Disclaimer: Okay, before I get called up for another crime, the only person I own here is myself. All others belong to various corporate conglomerates in Hollywood.
Trial of 96 Hubbles - Part I - The Defence
The courtroom of Judge Harold T. Stone was filled with the buzzing conversations of dozens of people; besides the numerous defendants and witnesses on the call sheet, there also seemed to be a growing number of plaintiffs, as well as general gawkers. Harry was doing paperwork at his bench when he saw Selma escorting in the first defendant.
"Don't worry, honey," Selma soothed the defendant with a companionable squeeze on the forearm as she brought her in, "You're in good hands."
"Thanks, Selma," the defendant smiled gratefully before taking her seat at the defence counsel's table.
"Those two seem chummy," Judge Harry observed to Dan as the prosecutor brought over a file for him to look at.
Dan smiled to himself the same way he always did when he thought of something lecherous . "Let's just say Selma… appreciates the guest counsel the witness has brought in to defend her."
"What? The witness isn't using Mr. Mason? But he's the greatest defence attorney in the entire world! He's never lost a case!"
"The witness felt that Mr. Mason's main strength in getting the accused off is his ability to trick the real guilty person into confessing on the stand."
"So what's the big deal with that?" Harry asked.
"The witness argued that that's impossible when practically everyone is on trial," Dan commented.
Harry raised a sceptical eyebrow. "I take it the witness is pleading insanity."
Dan, leaning nonchalantly on Harry's bench, turned to glance contemptuously towards the doors to the courtroom. "Her choice of counsel alone might make the case for her."
Harry paused in signing a file and looked in that direction. "That him there opening the door and doffing his hat for Phil and the Wheelers?" he asked.
"Yes sir, that's him. Doorman Do-right."
Harry sighed. "Well, let's get him down here and get this show on the road." He raised his voice and directed it towards the man in the maroon uniform coat and black jodhpurs with the yellow stripes down each side, "If the counsel for the Defence could take his position."
"My apologies, your honour," the extremely handsome man answered and quickly took his place.
At the signal from Harry, Bull announced, "All rise! Criminal Court Part II, City of New York, is now in session. Case number 0876707. The honourable Harold T. Stone presiding."
"Would the counsel for the defence care to introduce himself to the court?"
"Thank you kindly, your honour. I am Constable Benton Fraser, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I first came to the United States on the trail of the killers of my father, and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, I have remained. I am currently attached as a Deputy Liaison with the Canadian Consulate in Chicago. The witness, being a Canadian citizen, has requested my presence due to - "
"Uh, that's fine, Counsellor," Harry interrupted. "No need to go into such detail." Then Harry noticed something. "Maybe I spoke too soon, Counsellor. I do need information on one thing: is that your dog sitting under the defence counsel's table?"
"No sir. Diefenbaker is a wolf - " Constable Fraser ignored the sudden rising and backing away of everyone in the courtroom except for himself, the defendant, and a balding man wearing a leather jacket and a police badge sitting in the first row of the gallery, and continued, "And I believe he would strenuously object to the idea that I own him."
"Geez, Benny, I coulda told you that would happen," the balding man said, referring to the court's general panic.
"Not to worry, sir," Fraser said, addressing the judge, "He won't harm anyone."
"Won't he react to the noise of the courtroom?" Harry asked, still standing a few feet away from his chair and not daring to take his eyes off the whitish-grey beast starring placidly back at him.
"No, your honour, Diefenbaker is deaf. The noise will not affect him at all."
"Oh, well that makes all the difference, doesn't it?" Dan said sarcastically. However, he edged extremely carefully around his table before approaching the bench.
"Uh huh…" Harry murmured, but he sat down, determined to start the session. "You're up, Defence. Call your first witness."
"Thank you kindly, your honour. My first witness is Miss 96 Hubbles."
A tall woman with short brown hair and glasses approached and took the chair at the temporary stand which had been set up. (1)
Bull came over and faced the witness. "Raise your left hand and place your right hand on this."
"The Mammoth Book of Exciting Fishing Stories?" the defendant asked.
"We lost our Bible," Bull explained. Harry shot a look at Dan Fielding; the judge highly suspected said article had played a part in Dan's rumoured "Naughty Night of Bible Heroines" party last month.
After the witness had been sworn in, Constable Fraser began.
"Your honour, the main charge against my client is of intentionally causing both physical and psychological harm to the plaintiffs. It is further charged that my client's actions were exceptionally damaging due to their unusual nature."
"Too bloody right!" Newkirk yelled from the gallery.
"Settle down," Harry ordered, banging his gavel. He turned to Dan, "Exactly what is so unusual about the defendant's actions?"
"Your honour, the defendant is accused of using imaginary beings to subject several of the plaintiffs to emotional distress."
"Hey, that's not fair," Hubbles broke in, "the plaintiffs are freaking imaginary!"
"I'll rephrase," Dan said. "The defendant is accused of introducing phenomena which does not exist into the lives of the plaintiffs for the sole purpose of her own sad and depraved amusement."
