Pound the Table | An X-Men Self-Insert

[The MacKenzies]

Unless her family has been collecting for a couple generations and is worth a few million, I'm pretty sure that I know people who can beat her. Especially since I seriously doubt that her classical section is all that large.

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Deutsche Grammophon labels stretching as far as the eye can see. Yeah, I know a few people like that.

 

[Godwinson]

Unless her family has been collecting for a couple generations and is worth a few million, I'm pretty sure that I know people who can beat her. Especially since I seriously doubt that her classical section is all that large.

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Know people != Yours.

October Daye knows his readers.

 

[Sengachi]

Sweet mercy I can't remember the last time I was so riveted by a story.

 

[Dmol8]

It was hinted at in chapter 1, but insertion point was 1984, and the first chapter was 1987, while the second fast forwards to 1989. That is a five year space for oodles and oodles of butterflies and noodles.

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Seven years ago, when I was about thirty minutes away from giving my first closing argument (and panicking just as much as you'd expect), Jeremy went out of his way to get me a drink of water when he saw me pacing and near-hyperventilating in the hall. He'd been my go-to clerk for filing and requests since then, and I also helped him with the "when's the first contempt threat" pool.

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Uh OP is this a continuity error since the SI came into this universe 5 years ago and is referencing an event 7 years ago.

Nono. I accept that he is a mutant. What I am saying is that within the context of the trial, and so many (I assume many) individuals showing up in your AU with so many sources {science, magic, demons, mutants, aliens, alien test subjects, psyonics, and whatnot} and no real way to know who got their powers from where, how can the gang that attacked him or the officers that arrested him know for sure he is a mutant? Can Attorney Shaufer say that he isn't? That he is just a kid with powers? The hate is specifically for mutants. Nobody else gets this kind of flak. So if the people can be convinced he's not would some of the premeditated hate go away? How would that sort of profiling happened? How would that sort of profiling even be confirmed? How would the police even get a warrent to beat down the door of a "supposed" mutant?

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That depends. We all vaguely know of the various Lists of mutants (with or without other powered individuals) attempted in various X-men timelines. Before those, the federal government knew of powered individuals. They likely attempted to empower people too. Having powered people is useless if you cannot control them.

So at this point in the timeline, what angles would the federal government publicly take to manipulate citizens with powers?

1. Paid for participating in lab research? Not as likely as you'd think. Once the basic steps of testing "does this power spread like a virus?" come back negative, powers are more like novelties than legitimate fields of research.
2. They could interfere with adoptions of orphan mutants who come into their powers young.
3. Start a task force which searches for signs of superpower uses, just like how in Worm signs of potential tinkers obtaining supplies are tracked. The goals of this group though wouldn't directly affect St. John though, unless they ordered the police to pick up St. John like they did. Whatever the case, said investigators may or may not want to interact with powered individuals. They may simply have orders to keep watching them until a problem befitting their abilities comes up.
   
   Right. Basically whatever plans are being l made, people aren't being searched for just because they have powers
   Hm. Not as helpful as I'd hoped, sorry.

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Oh, I see what you're getting at.

So. If Noa wanted to raise the defense that he can't be guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, in this case a mutant power, by virtue of not being a mutant? That would require proving that Pyro isn't a mutant.

The problem is that powers that aren't resultant from being a mutant have to actively come from someTHING, someWHERE, or someONE. Which would require Noa to look deeply into all of Pyro's history to find an event that could plausibly have given him Pyrokinetic powers AND is convincing enough to a jury to give them reasonable doubt.

Because that's the crux of the matter: REASONABLE doubt. Noa could concoct whatever cockamamie theory she likes using Pyro's history to explain away his having powers as being the result of something other than being born a mutant.

The problem is getting a jury to believe it.

Occam's Razor works against Noa here. What is the simpler explanation?

