Impact of magic on justice system?

[Aliquid]

Imagine (in a D&D type world), a large city that has various high and mid level spell casters working for the city... what happens with the justice system?

Spells like "zone of truth" and "discern lies" or any divination type spell being available would have a major impact. What would be the result?

I guess there is also the possibility of corruption within the city. So, those who cast the spells for the city might... manipulate the situation to let certain people go free... and high level criminals would be able to resist the power of these spells various ways.

But petty criminals and low level members of organized crime would have a hard time avoiding being caught.

Thoughts?

[Deliverance]

In a truly lawful justice system they'd all be banned or considered hearsay as divination is not a reliable source of evidence. Consider:

Ex1:
Q: What evidence do you have that the man committed the crime?
A: I know he is. My magic says so.
Q: Errr, I asked for evidence.
A: It IS evidence. I'm a cleric. My GOD told me.
Q: So we are talking hearsay, here?
A: HERESY!


Ex2:
Q: What evidence do you have that the man committed the crime?
A: I know he is. My magic says so.
Q: Errr, I asked for evidence.
A: It IS evidence. I'm a wizard, divination is my specialty!
Q: So you don't actually have any evidence that we can use, just your statement of what you believe happened?
A: But I know it. Why don't you believe me. Who do you trust, him or me?

Ex3:
Q: So, how do we know this invisible "zone of truth" does what you say? Preventing deliberate and intentional lies?
A: Enter it and try lying - see, you can't.
Q: Interesting. I certainly felt an effect, but how do I know this is a zone that affects everybody in it? What if your magic just prevented me from lying?
A: It doesn't work that way.
Q: Prove it.
A: I just tried to lie, I can't do it either.
Q: ...
A: Be reasonable. How on earth do you expect me to be able to prove to you that my magic does what I say it does and nothing else?
Q: That was actually going to be my next question to you.

Ex4:
Q: This divination you are going on about sounds interesting, except for how it tramples all over the constitutional mental privacy guarantees so essential to maintaining our society. What differentiates it from the many types of magical violation of peoples' rights that caused those guarantees to be part of our constitution in the first place?
A: I'll get back to you on that.

In a less just but perhaps more practical justice system you'd choose to believe the practitioners of magic and accept convicting innocent people when the practitioners lied or were incompetent, frauds, or just made honest mistakes.

Or perhaps you'd pay a second magic user whom you trusted to oversee the others and check on their magic, or perhaps you'd accept word of god as interpreted by a cleric to hold up in court or whatever.

But regardless of your precautions, you'd be at most one step removed from the good old "if X men in good standing says somebody is guilty, then that's evidence enough to convict" justice so popular in medieval and pre-medieval times.

[Aliquid]

I think that in many scenarios, the local church of a god with the "Law" domain would likely be in charge of the justice system, and I doubt any of them would question or challenge the validity or workings of a "zone of truth". I also doubt that people would question the honesty of a magistrate that is an official cleric of said church.

Your "constitutional" rights idea is a modern concept that likely wouldn't apply in typical D&D style settings.

For petty crimes in medieval type times, a magistrate would be both judge and jury, and the accused wouldn't get any help with their "defense" (no lawyer etc). Having a magistrate that can cast zone of truth, would be a big step up from a magistrate that just made decisions based on his mood.

[Jay R]

I think the predominant effect would be immediate rush to develop a "Protection from Truth Spells" spell.

[Scots Dragon]

Your "constitutional" rights idea is a modern concept that likely wouldn't apply in typical D&D style settings.

Not necessarily. Medieval England had the Magna Carta, effectively a prototypical constitution that protected liberties and similar concepts dating back to the 1215 CE. This included concepts such as the right of habeas corpus and the right to due process. Ancient Rome had a concept known as a 'Ius', which was a right to which any citizen was entitled by dint of citizenship; this is actually the root linguistic origin for the modern word 'justice' itself.

