Fortnightly Writing Competition - Courtroom Drama (RESULTS)

[Sinitrena]

All rise!

Now we shall hear the affidavits of our writers to be judge by also our writers, I guess (technically, everyone, but we all know how it goes).

Be judge, jury, defendant, prosecuter, witness, in our first installment of the FWC of 2025.

This round, your task is to write a story that centres around a courtroom of some kind, be it a civil process, criminal, or even outliers like a sports court or a honour court in a college or something similar.

All submissions have to reach the court (aka this thread) by the end of 14. Jan. 2025 or they cannot be considered.

Have fun!

[Baron]

Objection! 

[Sinitrena]

Denied! 

Go get some writing done.

[Sinitrena]

One week reminder!

How are your stories doing?

[Baron]

I move for a short recess, your honour. Recent evidence presented in the prosecution of this case indicates that I am massively behind schedule. 

[Sinitrena]

Motion granted!
Because the oppising side also hasn't complied with the deadline yet, the court grants that all filings may be entered into the system by 17th January.

[Baron]

I'm about 2/3 done, but running long. I can have it in by the end of tomorrow, but it'll be really late (GMT -6).

[Sinitrena]

It doesn't exactly look like anyone else wants to enter this round anyway, so take your time.

[Mandle]

Yeah, sorry, I got nothing this round. I was rushing to prepare a presentation of a writing project for potential publication, so all effort was on that. I got the green light, by the way.

[Baron]

Mandle, that's awesome!     I can just see you, finger hovering over your mouse button, to post at exactly 15:55:55. 

Sorry, my entry ran long, but at the same time I've had to skimp on a lot of description. I guess it's in the nature of a courtroom drama to be mostly dialog. 

------------------------------

Just Justice

Spoiler

The crystal cave glowed, the delicate lattice on its roof resonating with a soft luminescence. Pastel colours, changing through the spectrum as the crystals hummed and purred, proclaimed both the sacredness and safety of the space, miles beneath the surface the great stone island. Its cavernous size afforded plenty of room for hoof, claw, feather and flipper.

A man was led in, his hands bound behind his back with webs spun together so thickly they were strong as steel. He was prodded forward by an ibex, its horns leaving no room for dissent or deviation. A hush fell over the gathered animals, their squawks and whinnies turning to shushes and whispers. The man, scruffy around the face and unbathed from long days in captivity, looked suspiciously at the unusual congregation, but said nothing.

A line of solemn animals filed in, assuming their tiered seating along one wall of the chamber. A colourful bird with a large beak fluttered in and perched next to an elevated bench.

"All rise," came the call of the toucan, piercing the eerie silence. "The honorable Judge Jubias presiding."

The crystals of the cave shook with rhythmic pulses, heralding the approach of a creature worthy of the scale of the magnificent hall. The animals were now utterly silent, reverently awaiting the slow approach of their wisest jurist.

"Please be seated," the judge sang, flopping into the chamber and up the steps to her bench.

"It's a goddam whale!" the man gasped, as if the addition of but one more animal in the strange gathering had suddenly made it remarkable.

"It's a god damn long way up those stairs, I'll tell you that," the judge bantered back, settling in. She flipped herself upright so that she was seated on her lower back. Her jaw now towered over the court, her beady eyes peering out from the sides of her head, giving her a stern and critical bearing.

"You don't live two hundred summers by wasting the day away," Judge Jubias moaned. "Who have we got here?"

"Warren Metalshot, your honour," the toucan piped up. "Charged with high crimes against nature."

"Prosecution?" the whale sang.

"Pierce Grandswine," an old boar introduced himself.

"Defence?"

"Leonie LaGriffe," a lithe lioness growled.

"Wait, are y'all talking animals?" Warren asked. "I musta hit my head harder than I thought ... Do the grunt-growl thing again!"

"Your honour," Leonie began, "despite the vaunted intelligence of his species, the accused appears not to understand the separate languages of any but his own kind. As such, he is hardly capable of answering for the crimes of his brother men. I move he be deemed an imbecile and all charges be dismissed."

