Part III, Chapter 19 - Raspberry's Testimony - Part II
The recess for lunch concluded and everypony had made their way back into the courtroom. Thorax was once again brought in and fastened to the defendant's table. Plea was already there going over some paperwork.
"What's all that?" Thorax asked the stallion.
"These are the forensic reports from our expert witness" Plea answers him. "I've been preparing for when we will have to call our last witness. I think with their testimony, we will have presented the best possible argument for why the jury should find you not guilty of foalnapping and all the other crimes."
Thorax tried to look hopeful, but inside was a whole other matter. Before he could respond, the bailiff announced the princess and judge. Cadance made her way to her designated seat, only giving Thorax a scornful glance as she found her seat. The judge took his seat and adjusted some papers for a few moments before looking up at State Evidence.
"Miss Evidence," he addresses her, "you may now cross examine the witness."
State nods and stands up, approaching the filly at a casual pace.
"Raspberry," she begins, "you told us all that the three witnesses for the prosecution were the actual culprits that attempted to abduct you, correct?"
"Yeah" Raspberry affirms.
"So you were cornered by these three stallions in an alleyway?"
Raspberry nods.
"And there's no chance that what you actually saw was three changelings that had the witness's appearance at the time?"
"Objection!" Plea cries out. "Prosecution is deviating from the testimony established by the witness."
"Deviating how?" State asks.
"The witness has stated multiple times, even during your own preliminary interview, that she is adamant that the three stallions serving as your witnesses were the ones that attempted to abduct her."
"Yes, she has said that" State concedes. "However, with it having been some amount of time since that event happened, and the fact is we were unable to interview her until fairly recently, she may have misremembered certain details of the events that day."
After hearing the explanations, the judge makes a decision.
"Objection overruled" he decides. "It is plausible that the witness has misremembered details of the events from several weeks ago. Miss Evidence, you may proceed."
"Thank you, your honor" she says to the judge before turning back to the filly. "Now, as I was saying, you have accused the three witnesses for the prosecution of attempting to foalnap you, and I proposed that it is possible that you may not have remembered the events of that day correctly."
Raspberry glares at the mare, very much not liking that she is being accused of having a bad memory.
"What was the lunch that your school was serving that Saturday?"
The question catches Raspberry off guard. "What?"
"The school lunch" State repeats herself. "What was the lunch your school served to students that day?"
"We don't get lunch" Raspberry told State in response.
"Very well" State continues. "What were you studying that day?"
"A few different things" Raspberry responds.
"Could you elaborate please?"
"We had a math lesson, then we had a science lesson, and then we worked on writing."
"What did you do in the science lesson?"
"We studied the different kinds of crystals and what makes some harder than others."
"Did you do a science experiment?"
"We did. They gave us a piece of glass and several crystals. We had to judge how hard they were by scraping them across the glass. The harder the crystal was, the deeper a mark it left in the glass."
"How about your math lesson?"
"We did algebra."
"Algebra? That has to get kinda boring."
"It does."
"And your writing lesson?"
"Prepositions."
"Your Saturday lessons don't sound very fun."
"They're not always fun."
"But sometimes they are?"
"Sometimes."
State gives a smile before she walks back to her table and picks up a paper. "Your teacher is a Miss Opal Amethyst, correct?"
"Yes, that's my teacher" Raspberry confirms.
"Well, I asked her to let me see a copy of her lesson plan for that day, and while most of what you told me is true, there is one detail I'm a little fuzzy on."
Raspberry looks confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well," State continues while flipping through the pages in front of her, "your teacher told me that on that day, you all did indeed study math and science, and you also didn't receive a lunch because you weren't there long enough for a lunch to be mandated, but the last part of the day was spent in independent study. Now, before you say that she changed her mind, I asked her if she did and she told me she didn't."
"So, do you remember for sure that you studied writing that day, and didn't perhaps just do some writing homework during your independent study?"
"Your honor," Plea interrupts, "I do not understand what a foal's study habits have to do with this case. I don't feel the question or the answer is relevant to the topic at hoof."
"Your honor," State then cuts in, "I only wish to establish the entire series of events from that day as they occurred. I don't see any harm in receiving an answer to this question."
The judge thinks for a moment before nodding. "If the witness would please answer the question?"
Raspberry thinks for a moment before becoming slightly nervous and answering, "I might have been doing my preposition homework that was due the following Monday."