"Let's not get hypocritical there, Mr. I'll-Play-A-Sheep-If-You'll-Play-Bo-Peep," the defendant warned.
"Uh…yes," Dan went on, "The prosecution still insists that the defendant's dragging things that don't exist into a canon with well-established realistic boundaries - "
The witness raised an eyebrow.
"…was unfair and detrimental to the mental health of the plaintiffs," Dan finished.
"Your witness, Constable."
"Yes, your honour. Now, Miss Hubbles, do you agree with the prosecution's statement."
"I do not, your honour!" she said, addressing the judge himself. "For the first thing, my lawyer is perfectly capable of demonstrating that ghosts DO exist."
"Is that true, Counsellor?" Judge Harry asked.
Constable Fraser looked slightly uncomfortable. "If it pleases the court…"
"You bet it does!" the defendant exclaimed.
"Could the witness remember who has the gavel?" Harry demanded.
Hubbles shrugged. "Doesn't mean a thing to me, we don't use them in Canadian courts."
Harry shot her a look and then instructed the defence counsel to proceed.
Constable Fraser turned his head away and appeared to whisper something. Suddenly an older man, also in full RCMP regalia, materialized in front of the court. "May I introduce Sergeant Robert Fraser. My father."
"Holy cow, Benny!" the balding man with the police badge shouted. "You never told me about this!"
"Not now, Ray," the younger Fraser waved him off.
"Hey, that's not what you usually wear, is it?" Hubbles asked the older Fraser. "What happened to your fur hat?"
"We thought proper dress uniform would be more appropriate for the occasion," Benton Fraser told her.
Meanwhile, in the gallery, Sergeant Carter had risen to his feet and was stumbling over his friends trying to get a good look at the second Mountie.
"Sacre chat, Carter! Will you sit down!" Lebeau shouted out as Carter nearly fell into his lap. Carter, however, paid no attention to him, his face was growing an unaccustomed expression of fury and indignation.
"Your honour! Your honour!" he bellowed out after finally getting a full view of Sergeant Fraser's face, "That man - he's a darn German!"
"What?" everyone except Fraser senior and the defendant cried out.
"Aw hell, I forgot all about that," Hubbles muttered to herself.
"He is, your honour!" Carter yelled. "His name is Captain Steiner! He's with the S.S. and he once tried to break my foot!" (2)
Harry sighed again. "Five bucks to anyone who can point out to me the exact moment I lost control here."
"It's not fair, Judge!" Carter continued. "It's just not fair! Even their lawyers are out to get us!"
"It's only unfair if your lawyer is out to get you too," Harry explained. "Now sit down! I want to get out of here before Future Shop closes - Mel Tormé 's concerts are coming out on Blu-Ray."
Carter crossed his arms over his chest and flopped down on his seat with a sulk. "Hmpf. How do ya like that! They're all darn well in on it!"
"If we can move along, your honour," Fraser junior said. "The presence of my father proves that ghosts do exist and therefore my client did not drag in any element all that extraordinary into her stories. Furthermore, it shows that the client did not possess mens rea - a guilty mind or intent - when she did so. Her beliefs meant that her writing said beings into the story was a perfectly acceptable plot device to her and that she therefore never believed they would cause, or intended them to cause, undue mental distress."
"Do you really believe in ghosts? Judge Harry asked the defendant.
Hubbles grimaced. "Uh…well…I suppose for the purposes of this defence I could manage it," she admitted.
"The prosecution begs to differ your honour," Dan said.
"About my believing in ghosts?" Hubbles asked.
"No, the claim that the ghosts caused no mental distress. All five men on the Allied side, plus many others in camp, especially those in Barracks 2, suffered from worry, both for their own safety and for that of Sergeant Carter and Corporal Newkirk. Those two men in particular suffered - Sergeant Carter was still affected by his experiences well into the next story."
"I couldn't help that, your honour," Hubbles replied. "If someone doesn't have any emotions, doesn't that technically make them a sociopath or something? If that's the case, I should get points for giving them personalities human enough to feel pain."
"Prosecution would like to object to the sheer dumbness of the defendant's argument."
"Hey!"
"Sustained."
Hubbles pouted. "Well, it wasn't undue mental distress anyway! It's not like I did it for my own enjoyment and nothing else - it was all relevant to the plot. I'm not the kind of person who gets off on Schadenfreude."
"What's that?" Bull asked from where he was standing with Selma.
"Schadenfreude is a form of pleasure that people derive from the misfortune of others," Constable Fraser started to explain. "The word has been borrowed from the German by the English and comes from the words Schaden, meaning damage or harm, and - "
Harry stopped the lecture, "I think we have it, Counsellor."
Newkirk snorted in the gallery. "Trust it to be a bloody German word," he muttered to Lebeau, who nodded.
"Your honour," Dan broke in, "Ghosts are not the only charge of unnatural phenomena to cause psychological harm that we have against the defendant. There's also the item of time travel."