"Objection, your honour!" the old boar complained. "Witnesses place this specimen at the heart of the agricultural-industrial complex that has enslaved half the very planet. What kind of imbecile can fence off the land, burn the woods, and slaughter the rightful inhabitants of this world while behind the wheel of a '98 Chevy Tahoe?"

"Overruled, Ms. LaGriffe," the judge boomed. "Make your case, Mr. Grandswine."

"Certainly, your honour. Before you stands but a humble man, mere flesh and blood, just like the rest of us. But beneath that balding skin and brittle skeleton beats the heart of a cold-minded killer! Too long has man bent the rules to serve his own purpose, stomping the rest of nature to a bloody pulp like a permanent elephant stampede. I contend that man has wilfully defiled the land; that he has purposefully ripped apart the sacred links that bind the web of life. I charge that man has knowingly broken the highest law of nature, that of mutual dependency, and that he has thereby jeopardized the very existence of life on this planet. For this crime—and the threat to all of us that it poses—I move that man face the ultimate penalty at our disposal: extinction, with extreme prejudice!"

The solemn animals on the tiered seating against the wall whispered to each other before the judge admonished them to silence. "Females and gentle-males of the jury, you will have plenty of time to deliberate once you have heard the evidence. Mr. Grandswine, you may summon your first witness."

"The prosecution calls Filbert Gillflop, a tuna of the ocean deep."

An ancient fish flopped his way up the witness stand, pushing a wheeled pole with a fluid bag through which his precious gills were kept moist in the dryness of the chamber.

The grand old boar began his questioning. "Mr. Gillflop, can you describe the events of November 23rd of last year to the court?"

The old fish rasped in the parched air, his voice coming out as a barely audible whisper. "I was teaching the young, as is my vocation, when a vast and impenetrable net descended upon my school. It snared us all, indiscriminately, young and old alike. It dredged some of the rarer species off the seafloor, and trapped a passing dolphin as well. We were hauled to the surface where we were left to die in the cold cruel air, apparently to be eaten later long after our corpses had begun to rot. I would be mashed into a metal tin this very moment if not for the bravery of a knife-clawed lobster who was able to save some precious few."

"Objection, your honour!" Ms. LaGriffe roared. "Predation is an established part of nature. You and I both have dined upon the flesh of our fellow beings."

"Sustained," the whale judge moaned.

"Beg your pardon, your honour," the prosecutor grunted, "but I need to establish context."

"Continue," the judge sang. "But keep it relevant."

"Wait, is this some kinda trial?" Warren asked, the set-up of the cavern suddenly striking him as familiar.

"Mr. Gillflop," the boar bristled, ignoring the defendant's interruption, "do you believe you and your kin were hunted for food?"

The old tuna voice scratched as if his gills were filled with sand. "It's the only motive that makes sense. Except ...  except the members of my school were basically inedible. We have been poisoned for years by the discharge of the agricultural-industrial complex, resulting in the build-up of heavy metals in our bodies that would bio-accumulate to toxic levels in any predator foolish enough to consume us."

The gathered animals gasped at the revelation.

"Are you saying that the very predator that tried to consume you was also responsible for the pollution that would come back to poison him?" the old boar asked rhetorically. "Why, that sounds like an animal gone mad with power! No further questions, your honour."

"Ms. LaGriffe, do you wish to cross-examine?" the judge trilled.

The lioness stood up. "Mr. Gillflop, where did you say you were born?"

"I didn't," the old fish coughed. "But it was ... in a human hatchery."

The crowd gasped again.

"A human hatchery," the lioness repeated. "An attempt to make amends for destruction previously wrought upon your species. Ladies and gentle-males of the jury, does this sound like the actions of a species gone berserk? No further questions, your honour."

The animals of the jury whispered and bleated amongst themselves.

"Let's keep this moving along, Mr. Grandswine," the judge sighed. "Next witness!"

"The prosecution calls Clarence Stankbreath, a raccoon of the inland forest."

An old raccoon hobbled up to the witness stand, aided by a natural branch used as a crutch.

"Mr. Stankbreath, can you describe the events of March 30th?"