"So," State continues, "you confess that you may have been doing your homework during that part of class and may have only thought you were having a writing lesson?"
"I... guess."
"So, your mind may have misremembered that detail, quite possibly because of the stress of the situation that followed your lessons, correct?"
"... I guess."
"Then, is it possible that you may have misremembered other things as well? Possibly what happened during the attempt to abduct you?"
"Objection, your honor!" Plea cuts in. "This line of question is causing undue stress on the witness. She's only a child, and this line of questioning can be construed as badgering. I ask that the prosecution discontinue it immediately."
The judge takes a moment to consider the filly in the witness stand next to him before he nods.
"Objection sustained" he agrees. "Miss Evidence, please discontinue this line of questioning, lest I have to find you in contempt of court."
"Very well" State complies. "Raspberry, tell me about your walk home that day."
"I was with my friends for part of it" Raspberry answers.
"Who are your friends?"
"My one friend is a filly named Garnet, and the other is a colt named Fuchsia."
"And how far did you walk with them?"
"We walked until we got about a few blocks away from the palace."
"Did your friends tell you goodbye?"
"Yeah."
"And then you headed towards the market?"
"I did."
"Why were you going towards the market?"
"The fastest way for me to get home is past the front of the castle."
"I see. Now, when you were approached initially,how far away from the market were you?"
"I could see it past the stallion."
"Could you be a little more specific. For example, were you more than a block away?"
"No. I was a little closer than that."
"And you said that you ran to the nearest alleyway?"
"I did."
"I went and saw that alleyway myself," State tells her, "and it was actually more than a block away, going back the way you came. And for another fact, there was another alley on the opposite side of the road. That one went straight through to the opposite street, so you could've made a break for it down that way. Why didn't you try that way?"
"I... I don't know."
"I imagine you were in quite a panic at the time, yes?"
"I was."
"So you probably weren't thinking the clearest?"
"...Probably not."
"So in your panic, you ran down the first alleyway you noticed, and that one had two stallions waiting to corner you."
State's physical demeanor didn't change, but her questioning was becoming more pointed. Raspberry was starting to look uncomfortable.
"Did you make an attempt to yell out for help?"
"Your honor," Plea interjects, "the prosecution is badgering the witness again! Please put a stop to this!"
"Objection sustained" the judge responds. He then gives State a stern look. "Miss Evidence, this is your second and last warning. Do not badger this witness any further."
State stands there for a few moments before nodding. "One last question for you Raspberry. Due to the stress and the panicked state of your mind, is it possible that you do not have a clear memory of those day's events, and that you may have incorrectly recalled certain details of it?"
Raspberry was reluctant to respond.
"I ask you again" State prods. "Is it possible that you have not correctly remembered the details of that day?"
Where she was previously reluctant, Raspberry now looked incensed.
"No, it isn't!" she responds. "Those stallions tried to take me! It wasn't any changelings, and it certainly wasn't Mister Thorax!"
A loud banging startles the filly. She turns to see the judge looking at her. "Please calm down and don't yell in my courtroom, please."
Raspberry looks at him apologetically. "I'm sorry."
The judge gives her a nod and small smile before looking back at State Evidence. The mare understands the wordless questions and gives the judge the answer he wants. "I have no further questions."
"Very well" the judge accepts. "The witness is now excused."
Raspberry steps down from the stand and begins to walk to the back of the courtroom so she can be escorted out. However, after a few steps, she stops and faces the jury.
"Please don't punish Mister Thorax" she tells them. "He was the good pony. Honest he was."
Several shocked gasps can be heard throughout the courtroom. The bailiff who escorted Raspberry in ushers the filly out quickly. Once she is gone, State Evidence stands up.
"Your honor, I must strongly request that the witness's last statement to the jury be stricken from the record."
Several gasps sound from the audience.
"Miss Evidence," the judge responds, "why do you wish for that remark to be stricken from the record?"
"I ask for it to be removed in objection under the belief that the defense led the witness to make that remark."
Upon hearing this, Plea stands up with a very angry expression on his face.
"Your honor, I object to that insinuation!" he declares. "Every moment of testimony has been the exact same as what has been documented in interviews with the witness before she was called to testify!"
"And what about when you first met the witness?" State asks.
Plea looks confused. "What do you mean?"
The mare smiles as she produces a photograph. On it is Plea Bargain sitting with Raspberry as she eats lunch outside her school.
