Wednesday 5th October 1994
(C) Joona Palaste


                        The Trial

I sat behind the rostrum and watched the audience and the jury discuss the
case. I had been brought to court since someone who worked for the local
newspaper had reported me being punished.
  The newspaper worker had paid a lot of money to his employer for the work he
made when writing the story, so he thought it was worth the effort and was
true. The punishment he said I had suffered was imprisonment for five years.
  I personally could not remember whether I was punished or not, so I went to
court. I took my seat at the rostrum, and watched the judge sit down on the
little chair below me. Anxiously I declared the trial opened.

The judge introduced me to the two attorneys. On my left I saw the prosecuting
attorney, whose task was to assure everyone that I was not punished. On my
right I saw the defence attorney, whose task was to assure everyone that I was
punished.
  I noticed my friend was sitting in the audience. "Please hurry", he said, "I
have parked my car outside and have accidentally left it running, and I cannot
afford that much exhaust fumes turned into useless petrol." I assured him my
trial would be short. If anyone would try to speak longly, I would order
him/her to stop.

"Let's hear the prosecuting attorney first", I said. So the attorney began. He
said that I could not have been punished, since five years ago (when my last
trial had taken place) the judge and mayor had better things to do, like
counting the votes of the last mayor election. The attorney even reminded me of
the results of the election. Five percent had voted against the current mayor.
Thirteen percent had voted against his opponent. Eighty-two percent had not
voted, since they were too young to vote.

"Now let's hear the defence attorney", I said. The attorney began. He said he
quite clearly remembered me being punished, and as evidence he showed the court
some photographs of me being punished. And indeed, the year number on the
photographs' date was five years larger than this year's number, thus
indicating that it had been five years ago.
  "Sustainment!" shouted the judge suddenly. "Objected", I said, "It's quite
obvious that I wasn't punished, contrary to the previous speaker's point of
view."

"Now then, ladies and gentlemen of the audience, it's your task to determine
whether I was punished or not", I said. It was a good audience, this time. The
audience consisted of randomly-chosen completely voluntary people, who had just
come to decide the judgement of this trial. The jury, on the other hand, paid
huge amounts of money to their employers for sitting in  their benches and just
watching the trial.
  After a while, the audience reached a decision. They said that I was not
punished, and the newspaper article had been false. I was thus judged to commit
a crime in two months' time. The judge decided that the crime I would have to
commit was a simple robbery on a fake jewellery store whose owner had been
subjected to a scandal news report for selling real jewels.

"Excuse me", I said. "I have the right to a lawyer." So a lawyer appeared,
after which I telephoned for one. The operator said: "Yes, hang on a moment...
yes, we'll be sending you a lawyer about two minutes ago." As was the tradition
with lawyers, I (the client) had sorted out all the legal stuff, and then I
imposed my judgement on the lawyer, who thus had to commit the crime.
  Leaving the lawyer to his own devices, I left the courtroom and walked to my
home.