That St. John Allerdyce managed to come into contact with some exotic radiation left behind by Johnny Storm while St. John was walking past the Baxter Building on one particular Sunday four years ago, and look I even have the subway ticket and convenience store receipts to show he maybe, possibly, went that route instead of 7 others, and that's why he's a pyrokinetic?

Or that St. John Allerdyce was born a mutant, and that's why he's a pyrokinetic?

There's already FOUR eyewitness ready to corroborate that Pyro has superpowers. That is not a fact in contention. And attempting to argue that he's not a mutant would just be too difficult of an argument to make. A reasonable juror could, as I did above, apply Occam's Razor and come to the conclusion that he is in fact a mutant even without the prosecution needing a test to prove it.

It's just beyond a REASONABLE doubt, not the shadow of a doubt. Shadow of a doubt would include UNreasonable doubts. Such as, again: the cock and bull "Baxter Building and Human Torch" hypothetical I mentioned above.

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The actual Doylist answer is that the X-Men were originally written by Jewish writers trying to capture the feel of being Jewish in the 1960s after fleeing the Holocaust so the answer to how people could tell if someone was a mutant was the same as to how people could tell if someone was Jewish. Since antisemitism is the core of modern day discrimination against minorities* this means that other minorities (primarily LGBTQ+) saw themselves in the plight of the Mutants. Also Professor X is based on a Melamed and his mansion is an old fashioned Cheder that actually disappeared from Jewish culture because of the Holocaust.

*Long story short Christians have a hard time understanding how there can be Jews still from a Theological perspective, I know of one valid theological answer but it is apocryphal, since Christianity sees itself as the inheritor religion of Judaism so this means that the post-christian Jews lie about their faith and from there the leap to Jews being devil worshipers is easy.

This combined with White Man's Burden and Non-Caucasians are Animals narratives results in the need for a leader group that unites the non-whites against the whites and since only whites can match other whites under this logic there has to be white race traitors. In the past these were the lesser whites, so in the US any non-Evangelical whites, but as time has moved on by the 60s it was any non-Christian white and the only culture that qualified at that point was Jewish culture.

So basically the way white people in the US hone their bigot skills is by being antisemitic, a smaller more radical also anti-catholic faction is associated with horror writing/filming, and then exaptating those bigot skills onto other minorities.

 

[October Daye]

Uh OP is this a continuity error since the SI came into this universe 5 years ago and is referencing an event 7 years ago.

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You are right, that's a case of early installment oddness that was already remedied in the initial chapter and in the timeline. I just forgot I'd mentioned it somewhere. That has now been fixed also.

The actual Doylist answer is that the X-Men were originally written by Jewish writers trying to capture the feel of being Jewish in the 1960s after fleeing the Holocaust so the answer to how people could tell if someone was a mutant was the same as to how people could tell if someone was Jewish.

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Why yes, you just look at our noses. The nose tells all. Always. Most of the time. Usually. In general. It's fifty-fifty. Occasionally. Actually, don't look at the nose, you get false positives.

Seriously though, the easiest way to tell a Jew from a non-Jew (at least for Ashkenazi communities, in my experience) is to look for occasional bits of Yiddish sprinkled in, or things that sound like they could be Yiddish. Schlepp, schmuck, schlong, schtick, shiksa, meshuggeneh, etc. Like, I don't really think about it, but I don't say that something's far away, or it's out of the way, or that it's in an inconvenient place. I say it's a schlepp. That one word, schlepp, encapsulates all of that.

And more than that, I've had to explain what it means to many a gentile, so... yeah. The easiest indicator is the common bits of Yiddish that have snuck in.

So basically the way white people in the US hone their bigot skills is by being antisemitic

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I went to college in the South. After having grown up in Los Angeles, with family in New York and a largely Jewish part of St. Louis.

So when my college roommate, from Baton Rouge, said "hey, you know what was funny? The Holocaust." over voice chat, and didn't realize what was wrong with him saying that until he remembered I was still in the room? Yeah.

Needless to say, I wound up with a super-single (a 2 person dorm with only 1 person in it) for a while.