This is a concept that literally goes back millennia, and they were often brought in as a response to certain things. The idea of constitutional rights would certainly exist in a D&D-style setting.

[ngilop]

In a truly lawful justice system they'd all be banned or considered hearsay as divination is not a reliable source of evidence. Consider:

Ex1:
Q: What evidence do you have that the man committed the crime?
A: I know he is. My magic says so.
Q: Errr, I asked for evidence.
A: It IS evidence. I'm a cleric. My GOD told me.
Q: So we are talking hearsay, here?
A: HERESY!


Ex2:
Q: What evidence do you have that the man committed the crime?
A: I know he is. My magic says so.
Q: Errr, I asked for evidence.
A: It IS evidence. I'm a wizard, divination is my specialty!
Q: So you don't actually have any evidence that we can use, just your statement of what you believe happened?
A: But I know it. Why don't you believe me. Who do you trust, him or me?

Ex3:
Q: So, how do we know this invisible "zone of truth" does what you say? Preventing deliberate and intentional lies?
A: Enter it and try lying - see, you can't.
Q: Interesting. I certainly felt an effect, but how do I know this is a zone that affects everybody in it? What if your magic just prevented me from lying?
A: It doesn't work that way.
Q: Prove it.
A: I just tried to lie, I can't do it either.
Q: ...
A: Be reasonable. How on earth do you expect me to be able to prove to you that my magic does what I say it does and nothing else?
Q: That was actually going to be my next question to you.

Ex4:
Q: This divination you are going on about sounds interesting, except for how it tramples all over the constitutional mental privacy guarantees so essential to maintaining our society. What differentiates it from the many types of magical violation of peoples' rights that caused those guarantees to be part of our constitution in the first place?
A: I'll get back to you on that.

In a less just but perhaps more practical justice system you'd choose to believe the practitioners of magic and accept convicting innocent people when the practitioners lied or were incompetent, frauds, or just made honest mistakes.

Or perhaps you'd pay a second magic user whom you trusted to oversee the others and check on their magic, or perhaps you'd accept word of god as interpreted by a cleric to hold up in court or whatever.

But regardless of your precautions, you'd be at most one step removed from the good old "if X men in good standing says somebody is guilty, then that's evidence enough to convict" justice so popular in medieval and pre-medieval times.

basically the complete opposite of these examples. In a world where magic is common place and NOT THE REAL WORLD .

[Necroticplague]

Spells like "zone of truth" and "discern lies" or any divination type spell being available would have a major impact. What would be the result?

As a person who has spent a good amount of time studying truth and falsehood, the idea those spells are anything but a minor speedbump is hilarious. Anyone with a couple brain cells to run together can get around those easily.

I guess there is also the possibility of corruption within the city. So, those who cast the spells for the city might... manipulate the situation to let certain people go free... and high level criminals would be able to resist the power of these spells various ways.

High level? You don't need any levels to simply never make statements that have a truth value to be tested, or that are so hedged as to be impossible to be false.

Thoughts?

In more modern court systems, the fact that divinations are literally impossible to verify to anyone else (and, thanks to saves and other factors, may not produce the same results when made by different people) would make them inadmissible as evidence.

[Enixon]

basically the complete opposite of these examples. In a world where magic is common place and NOT THE REAL WORLD .

I fail to see how magic being common invalidates any of those examples.

Heck, in Legend of the Five Rings it's canon that magic cannot be used in trials for a similar reason that no one save the magic user casting the spell knows for sure what spell was actualy cast. In it's example a Shugenja summons up the ghost of a murder victim to be a witness in his own murder trail which leads to the suspect being convicted and executed. Only later the murder victim is found alive and well, the shugenja had actually just cast an illusion spell durring the trail.

And even if it CAN be proven to the satisfaction of the setting's judicial system that it indeed Zone of Truth (or whatever) being cast, those spells tend to offer saving throws, so even then there's no telling that the subject failed his or her save and is actualy being effected. This could lead to guilty parties "proving" their innocence by saying that they didn't do it while in a zone of truth that they have resisted.