Hubbles rolled her eyes. "Oh, for [very rude word]'s sake! What harm? Thanks to time travel Newkirk and Lebeau lived, Hogan wasn't - let me repeat that, wasn't - taken away by the Gestapo, Carter got to play the big hero and the operation survived!"
"I don't think there's any need for language like that, Miss Hubbles," Benton Fraser admonished her with a slight cough.
Hubbles looked ashamed for a second, momentarily unable to face the her rather dreamy fellow Canadian. "My apologies, Constable. I'll try my best not to do it again," she said in a contrite voice. She raised a hand to her mouth and whispered behind it to Judge Stone, "He doesn't like it when I swear. "Diefenbaker can read lips."
"There's also the issue of Sergeant Carter's being forced to find a small child who had been buried alive," Dan pointed out. The heads of Carter's four friends whipped around to look at him with concern.
"Objection, your honour," Fraser said. "Neither Sergeant Carter's discovery or the nature of the actual event he discovered had anything to do with the supernatural. Both were just unfortunate occurrences."
"That still caused more psychological harm," Dan argued.
"I had to make Newkirk switch bunks with me for awhile - I kept dreaming I was sleeping in a coffin," Carter whimpered.
The defendant cringed a bit on the stand. "Okay, I am a bit sorry about that one. But I still did it for plot reasons: I wanted to draw a parallel between the girl's experiences in the dark and Carter's feelings of being trapped in the dark while he was possessed. I was just trying to gain him more sympathy, that's all! I don't think his so-called friends are always nice enough to him."
"Boy, that's true!" Carter exclaimed.
"Shut up, yeh daft sod! You're going to ruin our whole flamin' case!" Newkirk yelled at him.
"See," Hubbles pointed out.
Judge Stone addressed the court: "I think I agree with the defence about undue psychological harm not being proven. Let's move onto the charges of physical harm."
"Sir, the charges against my client in this area are all very small," Constable Fraser stated, "and we asked for them to be dismissed. There's only the matter of Sergeant Carter's sprained wrist and the exhaustion of him and Corporal Newkirk in my client's first story, and the slight contusions suffered by Sergeant Carter in her third story."
"Sir, the doorman for the defence has neglected to mention the matter of Corporal Lebeau's illness her fifth story, and the deaths of him, Corporal Newkirk and Sergeants Carter and Kinchloe in her sixth story."
"Okay, the deaths in that story were purposely written in such a way that they could be read as not really happening, so I don't think it's fair to hold those against me. Imagined murder isn't actually a charge, is it?" Hubbles began.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like to have your counsel make your argument for you?" Judge Harry asked her.
"Oh, right. Go ahead, Constable."
"Your honour, my client wrote the deaths in that story in such a way that they could be read as not really having happened, so the defence believes the court shouldn't hold them against her since imagined murder is not a legal charge."
"Brilliant, Benny," Ray Vechio complimented sarcastically from the gallery. "You're lucky Thatcher isn't here to witness this."
"What about Corporal Lebeau's illness?" Harry asked the defendant.
"I did that for him!" Hubbles asserted plaintively.
"For me??" an indignant French voice came from the gallery.
"How is causing a man to have a burst appendix doing something for him?" Harry asked incredulously.
"Hardly anyone ever writes for Lebeau! I made him sick so he'd be in the spotlight for a little while."
Harry read the file Dan had passed him. "But he hardly got any lines, let alone good ones, and then he was hauled off to the hospital, so he wasn't even there anymore!"
"Well, that's true, I suppose. But at least readers had to pay attention to him for some other reason than him cooking or wringing his hands over one of the others. Not only was he at the heart of the plot for a while, he got the readers feeling sympathy for him for a change. One of my reviewers even wanted to take him flowers."
Lebeau sniffed. "Mon dieu, it is true. She is right - it is always the four of you!" he whined pitifully. "Always, always, one of you," he snapped at them with a glare. "You are all attention pigs!"
"Hogs," Hogan corrected. He could afford to be helpful, physically he'd felt better today than he had since he'd got that overhaul on the Enterprise.
Lebeau huffed and wouldn't look at them.
"Is that the defence's case?" Harry asked Fraser.
"It is, your honour. The defence rests."
"Fabulous," Harry said. "That's lunch, people. Court will convene in one hour for the prosecution's case."
------
Author's note: First off, sorry for the length. This story is going to have to be in two parts, but that works out well since that will give people a chance to come up with some rebuttal and/or questions I can use for the next part. PM me with anything you think Dan should bring up.
Also, I realize I went a little off the form snooky suggested, but in my mind it turned out more like the actual show Night Court, where Harry would ask the counsellors to state the case and both sides would interject as they went along.
------
Notes:
1) I know everyone on Night Court except Harry stood while the case was being read, but this is a longer trial and there's no way I'm standing for this whole thing, even in my imagination. Besides, it gives the witnesses a chance to actually see the plaintiffs, usually they're facing the bench.
2) For those unfamiliar with Due South, the actor who played Fraser senior, Gordon Pinsent, also played Captain Steiner in the Hogan's Heroes episode "The Drop-outs."