 

[Dmol8]

Why yes, you just look at our noses. The nose tells all. Always. Most of the time. Usually. In general. It's fifty-fifty. Occasionally. Actually, don't look at the nose, you get false positives.

Seriously though, the easiest way to tell a Jew from a non-Jew (at least for Ashkenazi communities, in my experience) is to look for occasional bits of Yiddish sprinkled in, or things that sound like they could be Yiddish. Schlepp, schmuck, schlong, schtick, shiksa, meshuggeneh, etc. Like, I don't really think about it, but I don't say that something's far away, or it's out of the way, or that it's in an inconvenient place. I say it's a schlepp. That one word, schlepp, encapsulates all of that.

And more than that, I've had to explain what it means to many a gentile, so... yeah. The easiest indicator is the common bits of Yiddish that have snuck in.

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In New York and the more liberal parts of the US sure. In Serbia unless the Jewish person is really Orthodox and/or plays a violin you can't tell someone is one unless they tell you.

Also antisemitism around here is rare. As in the antisemite gets looked at as a weirdo for being racist against Jews. Islamophobia against the Bosniaks and ethnic hate against the Croats, Albanians (I have yet to meet a Serbian racist that counts them as Muslim or Christian) and Roma though is depressingly common.

 

[Nemonowan]

Yup. It's even been mentioned — Noa calls her "a nice Jewish girl from the Midwest" (she's from Illinois). And her grandfather (had to make him up for this, since I couldn't find any mention of whether her grandparents were still alive in any comic book canon) is mentioned as wearing long sleeves in the summer, with Noa guessing it's for the same reason Erik does — to hide the concentration camp numbers.

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Kitty had an actual canon-mentioned grandfather, although it wasn't him that was in a camp (he reportedly emigrated to the States from Poland before the war). Quoting from the Marvel Fandom wiki page for X-MEN #199 (november 1985, the issue prior to the Trial of Magneto):

At the Washington National Holocaust Memorial, Magneto and Kitty Pryde both go to an annual gathering of Holocaust survivors. Magneto because he himself lived through and survived the Holocaust, while Kitty's great-aunt went missing during the war and she is trying to find the connection for her late grandfather Samuel Prydeman who died the last year. Through talking to other survivors, Kitty learns that her great-aunt Chava Rosanoff was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, where she was murdered.

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So his canon name is Samuel Prydeman, and he should still be alive at this point in time.
Also, it was Magneto himself who identified Kitty's great-aunt from a picture, since he remembered her from his time in Auschwitz.

 

[Krazyfan1]

Seriously though, the easiest way to tell a Jew from a non-Jew (at least for Ashkenazi communities, in my experience) is to look for occasional bits of Yiddish sprinkled in, or things that sound like they could be Yiddish. Schlepp, schmuck, schlong, schtick, shiksa, meshuggeneh, etc. Like, I don't really think about it, but I don't say that something's far away, or it's out of the way, or that it's in an inconvenient place. I say it's a schlepp. That one word, schlepp, encapsulates all of that.

And more than that, I've had to explain what it means to many a gentile, so... yeah. The easiest indicator is the common bits of Yiddish that have snuck in.

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Hmm...
do you mean something similar to this?

Spoiler

 

[Fables]

Casual noa is done.
Art baked.

Spoiler

 

[Scia]

On a note to explain something as a mod for a moment @October Daye , I think you assume that SV in regards to mature matters is as puritan as SB but to quote the rules for a moment

Content which has mature themes and which might be available in restricted distribution - for example, the Kushiel's Legacy series of books, or Game of Thrones episodes on HBO (where sex and violence are explicit, but still form part of a larger body of work) - you cannot post images, and you must tag text content (with the Mature prefix for stories and quests that contain it), but, if handled in a mature and appropriate way, it will be acceptable on Sufficient Velocity.
E.g. Explicit depictions of adult sexual activity, rape, dismemberment, or other severe physical injury.