[Jay R]

In a truly lawful justice system they'd all be banned or considered hearsay as divination is not a reliable source of evidence.

"Lawful": doesn't mean "modern".

Ex1:
Q: What evidence do you have that the man committed the crime?
A: I know he is. My magic says so.
Q: Errr, I asked for evidence.
A: It IS evidence. I'm a cleric. My GOD told me.
Q: So we are talking hearsay, here?

The god in question: <blast>
Q: <becomes a pair of shoes and a small pile of dust>

Ex2:
Q: What evidence do you have that the man committed the crime?
A: I know he is. My magic says so.
Q: Errr, I asked for evidence.
A: It IS evidence. I'm a wizard, divination is my specialty!
Q: So you don't actually have any evidence that we can use, just your statement of what you believe happened?

Lawyer: Your honor, we have 153 expert witnesses ready to give testimony on that subject.

Ex3:
Q: So, how do we know this invisible "zone of truth" does what you say? Preventing deliberate and intentional lies?
A: Enter it and try lying - see, you can't.
Q: Interesting. I certainly felt an effect, but how do I know this is a zone that affects everybody in it? What if your magic just prevented me from lying?
A: It doesn't work that way.
Q: Prove it.

A: <waves hands> It doesn't work that way, and you're a frog.
Q: Ribbit.

Ex4:
Q: This divination you are going on about sounds interesting, except for how it tramples all over the constitutional mental privacy guarantees so essential to maintaining our society. What differentiates it from the many types of magical violation of peoples' rights that caused those guarantees to be part of our constitution in the first place?

A: The duke has the right of high, middle, and low justice, and has just p*ssed on that constitution.

But regardless of your precautions, you'd be at most one step removed from the good old "if X men in good standing says somebody is guilty, then that's evidence enough to convict" justice so popular in medieval and pre-medieval times.

No, not even one step removed. Swords. Glaives. Chain mail. Castles. Knights. Kings. Nobles. Dungeons.

These are medieval times.

[Aliquid]

As a person who has spent a good amount of time studying truth and falsehood, the idea those spells are anything but a minor speedbump is hilarious. Anyone with a couple brain cells to run together can get around those easily.

High level? You don't need any levels to simply never make statements that have a truth value to be tested, or that are so hedged as to be impossible to be false.

But the person casting the spells and asking the questions would likely have a higher intelligence and/or wisdom than the average commoner, and they would have practice and experience with their job. I'm sure they could phrase questions in a way that counters this approach.

In more modern court systems, the fact that divinations are literally impossible to verify to anyone else (and, thanks to saves and other factors, may not produce the same results when made by different people) would make them inadmissible as evidence.

I strongly doubt that a "modern court system" would develop in a world that has always had magic. Things would evolve differently in so many ways. If you accept a system where clerics get their powers from their gods, and that their powers are taken away from them if they act against the prescribed alignment... I'm pretty sure you can trust that they will remain "lawful" in how they apply their spells.

I find people seem to be so fixated on the modern western concept of a justice system as the only "true and correct" system that they feel violated even imagining something different. As if the current western system is the "obvious and only evolutionary conclusion of justice in any advanced culture"

I fail to see how magic being common invalidates any of those examples.

A world where magic is and historically has been common would create a culture very different from ours. Magic being common changes everything.

Heck, in Legend of the Five Rings it's canon that magic cannot be used in trials for a similar reason that no one save the magic user casting the spell knows for sure what spell was actualy cast. In it's example a Shugenja summons up the ghost of a murder victim to be a witness in his own murder trail which leads to the suspect being convicted and executed. Only later the murder victim is found alive and well, the shugenja had actually just cast an illusion spell durring the trail.

So what? A person could create an illusion of a "live" person to come to a trial and lie. There are thousands of ways for someone to use magic to "cheat" at a trial... why on earth would you think that the justice system wouldn't use magic as well to help deduce someone's innocence/guilt.