"Your honor, I have had a private investigator following the filly Raspberry Mint for the past few weeks. This was taken last Thursday outside her school."
The courtroom lets out some shocked gasps and some rather negative remarks can be heard about Plea being spoken.
The judge turns to face the pony. "Mister Plea Bargain, can you explain yourself please?"
"I can" Plea responds. He opens his briefcase and produces a letter, offering it to the judge. "This was delivered to my office by the witness. It requested that I meet her at her school to talk about her being able to testify."
The judge takes a moment to read over the note.
"And why was she asking to meet you?" State asks in an accusing tone.
"As it says in that letter, she wanted to speak on my client's behalf, but her mother was preventing it. If need be, I can obtain an affidavits from both the mother and the filly that validates that statement."
"You do that," State snidely remarks, "and we'll investigate exactly what was said during that interview."
"Well," Plea answers back, "if your private investigator was paying attention, then he would have observed a mare watching myself and the filly as I interviewed her initially."
"I trust this mare has a name?" State questions.
Plea smirks. "Viridian Sky" he replies.
State jots the name down. "I'm going to look into this later" she tells Plea, then turns to the judge. "Your honor, I again would like to request that the witness's last statement be stricken from the record on the grounds of the defense leading them into saying that remark."
Having read over the note several times, the judge places the paper down and addresses the two counselors. "At this time, I shall request that the statement be withheld from the record until it can be proven that the defense has indeed led the witness to make such remarks."
The judge turns to the jury. "You are hereby ordered to disregard the last statement made by the witness unless told otherwise in the future."
The jury all nod, agreeing not to take Raspberry's final remark into consideration.
With the matter resolved for the moment, the judge faces Plea Bargain. "You may call your next witness" he tells the stallion.
Plea takes a breath to calm himself down, then announces the next witness.
"Defense calls the expert witness Dynamic Prion."
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Good thing Plea was prepared for that last bit. I don't like State even more now, though, she was being mean to Raspberry
...and back to scowls. C'mon Cady, we already gave you your smoking gun. Please do the guy the favor and at least acknowledge it's existence.
...well, at least it's not the "mind control" claim again.
Still just as stupid a counterargument, particularly as all witness testimonies directly contradict it--the supposed attacking three changelings were very clearly established as never being witnessed as in disguise, by the sheer fact they were readily recognizable as such.
Whaaat? That'd be basically like a victim misremembering whether or not their attacker was actually present for the attack in question. Calling it her grasping for straws would be entirely too generous even. How could Raspberry have possibly forgotten (entirely too conveniently for State, I might add) whether or not her attackers were disguised as ponies or changelings, particularly when they were clearly not disguised for the most critical part of this event? The girl was nearly kidnapped for heaven's sake, you don't just go forgetting key details like that after a trauma like that!
And for that matter, why would these non-existent changelings want to be disguised as precisely these three exact stallions who not only Raspberry had never previously met (and them likewise having never met her by their own testimony) but also happened to be the same exact three stallions who would, according to their "testimonies," come and save the day? How would the changelings even begin to plan ahead for that if the stallions weren't already in on it somehow?
I mean, the magnitude of the sheer coincidence of it all defies plausibility. To say nothing of the fact that it wouldn't gain the changelings anything--Raspberry wouldn't have wanted to cooperate with three less-than-friendly-looking strangers trying to kidnap her anymore than three changelings looking to try the same, so why would they waste the energy trying, or, better still, NOT assume disguises of somepony Raspberry would know and trust and thus voluntarily let her guard down around? Plus, if they were in disguise, then why had they apparently dropped said disguises even before Raspberry's "rescuers" had appeared on the scene AND while Raspberry was still awake and conscious enough to clearly witness it (and thus invalidate the argument that there could be a confusion)?
It's a frankly ludicrous argument, and I'm sort of surprised State's even entertaining it, because even she's been smart enough to present counterarguments that, at the very least, can't be so readily dismissed, and this is anything BUT that. She might as well have stuck with the mind control argument, because as janky as that argument is too, even I can't deny that, from the court's very bias perspective, it's a possibility to consider (an extremely faint possibility when looking at all the facts, but still a possibility nonetheless). She doesn't have that using this argument instead.
I see what you're trying here, State, and no, it's not working. All you've proven is that the filly's memory isn't faultless, sure, but it's still pretty good, having gotten three out of one not just correct but perfectly correct, and the last one is more technicality than error anyway (because technically Raspberry still wasn't wrong in that WAS what she studied for her final period).