Those are okay, if tagged.

Content which has mature themes and which would generally be considered pornographic, outrageously explicit, or offensive - for example, actual pornography; Bible Black; Saw, Human Centipede, etc. - (where sex and/or violence are explicit and form the purpose or a significant portion of the work) is not acceptable on Sufficient Velocity, and may, depending on the circumstances, fall afoul of the Terms of Service prohibition against obscene content., that one isn't okay.

Just wanted to note it here as that means that it depends for the omake, but it would work for parts of the main story, but as it is a historic omake...

 

[October Daye]

On a note to explain something as a mod for a moment @October Daye , I think you assume that SV in regards to mature matters is as puritan as SB but to quote the rules for a moment

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Oh no, I know it's not. That said, maintaining differing versions of stuff is… tricky, and it's easier to just have a single, unified version, with side stories only posted to those platforms which allow the contents.

That said, certain historical Omake, depending on how they turn out, I might be able to pass them by a mod to see if they'll pass muster here on SV, and I'll be sure to do that once they're written. If they don't pass muster, they stay off the platform. Such is life.

Hmm...
do you mean something similar to this?

Spoiler

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Eeyup. Stuff like that.

Casual noa is done.
Art baked.

Spoiler

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THREADMARKED!

 

[TheBiggerFish]

Oh no, I know it's not. That said, maintaining differing versions of stuff is… tricky, and it's easier to just have a single, unified version, with side stories only posted to those platforms which allow the contents.

That said, certain historical Omake, depending on how they turn out, I might be able to pass them by a mod to see if they'll pass muster here on SV, and I'll be sure to do that once they're written. If they don't pass muster, they stay off the platform. Such is life.

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Well...yes, you would be posting a sidestory to the platforms that allow them if you posted it here. I don't think there was any suggestion that the mainline go anywhere it wasn't.

Just, that is why there's a Sidestory category.

...Also, I seem to recall a specific policy decision that content preclearance isn't a thing SV does, due to potential liability reasons, apparently, but don't take my word for it I'm not a mod.

 

[horngeek]

Well...yes, you would be posting a sidestory to the platforms that allow them if you posted it here. I don't think there was any suggestion that the mainline go anywhere it wasn't.

Just, that is why there's a Sidestory category.

...Also, I seem to recall a specific policy decision that content preclearance isn't a thing SV does, due to potential liability reasons, apparently, but don't take my word for it I'm not a mod.

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That's correct, yes. We've laid out the why elsewhere (aka I don't want to put my staff hat on too much for a story I'm reading and enjoying), but the short version is that pre-approving content *at all* exposes SV to some pretty significant liabilities.

 

[October Daye]

That's correct, yes. We've laid out the why elsewhere (aka I don't want to put my staff hat on too much for a story I'm reading and enjoying), but the short version is that pre-approving content *at all* exposes SV to some pretty significant liabilities.

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Oof, good to know. In that case I'll just err on the side of caution, or ask using generalities as opposed to the actual content if that's kosher instead.

 

[them8]

Hmm...
do you mean something similar to this?

Spoiler

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the only problem i have with that is the last sentence. "Peter Parker never belonged to the nerds. He always belonged to the Jews." because saying Peter Parker is not or at least has never been a nerd is wrong...
You can embrace a character as belonging to you without blocking him of from everyone else. Peter parker is absolutely a Jewish nerd.

 

[ic3shard13]

the only problem i have with that is the last sentence. "Peter Parker never belonged to the nerds. He always belonged to the Jews." because saying Peter Parker is not or at least has never been a nerd is wrong...
You can embrace a character as belonging to you without blocking him of from everyone else. Peter parker is absolutely a Jewish nerd.

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To add to your point, Peter Parker is powerful because many can identify with him.

There's certainly something to be said about the context and identity that form a character, and unfortunately those can be hidden or not explored enough to pander at a larger audience.

