The judicial desk

PlateNet ships an in-game judicial system. It is roleplay, like everything else here - an invented system for an invented community, with no connection to any real court.

Sign in and choose JUDICIAL on the portal. The desk has three screens: DOCKET, CALENDAR and WARRANTS.

What a case is, and where it comes from

There are two kinds and they arrive in completely different ways.

Criminal cases are opened at the judicial desk, from a document your community has already produced. They cannot be typed from scratch. At the foot of the docket, OPEN A CASE lists everything eligible:

• an approved arrest report
• an active or served warrant
• a contested citation

Each document can be opened once. Opening it puts the case straight onto the docket, copies the charges, and keeps a link back to the source.

An approved arrest report only appears in that list if the arrestee named on it matches exactly one person record in your community. If a report you expect is missing, open it and import the subject from the records index; it will appear here afterwards. The docket shows how many reports are held back.

Civil cases are filed by civilians, from their own portal, against another character or against a department, and they land on the docket the moment they are filed. See the civilian side.

The lifecycle

Every case moves through the same states, and the docket shows the current one on every row.

The counter strip above the docket shows the only three numbers that ever ask for action: how many are open, how many are scheduled, and how many have been heard and are awaiting a decision.

Scheduling

A hearing needs a date and time, a length, a courtroom label and a judicial officer.

Conflict warnings

When you schedule or move a hearing, PlateNet checks the slot and tells you if:

• that judicial officer is already sitting another case then,
• that courtroom is already booked, or
• a party on this case is due in another case at the same time.

These are warnings, not refusals. You decide.

Moving a hearing

MOVE THE NEXT HEARING asks for a reason - the parties are shown what you wrote. The old hearing stays on the case file as ADJOURNED with its reason. The calendar shows a moved hearing only at its new time.

Pleas

A defendant enters guilty, not guilty or no contest from their own portal, before the hearing. The plea appears on the case and on the docket row, and changing it is allowed - every version is kept, with who entered it and when, and the superseded ones stay visible.

Pleas close once a case has been heard.

The judicial desk can also record a plea agreement with its terms, which is a different thing from a plea the defendant entered and is labelled as such.

The verdict

The OUTCOME block takes a disposition and, for a criminal case, a fine, a custodial term and a probation term; for a civil case, a judgment amount. The dispositions offered depend on the kind of case - a civil case cannot end in "guilty".

A conviction is written to the CRI record. Guilty and no contest add a JUDICIAL DISPOSITIONS block to the person's records return: the docket number, the charges, the sentence and the date. It appears on the QUERY screen, inside the return document, and on returns an officer already has open.

Acquittals and dismissals are not written to the record.

If a verdict is later changed, the record is rebuilt to match.

Who is told what

A notice acknowledged in one place does not come back in the other. A party with no player account is not notified and still appears on the case.

Every state change is written to the community's audit log.

Back to the PlateNet documentation index / All Records pages