Crime and Punishment (WIP)

Investigations, where necessary, are performed by the Investigation Division of the local Watch Precinct, or the nearest Watch Precinct so equipped. Investigators have a broad array of forensic tool available to them, including the dreaded Brain Reader, which reduces a living mind to a simple reference text that can be searched for information. It is technically an execution device, but is not covered as such.

Warrant

Procurators write all warrants for Investigators; once a warrant has been issued the Investigator is given full clearance to look in businesses, residences and transportation. Refusing to permit an Investigator with a warrant access is punishable by a beating, and can and probably will be considered evidence of wrong-doing in court.

Philosophy and practice

It is important to remember that the Imperial judicial system has no stated interest in deterrence. Offenders are killed solely for the sake of killing them, that is to say, to remove them from being a continued problem for the Imperial judicial system. The attitude is that if someone else causes a problem, they'll be killed too. Appeals are highly limited and usually take place within the month. Otherwise, sentence is carried out within minutes of the verdict being given.

Rights of the Criminal

The only right the criminal has is to hear the charges against him in open court. Permission to appeal can be rejected by every official.

Imprisonment and penal labor

The Empire has no prison system, no capacity for a prison system, and no interest in building one. There is no party in the Secretariat that wishes to expend the resources on a criminal when that criminal can be beaten or killed and then everyone else involved can move on.

Penal labor has been depreciated for millennia, because the general feeling is that having criminals do work takes work away from people who aren't criminals.

Fines

While many officials can levy fines instead of sentencing a criminal to corporal or capital punishment, doing so is incredibly unpopular with the imperial public and can make an official's tenure difficult. The public believes that fines, no matter how heavy, are the rich buying their way out of punishment, and more than one riot began in the past over a wealthy individual being seen as to buy justice.

Corporal punishment

Theft, public disturbance, general assault, public intoxication, blasphemy and atheism, and a host of other crimes are all punished by being beaten with a bamboo cane for a number of strokes to be determined by the judge in consultation with The Black Book.

Capital Crimes

Murder (all killings of another person are classified as murder), counterfeiting of money, impersonation of a Secretariat official, impersonation of an Officer of the Watch, impersonation of an Officer of the Banners, rape, stealing goods worth more than 50 ces more than three times, importing or selling chocolate, assaulting an official of the Secretariat, assaulting an officer of the Watch, assaulting an Officer of the Banners, challenging someone to a duel or accepting a duel, sedition, assaulting or impersonating the Celestial Master.

Methods of Capital Punishment

While previously there were a number of ways to execute criminals, ranging from disemboweling to the slow slicing, the only method of execution performed today is beheading, usually via a guillotine, though the nobility may request an executioner use a sword.

Defenses

There are two legal defenses against crimes. And only two. First, self-defense. The defendant must prove that his self-defense was proportional. The other defense is duress, where the criminal was forced by circumstances or threat to commit a crime. Neither defense is particularly welcome by officials.

Discredited Punishments

In the past criminals could also be sentenced to mutilation, castration, or amputation, but these are no longer performed in the modern Empire.

The Nine Familial Exterminations

The Nine Familial Exterminations are the ultimate codified punishment under Imperial Law. It is the punishment for rebellion and treason. It consists of the execution of:

*The criminal's living parents
*The criminal's living grandparents
*Any children the criminal may have, over the age of 6, and—if married—their spouses
*Any grandchildren the criminal may have, over the age of 6, and—if married—their spouses.
*Siblings and siblings-in-law (the siblings of the criminal, their spouses, and the siblings of the spouse)
*Uncles and aunts of the criminal, as well as their spouses
*The criminal's cousins (being the children of the criminal's uncles and aunts)
*The criminal's spouse
*The criminal's spouse's parents
*The criminal himself

In all of Imperial history it has been performed twenty times, most recently in the case of Princely House Jin, whose head attempted to assassinate the Lieskou Empress. There has been an ongoing debate between the Scholars as to whether merely advocating for rebellion is deserving of the Nine Familial Exterminations, or whether it is simply sedition to be executed for.