And even if it CAN be proven to the satisfaction of the setting's judicial system that it indeed Zone of Truth (or whatever) being cast, those spells tend to offer saving throws, so even then there's no telling that the subject failed his or her save and is actualy being effected. This could lead to guilty parties "proving" their innocence by saying that they didn't do it while in a zone of truth that they have resisted.

So... then the "zone of truth" is just one of many tools used, not the only tool.

[JNAProductions]

Yeah, I'd definitely agree that it's not the be-all end-all to the justice system. You'd still need investigators, witnesses, all that jazz.

But! It'd be hugely helpful.

[Keltest]

Yeah, I'd definitely agree that it's not the be-all end-all to the justice system. You'd still need investigators, witnesses, all that jazz.

But! It'd be hugely helpful.

Agreed. I don't think it would obviate the need for evidence gathering, but it would drastically reduce the difficulty and increase the variety of collectable evidence.

[Nifft]

Imagine (in a D&D type world), a large city that has various high and mid level spell casters working for the city... what happens with the justice system?

Spells like "zone of truth" and "discern lies" or any divination type spell being available would have a major impact. What would be the result?

I guess there is also the possibility of corruption within the city. So, those who cast the spells for the city might... manipulate the situation to let certain people go free... and high level criminals would be able to resist the power of these spells various ways.

But petty criminals and low level members of organized crime would have a hard time avoiding being caught.

Thoughts?

I don't think zone of truth etc. would have much effect on most aspects of criminal justice, because capture & confinement become much more difficult if magic is commonly available to criminal elements.

Where those spells would be commonly seen is in civil court, where someone wants to get damages after a contract was violated (or similar). This is both because civil cases tend to involve a conflict between two or more high-wealth entities (persons or business or organizations or dragons or whatnot).

Spoiler: Labor Relations

Show

Kobold: "That lying wyrm said she'd pay me scale!"

Dragon: "Duplicitous vermin! Those were some of my best scales!"

For criminal activity, I think we'd see a lot of frontier justice -- mob justice, or a lone Paladin acting as judge and executioner -- which is pretty much what I do see in D&D, so that's one bit of nice verisimilitude from an unexpected quarter.

[Aliquid]

I don't think zone of truth etc. would have much effect on most aspects of criminal justice, because capture & confinement become much more difficult if magic is commonly available to criminal elements.

Depends on how "commonly" available the magic is. It also depends on if you have the wealth, skill or influence to get your hands on such things.

I would suggest that in larger cities magic would have a big impact on petty crimes by commoners. So mid level commoners and low level experts/aristocrats wouldn't be able to get away with anything... you have to be higher level to have access to magic items or a high enough Will save to make a difference.

Stopping crime from mid to low level commoners and low level experts/aristocrats... well that's a good chunk of the population.

[Clistenes]

*snip*

Magic could be integrated into the judicial system, the same way genetic testing, autopsies, and well, all forensic science has been in our own world...

So wizards and clerics could lie? Well, so can forensic doctors. If you doubt their neutrality, you ask for somebody to repeat the tests...

As for divinations, a wizard could craft an item that casts them, a second expert could identify them, a third expert could test the item, and the judge him/herself could use it...

[Nifft]

Depends on how "commonly" available the magic is. It also depends on if you have the wealth, skill or influence to get your hands on such things.

I would suggest that in larger cities magic would have a big impact on petty crimes by commoners. So mid level commoners and low level experts/aristocrats wouldn't be able to get away with anything... you have to be higher level to have access to magic items or a high enough Will save to make a difference.

Stopping crime from mid to low level commoners and low level experts/aristocrats... well that's a good chunk of the population.

So there's efficient magical enforcement of the law upon the poor and middle-class only, and the rich can get away with murder.

Suddenly, it sounds like we're playing Shadowrun -- which is awesome in its own way.

But it's not the rule of law. It's a magical oppressive caste system.