"I was starving, see? So in my desperation for survival I snuck some of the surplus food that a human had stored outside his fortress-nest. He was just letting it rot, but was still guarding it for hisself. But the food wasn't really food, y'know? It made me fat without providing any nutrients. Total junk! I ended up developing a blood-sugar disease from my dependency on it."

"Objection, your honour!" the defence roared. "How can my client be held responsible for the effects of food that was hardly intended for consumption?"

"Sustained. Mr. Grandswine?"

The old boar smiled, all tusks and guile. "Context, your honour. Mr. Stankbreath, can you continue your account?"

"So I was on a night raid, see? The forest was a slippery mix of mud and ice, so I was walking along the stone path the humans use for their metal wheel cans. And then suddenly I'm bathed in the light of day, and then just as suddenly I was struck with the force of a hundred bear paws, and flung into the ditch as if dead. It turns out my hip was broken, and it will never likely heal enough for me to continue in my vocation as a scavenger."

The courtroom erupted with whispered muttering again. A solitary wolf licked his chops at the prospect of the injured raccoon stumbling his way through the forest.

"So what you are saying," the old boar summarized, "is that man stole your health, by means both fair and foul?"

"Objection, your honour!"

"And is that man anywhere in this courtroom?" the boar continued, undeterred.

"He's right there!" the raccoon said, pointing directly at Warren.

"Good lord, are you the little varmint I hit with my truck last spring?" Warren asked.

Ms. LaGriffe smacked her face with her giant paw.

"No further questions, your honour," the boar purred smugly.

"Ms. LaGriffe?"

The lioness sucked in a long breath. "Mr. Stankbreath, are you aware of the law of the jungle, whereby only the strongest survive?"

The raccoon looked uncomfortably at the wolf in the gallery, but nodded.

"Well, according to the prosecution my client is dumb enough to poison his own food. And yet he was smart enough to fatten you up, and then to catch you unawares at night, even though you are naturally nocturnal and he is adapted for strictly diurnal life. Wouldn't you say he has demonstrated the strength to survive, at your expense?"

The courtroom erupted into chaos, necessitating the judge to bang her gavel until it shattered into a thousand little bits. "Order! I demand order in my courtroom!"

The gathered animals hushed like a passing storm.

"Your honour, the prosecution would like to call one final witness," the old boar announced. "We call Ganges Scrotifera, a bat of the air!"

A scruffy bat wheezed and limped to the witness stand, fluttering his one wing uselessly as he went.

"Mr. Scrotifera," the old boar began, "please relay the series of events that led up to April 17th."
 
"Huh? What?"

"Objection, your honour!" Ms. LaGriffe jumped up. "This witness presents as unreliable. Mr. Scrotifera, have you been drugged?"

"I admit my witness has suffered mental injury," the old boar conceded. "But it was sustained in learning the most damning truth of all. I assure you that his testimony is lucid, once he can be brought around to telling it."

"Proceed, Mr. Grandswine," the whale judge moaned. "But I will halt this testimony if I feel you are manipulating the witness."

"I'm afraid what Mr. Scrotifera has to say is well beyond the conjuring of my imagination," the boar responded.

"What's with the half-dead bat?" Warren asked.

"Mr. Scrotifera, you are in the highest court in all of nature," Grandswine grunted in a raised voice, as if speaking to someone half-deaf. "I ask you to tell the truth of what man did to you these past few months."

The bat's head lolled on his neck, as if he were drunk. "Cold!" he squeaked. "So cold!"

"Mr. Scrotifera ..."

"It began when my forest was harvested," the bat squealed. "Trees ... just gone! And in their place towers of stone housing many men. There were few bugs to hunt, and the nooks and crannies to nest in were now cold and hard. Many died, but I persisted ..."

The bat's head drooped back, as if he were staring at the colourful crystals of the ceiling with his glassy blind eyes.

"Mr. Scrotifera?"

"When the music plays, the blade shall cut!" the bat suddenly screamed, the suddenness of his outburst making the gathered throng of animals jump in unison. "It burns through the numbness!"

"Mr. Scrotifera, back to the city of man ..."