It isn't necesseraly malicious if finer details like New York dialects and their culture aren't made explicit to the reader(English isn't my first language, for a personal example, and I can enjoy Spiderman, even if translated in my mother tongue), and even though everyone knows examples where the 'pandering' is much more cynical and profit driven (Disney's queer characters disappearing in certain countries), I don't understand the complaint about why Peter Parker should belong only to a certain group.

My first Spiderman was a cartoon on TV, and, beyond their quality, the Marvel movies are blockbusters watched by millions of people worldwide.

Much of the nuance and context is lost in these types of works, but I don't see how it detracts from the originals. The general audience don't know every facet of the character? The comic book fans still know, and maybe some will start reading the OG comics. I understand a fear of a character being washed out(it happens for real historical figures!) but the old and new fans can always study the original works, and more importantly enjoy them with smug superiority.

To conclude, ignoring or not knowing Peter Parker's whole identity(and that of his author) can lead to a more superficial read of his story, but I don't think it's worse than not knowing Spiderman at all.

 

[QueenOfRoses]

I'm really enjoying this so far. It once again makes me want to take the LSAT and apply to law school haha

 

[Dmol8]

So, this chapter was meant to also have jury selection, but… the first scene got away from me. Like, it really got away from me. So rather than have a bloated, almost 8-10k word chapter, we're just going to… cut it off here.

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If the chapter would have been bloated it had nothing to do with the wordcount. I have seen 15K chapters that weren't bloated and 2k chapters that were. As the writer you are the only one who can know when a chapter starts to bloat.

And Holy F****** S***

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Also are cusses censored in this thread?

Edit: Guess not.

 

[General_Urist]

Dang did I just spend two hours reading through courtroom proceedings instead of doing work? I did. This story is real riveting!

 

[Epsilon Rose]

A thought on the Batman thing: if i read that correctly, he only coints as law enforcement if he causes less damage than the villain, which means his evidence would only count as fruits of a poisoned tree if he caused less damage.… That seems liable to cause some perverse incentives.

 

[Godwinson]

A thought on the Batman thing: if i read that correctly, he only coints as law enforcement if he causes less damage than the villain, which means his evidence would only count as fruits of a poisoned tree if he caused less damage.… That seems liable to cause some perverse incentives.

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How else do you get this?

 

[Dmol8]

"Would the defense like to cross-examine this witness?" Judge Andrews asked.

"It would," I answered, standing. "Before that, your Honor, the defense requests a brief twenty minute recess. The witness does not look particularly comfortable sitting in that position," I said with a nod at Mick, who scowled back. "And all of us could use an opportunity to get some fresh air. Or a smoke," I said with a nod at the DA, "if that is their preference."

"I am feeling a mite peckish myself," Judge Andrews said. "Very well. Court will reconvene with defense's cross of the witness in twenty minutes."

The gavel came down, and we all got a breather.

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"Would the prosecution like to redirect?" Judge Andrews asked, and I laughed inwardly. Oh, yes, please. I would love to see how you try and turn your star witness getting caught perjuring himself around into something positive.

"Not at this time, your Honor," DA Young said.

"Very well. Mr. Samuelson, you may step down from the stand," Judge Andrews said. "We will take a recess for lunch, and then the prosecution may call its next witness.

The gavel came down.

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So the Judge had a snack and then lunch? Or is that not supposed to be the case?

Also I just grokked that you are a co-writer on that other fic with Jack Slash's maybe-son and two other writers.

Edit: then lunch not them lunch

 

[October Daye]

So the Judge had a snack and then lunch? Or is that not supposed to be the case?

Also I just grokked that you are a co-writer on that other fic with Jack Slash's maybe-son and two other writers.

Edit: then lunch not them lunch

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I think you're underestimating just how long direct and cross examinations take. It goes faster in text, but it's a really, REALLY time consuming thing. Moreover, the judge is the sole arbiter of his courtroom. If he wants breaks for second breakfast, third breakfast, midmorning snack, elevensies, first through third lunches, and every other Hobbit meal, he can force that.