... until someone casts Lenin's Liberating Leveler ...

[Aliquid]

So there's efficient magical enforcement of the law upon the poor and middle-class only, and the rich can get away with murder.

Suddenly, it sounds like we're playing Shadowrun -- which is awesome in its own way.

But it's not the rule of law. It's a magical oppressive caste system

That is a very possible outcome.

[RazorChain]

Why not just use more drastic measures.

This isn't contained to the D&D spell list.


Use compel truth to make the subject tell the truth or just better yet read his mind. Dominate the subject so he tells the truth.


There are myriads of ways to get the "absolute" truth from the subject instead of using a dodgy lie detector spell.


Think about a society where it is irrefutable that the gods exist, you'd better be sure that if the gods point out that you are guilty then no matter of lawyering is going to get you out of jail. In fact it's more likely to get you burnt for heresy.

[RazorChain]

Not necessarily. Medieval England had the Magna Carta, effectively a prototypical constitution that protected liberties and similar concepts dating back to the 1215 CE. This included concepts such as the right of habeas corpus and the right to due process. Ancient Rome had a concept known as a 'Ius', which was a right to which any citizen was entitled by dint of citizenship; this is actually the root linguistic origin for the modern word 'justice' itself.

This is a concept that literally goes back millennia, and they were often brought in as a response to certain things. The idea of constitutional rights would certainly exist in a D&D-style setting.

Why? In the eastern hemisphere the written law has been rather weak, Confucious and his disciplines and Eastern cultures that followed distrusted written laws and put their trust in people and innate human goodness

The idea of constitutional rights may exist in some places in D&D style settings. What constitutional rights people have is up to the goverment. In the Magocracy magic will probalby find out if you are guilty or not and in a Theocracy the priests will divine if you are guilty or not.

[Nifft]

Why? In the eastern hemisphere the written law has been rather weak, Confucious and his disciplines and Eastern cultures that followed distrusted written laws and put their trust in people and innate human goodness

The idea of constitutional rights may exist in some places in D&D style settings. What constitutional rights people have is up to the goverment. In the Magocracy magic will probalby find out if you are guilty or not and in a Theocracy the priests will divine if you are guilty or not.

Yep, you'd have a Magistrate who walks around, dispensing justice as he or she sees fit. With magic, that might mean the ability to cast mark of justice, or in petty cases using lesser geas to enforce public service for a few days.

That's a lot like how I'd envision the "frontier justice" that I mention above -- it'd be a small group of powerful people who handle justice in an area -- possibly the nobility, possibly a merit-based office.

Merit-based office seems more harmonious with Eastern tradition; hereditary nobility with Western.

[Necroticplague]

But the person casting the spells and asking the questions would likely have a higher intelligence and/or wisdom than the average commoner, and they would have practice and experience with their job. I'm sure they could phrase questions in a way that counters this approach.

If you have wizsards of high enough level to cast these kinds of spells, why aren't the other people similarly powerful? If a cleric who can cast Zone of Truth is rare, than this problem solves itself: such powerful clergymen have more important tasks than trying petty criminals.

However, even assuming your interrogator is brilliant enough, their's still the killer of all interrogations: deafening silence. Those spells may force you to speak truth, but they do not compel you to speak in the first place.

I strongly doubt that a "modern court system" would develop in a world that has always had magic. Things would evolve differently in so many ways. If you accept a system where clerics get their powers from their gods, and that their powers are taken away from them if they act against the prescribed alignment... I'm pretty sure you can trust that they will remain "lawful" in how they apply their spells.

Assuming, of course, the cleric in question was telling the truth when they claimed to be a cleric of Law, as opposed to Trickery. And that the clerics rules would find lying about results to be not just an infraction, but a gross one (as otherwise, they could simply compensate with Lawful actions elsewhere in their lives and still be fine). And assuming you believe the clerics as an organization (instead of thinking they're self-deluded, since you can get similar powers from entirely non-theistic sources).