Besides, an average school day doesn't begin to compare to the trauma of an attempted kidnapping, something that has been well-proven to stick in the mind quite a bit more, and the fact you seem to be implying otherwise is, frankly, insulting.
See, this is why this tactic isn't working, State. I know you're hoping that by raising the prospect at all, it'll plant doubt in the minds of the jury about Raspberry's testimony...and given the anti-changeling bias, you probably have to some degree. But you only did it under duress by trying to force it out of the witness, which the court has now called you out on twice in as many minutes--that likewise taints your attempts to plant doubt by in turn giving reason to question whether that doubt is real or invented (or at least it darn well should). In all, it doesn't give you much of any advantage, and it's certainly not going to make the smoking gun that is Raspberry's testimony just...go away, or lessen its impact in any meaningful way.
Besides, and again, all you've proven here is that Raspberry was only slightly incorrect in certain minor details of her testimony, most of which isn't even especially relevant to the attack if even relevant at all. You've, in fact, proven that Raspberry's memory is still pretty reliable on average, and thus only helping to reaffirm her memory of the far more traumatic attack is likewise more than reliable. So if anything, you're shooting yourself in the foot a little here.
Too late! Jury's already heard it. Any seeds it produced are already as good as planted, for the exact same reasons you tried to shed any and all doubt you could on Raspberry's testimony despite knowing full well you were breaking protocol doing so--even if the court rejected record of it officially, it was still going to be there in the minds of the jury.
In short, State, Raspberry's playing you at your own game (and probably on accident to boot
)
Oh, so State was smart enough to put the filly under observation, but not the crooks who needed to prevent this exact scenario and were blackmailing the filly's parents to ensure it happen? What good was their blackmailing if they had no means of knowing they needed to make good on their threats? Or were said threats always bluffs? (in which case, consider those bluffs called)
Well, I do keep saying they aren't the smartest crooks in the world...
Also, what exactly is State even proving here? That Plea was following protocol and meeting with a witness that wished to testify? I mean, suppose the situation was reversed, State--would you have not done the same yourself? Both of you would have had to meet with the witness in private in order for her to be accepted as a witness--this was made perfectly clear earlier, and that's precisely what Plea did. So he did it at her school yard, but that can be argued as just being most convenient for the witness. Are you saying that had it happened in Plea's office instead, you wouldn't call it out? Why? What exactly would be different there? Because I'm not seeing one myself. There's not really anything shady about this at all.
Pfft. Again, it's too late for that. They might no longer acknowledge the statement's existence, but the intended message and meaning behind it is still there anyway.
Not really, for all of the reasons already given in both this comment and in the chapter itself (e.g. the calling her out on her badgering). I mean, sure, it was valid of her to inquire if this could be a possibility. And if it was just that, I'd let it slide, but it isn't because she was more trying to preemptively PROVE--nay FORCE--that this was absolutely the case, with no evidence to assume as such I might add, probably because it's the one and only way she can still save this case for herself now. And as already argued, it doesn't really work, because she only proved that for very minor details that aren't especially important to the case and don't exactly prove Raspberry's testimony faulty or inaccurate in any meaningful way, because these minor and unrelated details just don't compare. She was trying to invent doubt out of nothing...and didn't really succeed that much.
So no, I would argue she actually isn't doing her job right this time, on the grounds she had clear nefarious intent behind it.
Actually, I like that idea better, particularly as I think it would've gone much further in helping prove State's argument (while still having useful holes so to counterargue later) and wouldn't have required her gambling with badgering and facing the potentially high risk of being held in contempt (and effectively invalidating her arguments up to now and reward Thorax in his favor) to do it. It's in all the more solid argument and actually seems more in character for State and her manner of arguing her case up to now.
Instead, here she just comes across as desperate. Which works too (she naturally would be now that she's found her case isn't standing on as solid a ground as she was first led to believe), but it really does feel in vain, like she didn't gain ground, maybe even lost ground depending on the court's reaction to it, and ultimately her gamble in doing it not really paying off. And you kinda have to ask what was the point of it if the payoff is that debatable? Yeah, I really think the original idea would've worked better story-wise, but whatever. Personal opinions and all that. Still your story and thereby your call at the end of the day, so certainly don't let me tell you what to do.
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Yeah, it was actually kind of infuriating, so much so I had to go back and do significant edits to this whole comment because I was making several dumb typos in my heated typing.