. For instance, if he turns over everything he knows about the Verge uprisings and how to contact the various homegrown outfits, they might be inclined to treat him with some leniency, if only to encourage similar cooperation from other captured personnel.

It's not as if the Star Empire hasn't already granted blank slates to a lot of nasty people in Silesia with all sorts of black market connections to piracy and slavery. As long as they don't do anything wrong ever again, they're free.

Kizarvexis wrote:
The Manties would not try Firebrand for the acts that Steve Westman committed, but for the actions of the Jessyk owned freighter Maryanne which killed a Manty pinnace. You would consider them two conspiracies. Yes, it would be thread bare, but since Firebrand had not delivered the weapons to the MIM yet, I think a Montana jury would go along with it.

It depends - do they have a Law like the US RICO act (which many would say is unconstitutional?) which makes you guilty of crimes by association if you realize you are part of a criminal orginization?

Otherwise, Firebrand is just a salesman, taking orders and passing messages. He ordered no one killed or took part in any of the killing. He never handed someone a gun, or a bullet with the intention that they kill. Yes, he knew that they may kill someone, but he never had a hand in provoking or planning any such events.

He is guilty of conspericy to commit murder on Kornati. He performed an illegal act (the illeagle import and sale of weapons) in the furtherance of a plan to commit murder. It doesn't matter if he did not know that they were planning to commit murder or not. If he performed a leagle action in that furthered the plan, then his knowledge of the plan would matter, but the fact that the action that he performed was illegal means ignorance is not a defense. He smuggled weapons to somebody, they used the weapons to kill people, he is guilty of conspericy.

If they capture him, and want to try him, it will be no harder to extridite him from anywhere in Manticoran space to Kornati than it would be to extridite somebody in the U.S. from Maine to Texas.

Edit to add; I also think he is guilty of conspericy of something (maybe terrorism, maybe just destruction of property) on Montana. He made plans with Weastman to provide material to commit terrorism, then Westman committed terrorism based on those plans. It doesn't matter if he actually provided those materials or not, he could still be tried. A little harder to prove, and it might depend on the wording of the blanket amnisty that was signed, but he could still be tried there. Although, if I was District Attorney equivalent of Montana, I would let Kornati get first crack at him.

thinkstoomuch wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:The Deneb Accords wouldn't really apply because Firebrand wasn't working for a signatory of those accords. He'd be imprisoned as a POW or tried for his association with Norbrandt in local Kornati courts. He just couldn't be tried for crimes against Montana at the same time because he didn't actually commit anything there.

Probably an incredibly stupid question... But didn't a pinnace load of "Manties" get blown up by his schedule to supply arms? That freighter would never have been there or for that matter or the RMN CA(L) for that matter without his involvement. ...I really do hate most law questions as nothing ever as simple as it seems.

Enjoy,
T2M

Actually I think in both these cases Harahap is toast, because while Westman, etc. were pardoned, he was not. The Kornati government still exists as a state, though part of the SEM, the way that the ROT and the ROC (Texas and California) became states with some specific rights retained when they joined the Union. So both Kornati and Montana can go after him, plus the conspiracy charge at the now "federal" Manticoran level because of the pinnace' destruction.

I don't think Elizabeth or Estelle are willing to trade down to get whatever information he has enough to save his neck. Only question in my mind is "firing squad or rope"?

Minor edit addition: Just reread the passage, and the "Golden Butterfly" was equipped as a slave ship under the Cherwell Convention, and given the Jessyk Combine/Damien's connection to the ship, and the act of conspiracy, I would insist that any form of Manticoran justice demand the death penalty.

crewdude48 wrote:He is guilty of conspericy to commit murder on Kornati. He performed an illegal act (the illeagle import and sale of weapons) in the furtherance of a plan to commit murder. It doesn't matter if he did not know that they were planning to commit murder or not. If he performed a leagle action in that furthered the plan, then his knowledge of the plan would matter, but the fact that the action that he performed was illegal means ignorance is not a defense. He smuggled weapons to somebody, they used the weapons to kill people, he is guilty of conspericy.

If they capture him, and want to try him, it will be no harder to extridite him from anywhere in Manticoran space to Kornati than it would be to extridite somebody in the U.S. from Maine to Texas.

Edit to add; I also think he is guilty of conspericy of something (maybe terrorism, maybe just destruction of property) on Montana. He made plans with Weastman to provide material to commit terrorism, then Westman committed terrorism based on those plans. It doesn't matter if he actually provided those materials or not, he could still be tried. A little harder to prove, and it might depend on the wording of the blanket amnisty that was signed, but he could still be tried there. Although, if I was District Attorney equivalent of Montana, I would let Kornati get first crack at him.

He never gave the weapons, he arranged a delivery - or more importantly, he arranged the conditions where a delivery would be made. He didn't know the exact makeup of the deliveries.

George J. Smith wrote:I think Under UK anti-terrorism laws he could be tried for conspiracy to commit, however as all of his "fellow" conspirators were pardoned, it would be a bit much to not pardon him as well.

Good point.

My main point however is that Firebrand's conspiracy was against two separate polities that no longer exist as independent entities. There's no doubt he could be convicted of conspiracy and accessory to mass murder in Kornati, but Montana would have to come up with completely separate charges and only the actions of the Mary Anne's crew in destroying Hexapuma's boarding party would come close to involving him in a serious crime.

Weird Harold wrote:

George J. Smith wrote:I would think that the clause the peeps used to condemn Honor would be relevant and Firebrand would not be tried/convicted as a POW.

The Deneb Accords wouldn't really apply because Firebrand wasn't working for a signatory of those accords. He'd be imprisoned as a POW or tried for his association with Norbrandt in local Kornati courts. He just couldn't be tried for crimes against Montana at the same time because he didn't actually commit anything there.

Hi Harold,

There is such a thing as conspiracy to commit a crime. If Firebrand didn't manage a crime on Montana, it wasn't for lack of good honest effort.

Don

n7axw wrote:There is such a thing as conspiracy to commit a crime. If Firebrand didn't manage a crime on Montana, it wasn't for lack of good honest effort.

But could he be tried for conspiracy against an entity that no longer exists?

Firebrand could charged with offering materiel support to terrorist, conspiracy to traffic in illegal arms, conspiracy to overthrow a government. He may not be able to be charged under Manticorian law because Montana and Kornarti were not part of the SEM at the time, but he could be charged under both Montanan and Kornation law as it existed at the time on both planets.

Seriously, Harahap sought out both Westman and Norbrandt convinced them that he represented a "steering commitee" that was providing support and coordination for resistance movements on several different planets in the Talbott cluster.

Without that promise of future support and the prospect that other resistance movements would provide additional pressure against the proposed merger with Manticore, Westman at least would have been smart enough to realize his position was hopeless. He might still have taken steps to demonstrate his unhappiness but it is extremely unlikely that he would have so quickly escalated to blowing up the spaceport and destroying weeks worth of financial records of the largest bank on Montana. Thus, Harahap is directly and personally responsible for the hundreds of millions (maybe billions) of credits of damage done in those attacks.

He is also personally responsible for the deaths of the Manticoran Marines and pinnace crew killed by a sometimes slave ship that was attempting to complete delivery of a weapons shipment Harahap had arranged.