I find people seem to be so fixated on the modern western concept of a justice system as the only "true and correct" system that they feel violated even imagining something different. As if the current western system is the "obvious and only evolutionary conclusion of justice in any advanced culture"

It's a matter of values. Said system is, to the best of my knowledge, the one that most encapsulates my thoughts on human rights and justice. To use another model as a basis, I would need a lot of information. What do the people in this theoretical view value, what do they think of as justice, are people who are accused still people, what are considered people's basic rights, is accuracy or that somebody is found guilty more important.....you didn't give me any of that, so I went with what I know.

Simply saying 'add magic' isn't nearly enough to get the sociology of the people down.

[War_lord]

Just ask the accused to take an oath, in the name of (insert god of justice here), that they're innocent of the charges laid against them. If they're innocent they have nothing to fear, if they're guilty they'll be in for an eternity of consequence.

[Whyrocknodie]

Sounds like it'd be turning a fantasy genre game into some kind of Harry Potter meets CIS magic-is-technology courtroom drama. Which doubtless already has fanfic somewhere. Somewhere awful.

[Aliquid]

If you have wizsards of high enough level to cast these kinds of spells, why aren't the other people similarly powerful? If a cleric who can cast Zone of Truth is rare, than this problem solves itself: such powerful clergymen have more important tasks than trying petty criminals.

In a city of 100,000 people, there would be a variety of big churches with Clerics living there and servicing the city. Lets say 2% of the population is a Cleric that is high enough level to cast "zone of truth", and 1/4 of those are from a lawful good or lawful neutral church. That leaves you with 500 Clerics that can cast this spell and 98,000 people who can't.

500 Clerics who live and work at a church that promotes law... I'm sure the church would be happy to have some of them dedicated to stopping petty crime while the others deal with other law related issues for the city.

Yes, other people are "similarly powerful", but the vast majority of the population isn't.

However, even assuming your interrogator is brilliant enough, their's still the killer of all interrogations: deafening silence. Those spells may force you to speak truth, but they do not compel you to speak in the first place.

Answer the questions or be thrown in jail. We are talking about commoners in a standard D&D setting which is typically quasi-medieval...

Assuming, of course, the cleric in question was telling the truth when they claimed to be a cleric of Law, as opposed to Trickery.

I specifically said big city. A big city would certainly have a church for a Lawful god. The trials/magistrate would operate out of the church. It would be rather hard to "pretend" to be a cleric of the church and get away with it. About as hard as me pretending to be a judge, and sitting in a court room.

And that the clerics rules would find lying about results to be not just an infraction, but a gross one (as otherwise, they could simply compensate with Lawful actions elsewhere in their lives and still be fine).

A well enough run organization would weed those people out easily enough.

And assuming you believe the clerics as an organization (instead of thinking they're self-deluded, since you can get similar powers from entirely non-theistic sources).

Doesn't matter what you think. It really doesn't matter. If the powers that are in charge of the city give the church the authority, then the church has that authority. [edit]Sorry, when I say it doesn't matter what "you" think, I'm referring to the "you" in game. i.e. "if you think the clerics are self-deluded". I don't intend to imply that it doesn't matter what you personally (the person typing) think.

It's a matter of values. Said system is, to the best of my knowledge, the one that most encapsulates my thoughts on human rights and justice.

Based on the tools available to us. Different tools are available in this scenario, so a different system would evolve. Even if you keep the same core values.

To use another model as a basis, I would need a lot of information. What do the people in this theoretical view value, what do they think of as justice, are people who are accused still people, what are considered people's basic rights, is accuracy or that somebody is found guilty more important.....you didn't give me any of that, so I went with what I know.

But you went with what you know about a typical "modern" world, rather than a typical "sword and sorcery fantasy" world.

Simply saying 'add magic' isn't nearly enough to get the sociology of the people down.

Even with the sociology of the western world, 'add magic' would result in something different than what we have today.

