The Lawyer Can't Choose the World He Protects - Vol. 1 Ch. 2 - The Dragon Charged with Murder (Part 2)

[MangaDex]

 

[Petrelspymaster]

the party kill the guy , didnt they. calling it now. I feel it in my gut

 

[traplolihunter]

the party kill the guy , didnt they. calling it now. I feel it in my gut

I was about to comment like the guy is stalling but color me surprised i think this is it

 

[Kireato]

the party kill the guy , didnt they. calling it now. I feel it in my gut

I think the king is the one who planned it all, though they must have been involved too. After all, the king received a report of a dragon who could speak, so he knew it could be put on trial, and then ordered an adventurer's party to handle it. I wonder if the king may have even had a motive to get rid of that particular commander. It might have been a win-win-win situation where he gets rid of a human he has an issue with, acquires the treasure for his kingdom, and gets rid of a destruction dragon by using this system.

It's pretty blatantly unfair how they are putting the dragon on trial, but they have clearly made it clear that their intent was to subjugate it, and that they went to its lair to do so. If they had succeeded, wouldn't they be considered murderers then?

With his current line of reasoning I guess he wants to establish that they are not independent witnesses but they're all involved and willing to lie for each other. And getting into the personal lives of the hero party might also get some people to stop looking at them as favourably (because they're essentially idols so they're not allowed to have relationships, at least to the public's eye), so he's destroying that image to rebalance the unfair perception against destruction dragons. If it's not that, I've got no clue where he's trying to go with this.

 

[CheesiBoye]

I am 50/50 whether to put on phoenix wright ost or better call saul vibes while reading this

 

[MagnaDrake]

Is he even allowed to ask that?

 

[cryum]

It should be easy to throw the current case out the court, but what he's doing right now looks like shifting public sentiment to go against greedy authorities so they can't just keep throwing bodies to die.

 

[negativeinfinity]

"No, we actually had over 300 chapters of unresolved will-they-or-won't-they 'romantic tension', with at least five other romantic interests introduced and summarily dismissed, each treated as though they had any chance of winning the Naoto Bowl, for some reason."

 

[ARealCoolGuy]

the party kill the guy , didnt they. calling it now. I feel it in my gut

I think the king is the one who planned it all

I'm 50/50 on who did it.
If the party did it, with no command by the king, I imagine it's because the girl was hit on by the commander (or worse), or something along those lines - given the last question.

However if the king did, it's totally reasonable to see why; they're up against a dragon that can ruin nations and kills hundreds, so why fight the dragon normally? Sacrifice one man, and then use the courts to kill the dragon. It's a much safer route for victory with much less sacrifice and cost.

Granted, I don't see why any of this is put through the court. The dragon was in its cave, they entered its cave to - as they admitted - attack and kill the dragon. Shouldn't the dragon automatically be cleared of charges on self defence grounds? Yeah, it killed the attackers, but that's equal force. Yeah, the dragon is stronger, but both sides admitted that they thought the shield of the group would take a few attacks, so why should only the dragon face consequences for that misjudgment?

In fact, shouldn't the king, who is essentially contracting and sending hit men to immorally kill the dragon who has yet to commit any wrongs, the most liable here? It could even be argued that the hit men were sent to unsafe work conditions, since it seemed to be an unwinnable battle.

Anyway, I'm really digging this so far. I'm sure both my guesses are wrong, as these things tend to go.

No, we actually had over 300 chapters of unresolved will-they-or-won't-they 'romantic tension'...

This is the real answer to that last question, based on all the manga I've read.

 

[Elhao]

I hope the dragon will counter-sue for burglary and attempted robbery and murder.

I'm rather disappointed the goddess would allow them to swear on her name in court and still lie.

 

[SUSmaster274329]

Since the one who made the protective water thingy is in the party he maybe tried to get the hero dude killed because he loved the girl, but the shield dude got killed instead.

That or the king orchestrated it but that leaves out a motive for the guy who made the amulet, unless the order was to give it to the hero but the hero decided to give it to shield dude since he needed it more. And the king did so because his motive aligned with the guy who made the amulet.

 

[Babymech2]

They're just going to solve this by summoning the spirit of the dead guy right?

To be fair, it would be a much better legal drama if the reincarnated lawyer gets the facts completely wrong but is still so good at weaving an argument that the jury believes him anyway... But since this is a manga I guess he can only win with the truth on his side, and the goddess already told him the dragon was innocent.

 

[taerkitty]

Unlike Phoenix Wright, at least this guy didn't meet his client for the first time in the courtroom...

 

[nomadicengi]

I think the king is the one who planned it all, though they must have been involved too. After all, the king received a report of a dragon who could speak, so he knew it could be put on trial, and then ordered an adventurer's party to handle it. I wonder if the king may have even had a motive to get rid of that particular commander. It might have been a win-win-win situation where he gets rid of a human he has an issue with, acquires the treasure for his kingdom, and gets rid of a destruction dragon by using this system.