As for the second—yes, that would be It's Always Snowy in Chaldea, which I cowrite with @industrious @FurikoMaru @spencer1519 and @Andoriol.

 

[Dmol8]

We don't need to wait forty years. I'm happy saying that today.

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Oh? Which one are you? Millennial or Zoomer? Cause I don't usually run into members of Generation War or Antediluvians that are willing to call their elders stupid and I'd like to know what you consider the most stupid thing as I think I can use it to bring some gains to this thread and discussion.

This is a major issue in American criminal law, actually.

Common wisdom in the legal profession is that unless it is your absolute last resort, you do not put the defendant in a criminal case on the stand. You never, EVER want your defendant 1) under oath, and 2) forced to answer a prosecutor's questions honestly. This is the number one way that you can lose a case: once your defendant is on the stand, you cede all control over everything they say and do. You can have prepped them to hell and back, but you can't determine what they actually say on the stand. Only they can do that, and they're going to be nervous, scared, anxious, and every other negative thing under the sun up on that witness stand.

The public, though, sees a defendant not speaking in their own defense, and just... assumes they must be guilty, because they won't stand up and say "I didn't do it!"

Which is bad. It's very bad.

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Oh. So that's why. I was wondering what else besides power fantasy and freeze peach was making Psychopaths and Sociopaths so attractive to Americans and it turns out it is this bit of legal superstition.

This is EXACTLY what they're trying to do. They're trying to use an inherently dangerous mutant power to set the precedent that all mutant powers are deadly weapons.

It is basically impossible to argue that the ability to scorch a brick wall so bad that it still looks freshly burnt over a week of heavy rain later is anything but a deadly weapon. Sure, it wasn't used as a deadly weapon. But similarly, my using a sword to open a beer bottle doesn't make it a bottle opener. It's still a sword.

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I thought the Castle Doctrine was such a big deal in the 80s and 90s that even a flamethrower is an acceptable response if it was done in self-defense? I mean not for minorities, but St. John is a blond white kid mutant so he should be giving the jury mixed signals on that.

His deadline was "having a case with so little evidence involved that it could, theoretically, be over and done with before campaign season started in mid to late August".

Additionally, keep in mind that Noa's finding the bottle was, as I mentioned, the only reason she has a chance beyond "he-said she-said" and can conclusively cast doubt on Mick. The police detective did not find it, and because the detective didn't find it, Lou Young made the absolutely CRITICAL error of not weighing that piece of evidence as strongly as he needed to.

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Ah yes the bane of all politicians: The police didn't find the evidence. Not joking. Willing to elaborate if needed.

But we are actually allowed to own swords.
And flamethrowers. Actually according to wikipedia flamethrowers are tools and not firearms
Speaking of which wasnt the superpredator theory retracted by its author? And blamed on leaded gasoline
And proven to not work due to the fact that an actual super predatory personality runs too much of a risk of getting caught and facing legal and illegal retribution

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Yup to all of the above. But that's the current understanding regarding the super predator theory.

As for the 80's and 90's, though? Nope.

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Actually the proper term for real life superpredators is pedosadists and most of them get caught really young or get to live to ripe old age. And of course most of the successful ones are white men.

This fic's idea initially started life as a redo, then a revamp, and finally a spiritual successor of my first SI fic on SpaceBattles, Through the Mists. It was, in hindsight... not very good, bland, derivative, and right as it was about to get to something possibly different, I wrote myself into too high of a bar for me to clear at the time. However, I liked the original idea, and figured that I was older, wiser, had more experience with this particular genre of fic, and could take a stab at it again!

Problems. One, the power level of Young Justice is absurdly low compared to the eventual power level that such an SI would end up at. Two, Young Justice's third season was... nooooot great. And three, there is a real problem with having too much versatility. That problem... is that you get so caught up in wanting to bring out cool new stuff that you lose some of the focus, plan too big, and end up with plans so far in the future you can't reasonably get to them in between bringing out all the other cool stuff. (See: a large part of the reason I've had trouble going back to Lamarckian or Sympathy for the Devils...)