[Potato_Priest]

Ex3:
Q: So, how do we know this invisible "zone of truth" does what you say? Preventing deliberate and intentional lies?
A: Enter it and try lying - see, you can't.
Q: Interesting. I certainly felt an effect, but how do I know this is a zone that affects everybody in it? What if your magic just prevented me from lying?
A: It doesn't work that way.
Q: Prove it.
A: I just tried to lie, I can't do it either.
Q: ...
A: Be reasonable. How on earth do you expect me to be able to prove to you that my magic does what I say it does and nothing else?
Q: That was actually going to be my next question to , or just made honest mistakes.

Standardized and scientific arcane magic is the key here. If a zone of truth can reliably be produced by a wizard by laying out X components in Y configuration and saying Z magic words, then you can trust it.

This is why law enforcement would work closely with mages colleges, (perhaps forensics classes involve some magic too) to standardize and reliably control the use of magic in law enforcement.

But that’s in the magical modern USA. In other times and places values would be different, like others already pointed out.

[Grek]

You'd probably end up with something more like the Napoleonic Code than any modern legal system:

• No Defender vs Prosecutor. Instead, there is a Judge and an Inquisitor. It is the duty of the Judge to know what circumstances would constitute a breach of the law and the duty of the Inquisitor to investigate the circumstances as they occurred and present their findings to the Judge for evaluation.
• Division into a High and Low Court. In the High Court, the Inquisitor is (or is served by) a government-sanctioned spellcaster of known probity and competence with the appropriate divination or compulsion spells. In the Low Court, no such spellcaster is employed and only cases where magically assisted evidence finding is unnecessary or too costly to be justified can be heard.
• No right against self-incrimination. A Suggestion to "Tell the court the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." is probably the go-to spell for Inquisitors.
• In a well-administered legal system, the Judge would be selected via examination and Inquisitors by election. This ensures that the Judge is competent at matters of law and the Inquisitior is at least in theory an honest and well-respected figure. In a poorly-administered legal system, the Judge would be selected by election and the Inquisitor according a tournament ladder to determine who is the strongest spellcaster. This ensures that the Judge is whoever convicts the most people (innocent or guilty) and the Inquisitior is an unaccountable serial killer interested only in amassing personal wealth and power. Most places would be somewhere in between.

[kieza]

Well, when comparing to a modern, "fair" justice system:

Divinations that read thoughts, track locations or allow remote viewing should require a warrant first, or at least probable cause: using a Divination without a warrant would be an unreasonable search.

The courts couldn't use divinations that determine guilt or innocence directly, unless it's very clear how the spell makes that decision, and that it's based on some analogue to a jury of peers.

They also couldn't use compulsions to tell the truth, unless they allow you to remain silent as long as you don't lie. That would be a violation of the right to not self-incriminate.

In order to be admissible in court, a divination would have to produce some easily observed, un-falsifiable effect, or it would have to be performed by some licensed, bonded practitioner. Maybe have the court diviners examine each other on a regular basis to make sure that all of them are being truthful about what their divinations say? The point is, mere testimony from a diviner would be hearsay.

[Pleh]

[Insert monty python witch trial sketch]

There is also historical precedent that sometimes justice has some divine urgency. If the ground is shaking because some god is about to rain fire on the village, people will be in a hurry to appease the deity before the ship goes down with the rat.

In absence of a cleric of the suspected deity, roll some dice and hope for the best. If you get it wrong, they were going to die with everyone else and no one lives to remember the mistake anyway.

If you have wizsards of high enough level to cast these kinds of spells, why aren't the other people similarly powerful? If a cleric who can cast Zone of Truth is rare, than this problem solves itself: such powerful clergymen have more important tasks than trying petty criminals.

Eh, it depends on yet more factors. If there are many individuals of this power level, then the criminals may have similar strength, making it difficult to apply justice; they are above the system. At that point, you send a party of murderhobos on a quest, telling them the threat needs to be stopped by any means.