It's pretty blatantly unfair how they are putting the dragon on trial, but they have clearly made it clear that their intent was to subjugate it, and that they went to its lair to do so. If they had succeeded, wouldn't they be considered murderers then?

With his current line of reasoning I guess he wants to establish that they are not independent witnesses but they're all involved and willing to lie for each other. And getting into the personal lives of the hero party might also get some people to stop looking at them as favourably (because they're essentially idols so they're not allowed to have relationships, at least to the public's eye), so he's destroying that image to rebalance the unfair perception against destruction dragons. If it's not that, I've got no clue where he's trying to go with this.

We don't have anything about Lord Galdor at the moment to say the possible motive for his murder. He might be involved at defense of the cleric's village and/or the goblin attack at the mage or he just a victim of being a scapegoat to the king. Either way, he has to meticulously lead the jury to that point or his defense will fail.

 

[kunyka]

Ooops, I forgot she fells under this trope.

 

[NoTofu]

The priestess is sus, I feel like she didn't cast a divine blessing to reduce damage but instead did the opposite. The necklace would have been too obvious so I don't think Mage did it

 

[Voyager]

The dragon was in its cave, they entered its cave to - as they admitted - attack and kill the dragon. Shouldn't the dragon automatically be cleared of charges on self defence grounds? Yeah, it killed the attackers, but that's equal force.

While I don't know the exact Japanese used, the English subjugate does not mean "to kill", it's to either conquer or subdue: in both cases, the outcome would be non-lethal.

In law, we are specific with our words, so this is an important distinction to make.

Since we have no evidence presented thus far that the adventurers came intending lethal force, the prosecution correctly asserts that Diagorm, considering its might, should have been able to repel the adventurers without resorting to lethal force.

The defence is, I believe, angling for the argument that Diagorm did not, in fact, use lethal force, and that the death is the result of either gross negligence or malice on the part of the adventurers.

Since an important facet is that the prosecution claims that Diagorm attacked without warning, the attorney's first step is to bring into doubt the credibility of the witnesses, I think, since the bias against Diagorm means they won't take her side in a "he said, she said"; if he undermines the credibility of the witnesses, it'll be easier to get people to give the truth a chance.



Liking this a lot so far, but now I want to read chapter 3 already, aha ha.


EDIT: I looked it up, the Japanese uses 「討伐」, which does mean "to subjugate" but I believe it is a more lethal variant, so I believe it is a fair interpretation to say the adventurers had been sent with the objective of slaying the dragon, rather than subjugating. However, we must still consider proportionality: was lethal force the only way to protect herself? She's level 99, couldn't she have dissuaded the adventurers in some other manner by demonstrating the sheer difference in strength?

I think you can successfully argue that a level 99 destruction dragon should be able to make the adventurer party believe they will not be able to defeat her and thus retreat; at the very least, deadly force should only be used if it is the only way to safeguard one's life, which would be arguable if it occurred after an extended fight in which the adventurers refused to be dissuaded.

tl;dr
You are correct that the adventurers (likely) came with the intent to slay the dragon, but the dragon should first have attempted to dissuade the attackers through non-lethal force and only escalate to lethal force if there are no alternatives.

 

[Cz760]

It's honestly just weird to have a justice system that is entirely based on rousing the emotions of the jury for a verdict when you have gods who actively watch over the world, know all the facts, but don't do anything when people lie under oath to those very gods. And it's even stranger that adventurers can just waltz into a monster's home, attempt to kill them to steal their possessions, fail because the monster fought back and won, and then put on a witch trial to essentially just have them crucified by the gods because the adventurers were too weak to win on their own and were piss babies about it. Especially in a world with a tangible level system that lets you accurately assess something's strength and danger. It's like if a knight charged at a tank, lost, and then the King was allowed to call the tank to stand trial for "murder".

The worldbuilding is so inconsistent with the ideal of "justice" that is seemingly brought about by the gods and their intervention, yet it is completely opposite what they want, abusable, and basically just a vehicle for human oppression of the rest of the world. The consistency in what is divinely enforced is absolutely wishy-washy, because if they can enforce appearance in the court to even Dragons who are bound from their very birth to a cave to defend treasure, then they can at least enforce honest testimony by swearing the oath, especially if they're also the ones divvying out "divine punishment".

 

[trenslime]

my guess is they set up Galdor's death so they could sue the dragon, and upon getting them charged guilty, claim the horde they are protecting

 

[Magatsu-no-Imouto]

got a hunch that the pendant they gave Galdor isn't the water stone. Problem now is how to prove it.