"There were many animals there, mangy, half-tame things, surviving on the refuse of the heartless streets. One chanced to bite me, spreading the rabies. My mind ... do you smell fire?"

The bat listened around, sniffing the air.

"Of course the rabies has existed in nature for ages beyond memory," the old boar clarified for the court. "But in keeping animals at the brink, and gathering them into such close quarters, man has made it much more prevalent. What happened then?"

"Bars ..." the bat muttered. "Cages and bars, needles and pills. Shaving and drugging and sleepless days beneath the eternal lights. I was captured ... and men tested their most devious concoctions upon me."

The court gasped at the horror.

"But why would they do such a thing, Mr. Scrotifera?"

The bad twitched and wheezed. "Playing god," was all he squeaked.

"Playing god!" the old boar barked. "Playing at becoming a being that by definition is beyond the restraint of nature and its laws! However did you escape?"

"Bit the handler ... squirmed out through a window. Heard later that the man made another man sick, and then another. The rabies in my blood mixed with the virus in the needles and made ... made something unnatural. A horrible illness for my kind ... but spilled over into man it became a plague."

"Thank you, Mr. Scrotifera. Females and gentle-males of the jury, you have heard first-hand testimony implicating man not only in the violation of our natural laws, but in the folly of his unfettered ascendency to god-like power. A power which has driven him mad:  he has not only destroyed the life-web which supported his rise, but he has actively worked to forge a new one in which his very existence is imperilled! You must find the defendant guilty of high crimes against nature, or destruction be our lot. The prosecution rests."

"Mrs. LaGriffe?"

"Ugghhhhh," Warren groaned. Beads of sweat had erupted on his brow, even as the colour had drained from his flesh. "I don't feel so good."

The defence lawyer looked from Warren to the bat, to the jury, to the judge, and then back to her client.

"Your honour," she began, rising. "Your honour, the defence's case is simple. We do not contest that man has poisoned the seas and their food within it, nor that he has enfeebled the animals that live in his shadow, nor that he has played at being god."

A buzz of shock rippled through the courtroom before the whale-judge called for order once more.

"The case of the defence is this," Ms. LaGriffe continued. "We contend that man has not, in fact, broken the high laws of nature. That he is, in fact, still very much tied to the web of life. Like lemmings, he is reaping the folly of his overcrowding. The genius of man may have created this new super disease, but it is his destiny to bear the brunt of its fury. Man has tried to bend the world to his whim, yes, but nature has ever bounced back in his face. I say man is innocent of the charges against him. He is a killer, yes, but a rather shortsighted predator, like a wolf that eats the last sheep on an island. He is a poisoner, yes, but like a dog one that must then stoop to eat the mess he has made. He aspires to god-like manipulation of life itself, yes, but to his ultimate folly. Nature triumphs, for even now the defendant shows symptoms of his self-wrought plague. Females and gentle-males of the jury, I say that man will be better served by suffering the blowback of his own meddlings than any punishment we can mete out, perhaps to emerge as a more chastised and beneficent contributor to the web of life. The defence rests."

Jobias the whale judge looked sternly at the two lawyers in front of her, and then turned to the jury.  "Well, you have heard two quite compelling cases. What say you?"

[close]

[Stupot]

Glad to see an entry. Nothing from me I'm afraid. Just no time to sit and type anything up. The one day I did have a bit of laptop time, I had a great idea, but I wasn't able to mould it into anything submittable.

[Sinitrena]

Well, all witnesses have spoken and it is now time for the jury to come to a verdict. Unfortunately, only the prosecution engaged in the cours proceedings, so we'll actually skip the jury and come to a directed verdict from the judge:

Baron wins this court case, and thereby the FWC. Congratulations.

Comment:

Spoiler

I like the defence attorney. She's actually really convincing. I can't say I completely agree with her, but she does have good arguments. I think there should be a bit more information why Warren is a good candidate to stand in for all of humanity. He seems like a really random choice. Otherwise, well done!

[close]

Over to you, Baron!

[Baron]

So what you're pleading is ... no contest? 

Thanks for the kind feedback. I'll mull over ideas for the next round and try to have it up and running soon.