"That's not justice!"

True, but the individual also would not voluntarily submit to justice, so why should they benefit from its protections? They're an outlaw.

If high power levels are rare, then presumably the head cleric very rarely needs his top tier spells. Justice is almost exclusively the domain of law and/or good clerics, when not busy smiting unearthly evils (which we established this subset to consider that scenario rare) a head cleric has literally nothing more important than engaging every banal problem to further expand their deity's influence. The real problem being that they have too much of it to reasonably manage, not that they don't have time for any of it at all.

IAssuming, of course, the cleric in question was telling the truth when they claimed to be a cleric of Law, as opposed to Trickery. And that the clerics rules would find lying about results to be not just an infraction, but a gross one (as otherwise, they could simply compensate with Lawful actions elsewhere in their lives and still be fine). And assuming you believe the clerics as an organization (instead of thinking they're self-deluded, since you can get similar powers from entirely non-theistic sources).

Eh, people would tend to judge such problems over a long period of time. If Trickery clerics were getting thieves and murderers off their charges commonly, people would probably start to lose faith in that justice system. For this to really continue to be a problem, it seems to either need to be sufficiently infrequent as to not attract attention (kind of statistically solving itself) or oppressively ubiquitous, at which point we're just describing a pseudo dystopian sense of justice.

[Anonymouswizard]

Assuming a vaguely modern system the first step would be, assuming they are available, to ask the accused if they did it within a Zone of Truth. The response would then be treated normally, as it is possible to lie in them, but there would be a greater number of confessions due to the spell either stopping lies or causing people to voluntarily tell the truth.

Most investigations into serious crimes would involve divination. Search the crime scene for traces of the perpetrator, identify them with sympathetic magic, that sort of thing. But the trial itself would still be based on witness testimony and logical extrapolation from evidence, it's just a wizard looking into the past is also a witness.

[Necroticplague]

Answer the questions or be thrown in jail. We are talking about commoners in a standard D&D setting which is typically quasi-medieval...

Well, if we're going with a quasi-medeival system, than actually getting the truth out of someone is unimportant, since the justice system was more of a way to cow the lower classes than any attempt at making society safer (especially since, before rule of law, their existed entire groups of people for whom it was official doctrine that they'd never be punished legally).

I specifically said big city. A big city would certainly have a church for a Lawful god. The trials/magistrate would operate out of the church. It would be rather hard to "pretend" to be a cleric of the church and get away with it. About as hard as me pretending to be a judge, and sitting in a court room.

Yes because letting your church operate your justice system is an excellent idea that hasn't proven any drawbacks or hilarious abuses of power whenever it's been tried.

A well enough run organization would weed those people out easily enough.

HAHAHAHAHAHA. Any suffeciently big organization will have corruption. None is safe, assuming psychology even remotely understandable to humans. Even in a society that operates under rule of law, modern ones are rife with this. A quasi-medeival (and thus, pre rule-of-law) society would only have it worse.

Doesn't matter what you think. It really doesn't matter. If the powers that are in charge of the city give the church the authority, then the church has that authority. [edit]Sorry, when I say it doesn't matter what "you" think, I'm referring to the "you" in game. i.e. "if you think the clerics are self-deluded". I don't intend to imply that it doesn't matter what you personally (the person typing) think.

Sorry, I meant the royal 'you'. Why does society, as a whole, accept the claims of clerics as a group to begin with? An archivist can easily disprove that they can only get their power from a god (archivists don't have one, and get the same powers). So, you ultimately end up with people who could be mistaken or lying (either directly (saying something they know is false) or indirectly (saying what they believe to be true, not knowing it's false)) making claims that are conveniently unverifiable.

Based on the tools available to us. Different tools are available in this scenario, so a different system would evolve. Even if you keep the same core values.

Doesn't this contradict your earlier 'threaten them with jail if they don't speak' point? That goes against a basic value that you can't force someone to incriminate themselves.