This does actually exist as a job IRL. If deployed on a ship, then they’re usually deployed on amphibious assault ships (like small carriers), and bigger carriers. The Almayer would probably be the equivalent of an amphibious assault ship or a special operations command.
This is someone (with some legalmen aides probably) who would handle legal issues about operations and provide advice to the commanding officer as well as provide legal representation and advice for crew.
From what I’ve seen the things a JAG officer could help with on the almayer would probably be advising MP’s on marine law and procedure, roleplaying with the CL, and handling appeals so the CO or XO can focus on the operation.
As far as rank and authority goes, they would be an O3 to O5, so equivalent to the XO or CO, but a navy rank rather than marine. The marine corps has their own legal department (JAD) but I don’t know if any of them actually serve on ships or if its handled by JAG instead.
So they are essentially just MP specific SEA. I’d rather have SEA that could “customize” themselves by looking like a department, but its really not needed at all.
People keep saying this is CMP’s job. But often I find the CMP is a literal criminal. I almost never trust CMP and they often prove me right. It would be nice if CL or another nonmilitary character could serve as a Justice. Could even be a Synth job.
There are Military Justices who deal with military crimes in real life. They exist.
Here is a link to a IRL veteran group about the subject LINK
In that webpage there can be found the following: “Cases are heard by judges or panels, depending on the type of procedure and level of offense. Each military service has a Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) staffed by military officers who are also lawyers. JAG officers act as prosecutors, and in cases with serious offenses, JAG officers are appointed as defense counsel. In some cases, an accused can hire civilian counsel to represent them.”
It would be very useful for a neutral court figure to mediate USMC vs WY or Marines vs MPs, etc. CMP will ALWAYS sides with MPs even if the MPs are at fault. It’s just a systematic failure. It would also be HILARIOUS to see players have to sit in a courtroom instead of the brig. It would make brig time less cringe and more entertaining. It could offer CL a potential lawyer for hire option and the threat of court marshal would feel real.
We have courts in SS13 on other servers. We could literally copy paste the law books and roles, but I’m not a SS13 programmer so I dunno how this would work. We would also need to make room for a court on the ship, which means redesigning the ship. But at the same argument, why do we even have a brig? We have cyro pods you can be locked in so why are there containment cells? Kinda silly at a fundamental level.
Seems like dev/admins don’t need more Military Leadership shenanigans… unless THEY decide to roll up as Marshals or ISS-whatever the acronym is for space OSHA/insurance.
If the CMP is lying (about serious things, not whether or not they ate the last donut, obviously) that’s against the rules and you should ahelp, if the CMP is breaking the law that’s especially against the rules and you should ahelp (minor laws will probably just get them a slap on the wrist the first few times).
There is also two laws against MP abuse, Prevarication (which is an interesting name), and Misuse of Authority, though proving both of these is difficult and it won’t get too large of a punishment for a single incident, if they really are that bad finding more shouldn’t be hard.
Take five minutes to meditate on these and think again on what a judge role would bring to CM.
The same “criminal” CMP players will have access to a new role which existence isn’t justified by its workload.
MPs are already bound by rules not to be griefers, what would in character enforcement add to that if the purpose of it all is to prevent MP shittery?
Realism is being quoted a lot here but why would a military court be set up on a garbage troop transport carrying barely 200 Marines deployed in deep space? Why would a neutral one ever be installed there? It also isn’t a state of rights, everyone in the vicinity of Marines are under Marine Law and can literally have their head blasted off by the CO or be arrested on the word of any officer.
Tl;dr: You guys are hoping the same shitty players won’t play a role that has barely any duties or reason to exist. It wont solve any of the issues MP have.
EDIT: You guys are also salting at staff, people volunteering their time that decided to have some fun as Provost. So evil they must be.
I think MP’s need a deeper reform than just adding a courtroom for appeal.
Even if adding a courtroom to figure out appeals isn’t a bad idea
I must say that treating the problem after a person fall into jail by wrongdoing seem to be treating the problem way to late…
I would prefer to see proposal to enforce better standard.
Reduce the number of crimes that could result into someone arrest could also be a good idea.
having CMP that are very good leader and maintain extreme standard for when MP do an arrest.
i think CMP should write a player report or ahelp when an MP is doing wrong doing…
in short i think it would be smarter for us to make sure that jailing someone outside of ML doesn’t happen instead of making a system to treat the appeal resulting of it…