Detail: http://zenith.homelinux.net/cotc/viewcase.php?cfj=2784
============== Criminal Case 2784 (Interest Index = 0) ===============
Murphy violated Rule 2168 (Power 1) by failing to issue a
humiliating public reminder that Proposal 6686 was failing
quorum.
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Caller: Murphy
Judge: G.
Judgement: GUILTY/SILENCE
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History:
Called by Murphy: 08 Apr 2010 13:03:01 GMT
Assigned to G.: 08 Apr 2010 13:36:39 GMT
Judged GUILTY/SILENCE by G.: 15 Apr 2010 15:32:51 GMT
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Caller's Arguments:
I am GUILTY, but ask that the judge consider what sentence
is appropriate, in light of our being collectively distracted by mailing
list outages around the time in question.
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Judge G.'s Arguments:
The proposals in question were distributed March 21 after the defendant
posted "are we back yet?" to the public lists indicating that e
personally lost no time on the error. The error itself wasn't raised
in public until March 28, after that first week's voting period had
ended (i.e. after the reminder was appropriate). It was possible that
the error may have invalidated the initial start of voting, so the
defendant *may* have believed that no voting reminder was necessary.
However, was this a reasonable belief? Other interpretations (that
would have required the reminder) were raised by the CFJ, so the
best reasonable belief is that it was "uncertain" whether the notice
was required. In such a case, a private citizen may not be responsible
for failure to act. But an Officer with a well-known duty to act, and
who was demonstrably paying attention the whole time, should have
(as when a fact in an Official Report is uncertain) at least announce
the uncertainty.
It's also worth noting that the defendant did not feel uncomfortable
immediately announcing the voting results themselves, well before the
controversy was resolved, and e announced them several days before e
was required to (e could have waited a few days if e was uncertain). Nor
did e note that e was uncertain about the voting initiation when e
announced the results, but only raised the uncertainty in calling this
case.
In this breach, material harm was done, as it is likely that a reminder
(even an "unofficial" one) would have caused proposals that others had
paid to distribute to achieve quorum. Accordingly, I find that the
verdict GUILTY/SILENCE (1 Rest) is a minimal and reasonable outcome.
This court so delivers.
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