Resolution of a PC Trial

Thank you TheGnome5786, Caerwyn_Glyndwr and Rockyranger for your opinions. The Gnome you are absolutely right that if they mess with the Deck, there should be consequences, but the Caerwyn & Rocky, you are 100% correct too in saying that I left them this opportunity when I created the card, that they put on a good defence and it wasn't just a simple loss in court.

While it was riskier to go to trial, it wasn't a terrible decision. They did give a good defence - if I felt they had 100% failed I'd declare them guilty. Equally, if they'd given a strong defence, I'd say not guilty but if I was just going to enforce the fine no matter what I should have never let it go to trial. (I may have to modify this card for the future, so they can still have fun defending themselves if they want but still having a reasonable risk of bearing the consequence of this card).

Regardless, the issue I must deal with is I could rule either way based on the arguments; it wasn't a clear cut guilty or not guilty. As has been suggested I've prepared a prison break option, a negotiated deal option, a hung jury & settlement option and an option for if they're declared not guilty. Because I think it hangs in the balance and I don't think I should be the sole arbitrator of what constitutes a good or bad argument, I'm planning on rolling a die (modified based on arguments and dice rolls) to decide which of these options I'll use. That seems fairest to me

Thank you very much CharlesThePlant, that's quite an interesting and cool suggestion.

Thank you very much Character77006. You're right, they're not necessarily the types to run from a challenge, but I do think they'd jump on a breakout chance - though they're also generally quite unpredictable (but great fun to play with)

Caerwyn_Glyndwr, thank you for all your help already. I was hoping as the legal expert you could answer two questions for me to help me set the modifiers for the jury's decision.

The party used other members as an alibi for the PC. If an impartial witness (in this case the Fey who was presented as a trustworthy witness owing to his relationship with the primary deity who the city is really devoted to) offers a testimony that contradicts their testimony (placing the PC at the scene of the crime), would that testimony generally be considered more trustworthy since the other PCs are his friends and could be lying to cover for him?

Regarding the question of reasonable doubt, considering this case basically relies on witnesses, how much would failing to cross examine the main witness for the prosecution or planting any seeds of doubt in his testimony affect the result in your opinion? 

For starters, this is not a decision I think should be left up to a single dice roll.  Dice roles that decide the entire outcome of a session feel anticlimactic to players - they spent an entire session putting in effort for an outcome, and then random chance is the primary decider of that outcome.  Even if their contributions might have weighted the random chance, at the end of the day, you are still waiting for a die to fall and the decision to be based on what number random chance determines.  Frankly, speaking as a long-term DM, it feels a bit like a cop out - a way to take a decision that should be the DM’s and delegates it instead to random chance.

That does not mean random chance should not play a part in the outcome - that is what persuasion, deception, and insight roles during the actual trial should have been used for. But you are now past that point, and it should be the arguments and you as the DM/arbiter of fact to make the final decision. 

Regarding your specific questions, in the real world, a lot of this is going to come down to the specific nature of the jury.  In the real world, there is an entire process of jury selection to kick out potentially unfair candidates and produce as impartial a jury as possible. This is what you should go in with the assumption of - your jury should be fairly neutral and constructed in a way that they are not going to be biased toward just listening to the star witness of the prosecution and calling it a day.  That does not mean there not going to automatically trust the Fae more than the party, but it does mean they are not going take the Fae’s word without at least questioning it.

Starting with that presumption, on to the actual questions you asked.

Any jury is going to be skeptical about statements made by co-defendants.  It is not a great alibi if the only people who can vouch for you have the exact same incentive to lie.

Further, most jurors are going to be deferential to a pillar of the community with a strong reputation.  Particularly if they are not impeached (their testimony undermined) with inconsistency or a showing of bias.

Based on your above, at my table I would find them guilty - but at my table, I have other lawyers, and they are going to know that they can present evidence other than their own testimony, know how to impeach a witness, and know how to structure argument to sow reasonable doubt.  But I am also holding them to a much, much higher standard than any other group would be held to.

Here is the thing I keep coming back to in my thinking on this thread:

You are the finder of fact.  And you have reasonable doubt about the right answer.  I think that should answer your question - you have adopted a system of reasonable doubt, not proving one’s innocence.  If you, as the DM, have a reasonable doubt about convicting them based on how they did, then don’t convict.

Thank you very much Caerwyn_Glyndwr again for your advice. On this particular point, I do disagree with you. I've been playing and DMing for a fair bit of time myself and the DM is only human. He/she'll make mistakes and he/she will have biases. Sometimes a roll is the fairest thing you can do as a DM, and I think this might be one of those points, because actually if I were to rule this myself, I would probably say the PC was guilty - I don't think the party pushed hard enough, presented a strong enough defence generally or provided credible enough witnesses (and they're aware of this themselves). Plus the deck is literally stacked against them (the magic of the card means basically everyone assumes this guy is guilty). However, as one of them reminded me the burden of proof is on the prosecution & (being a layman myself) I don't think the prosecution made the best case, and several players have told me they do think they made a better argument than I'm giving them credit for (and they did make some good points, like how is the PC supposed to be in multiple places at the same time), and maybe they're right - I am subject to biases the same as any person - which is why this would be one of the cases where I think I might use a roll to decide the ultimate outcome, or just bring back a declaration of guilty. I've until tomorrow to make my final decision and I am going to think about it a bit more.

Thank you very much for your help with these questions and generally for your advice. It's really appreciated. One small point of clarification, they're not co-defendants, they're just known acquaintances - I don't know if that significantly impacts your answer.