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I think you're underestimating just how long direct and cross examinations take. It goes faster in text, but it's a really, REALLY time consuming thing. Moreover, the judge is the sole arbiter of his courtroom. If he wants breaks for second breakfast, third breakfast, midmorning snack, elevensies, first through third lunches, and every other Hobbit meal, he can force that.

As for the second—yes, that would be It's Always Snowy in Chaldea, which I cowrite with @industrious @FurikoMaru @spencer1519 and @Andoriol.

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Hey you also have the same problem @industrious has in that you don't think like a person while trying to think like a person when writing super-powered characters. It's present in this story too. It's not been a detraction so far, but then again it hasn't been a detraction in A Subtle Knife and It's Always Snowy in Chaldea either. So far it's only been a detraction in With This Ring and as you're not writing with Mr Zoat you should not be getting into issues with that writing flaw.

No. I'm not underestimating how long direct and cross examinations take in Serbia. This is taking place in the US fictional and more insane than normal US so I should adjust my expectations accordingly. My bad there.

Also nice Hobbit joke. Is anybody else imagining Judge Andrews as a Hobbit now?

Spoiler: Paging Xon

Meet, in full color this time, Ms. Noa Schaefer, Esquire.


Just... ignore the floaties.

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Uh @Xon? I have somehow doubled the number of pictures and removed the spoiler while using only the quote function of the highlight text. I have no idea what happened here.

I can agree completely with this. Not testifying does look bad. It's really frustrating not to get 'the other side' of the story. It was particularly bad in the case I was involved in because the victim was clearly inebriated for a good portion of the events. I say victim because the defendant was found guilty of assault rather than any of the other charges because without that clarifying testimony there was nothing but doubts about the course of events. However the assault, (verbal in this case rather battery which is physical) was corroborated by other testimony. There was enough uncertainty over other charges for reasonable doubt. Nobody in the jury was happy with that, but similarly 2/3rds of the jury wasn't willing to take that step further on the memory and word of a possibly drunk woman no matter what physical evidence existed of more serious crimes.

I absolutely commend the defense attorney for his doing a good job. I also am pretty sure his client was probably guilty of far worse, but he did manage to show enough reason for doubt to get his client free of the heavier charges. I have to say that that definitional split of Assault and Battery was really interesting because until then myself and I would say all the other Jurors conflated the two.

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The courts should be able to allow the victims of stunlocking crimes like assault and rape time to actually be able to testify instead of just coping on the witness stand.

Also you have now explained the in-joke that served as the impetus for the creation of two Worm characters. Thank you.

Edit: are not ware. I'm not even sure how I made that error.
Edit 2: it is this not it this.

 

[October Daye]

Oh. So that's why. I was wondering what else besides power fantasy and freeze peach was making Psychopaths and Sociopaths so attractive to Americans and it turns out it is this bit of legal superstition.

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Pretty much. Sociopaths and psychopaths are incredibly cool under fire just due to their sociopathy/psychopathy, so there's less risk in putting them up on the stand. Then, because they're on the stand and speaking in their own defense, the jury sees them in a more positive light.

It's a vicious cycle, and unfortunately the only way to stop it is to be aware of its existence and try to mitigate it. You aren't allowed to explain why you refuse to put your defendant on the stand, though, which... hurts.

I thought the Castle Doctrine was such a big deal in the 80s and 90s that even a flamethrower is an acceptable response if it was done in self-defense? I mean not for minorities, but St. John is a blond white kid mutant so he should be giving the jury mixed signals on that.

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Castle Doctrine is something I'm very much against, but even so, it only applies in the home. It wouldn't apply in this scenario.

Hey you also have the same problem @industrious has in that you don't think like a person while trying to think like a person when writing super-powered characters. It's present in this story too.

Click to shrink...

Uh... elaborate? /confused