"I think that most of the arguments that Hell has been making are stupid lawyerly weasel words designed to obscure the fact that they are proposing that fighting at the Worldwound is evil, and I'm being more respectful of the court's time by just saying it in normal words that take a normal amount of time. I'd offer you sex about it but not only do I not think you're stupid enough to fuck a succubus I think that's also separately just not allowed." 

The fact that the succubus spends any amount of time at all under any circumstances being more reasonable than Hell is really kind of a referendum on Hell if you think about it. These have to be the most evenly matched circumstances in the universe and obviously the inevitable is the best one unless he is supposed to think the archon is the best one but if the demon is not in dead last place that just kind of destroys every flimsy theological point for Lawful Evil that he's ever heard.

"Objection! Hell is not proposing fighting at the Worldwound is evil in all cases. Hell is proposing it is Evil in the case of Priest Blai Artigas, and others who, raised to expect conspiracy all around them in a society bent on damning them, never devoted resources to checking if its orders to them to commit dozens or hundreds of killings might possibly fall into that category."

The succubus raises an eyebrow. "Aaaand given the average alignment of leaders at the relevant tech level, this makes him special...how?"

"No states in Avistan except Cheliax and Nidal are engaged in an elaborate, carefully-constructed quest to control the information-environment of every one of their subjects to damn as many of them as possible, Your Honor." They lack the ability! And also the motive, but mostly the ability!

She waves a hand. "A matter of scale. The fact that the ignorance of your average Golarian is natural rather than artificial doesn't improve their epistemics that much."

"...At this time I am not inclined to rule that fighting at the Worldwound is generically Evil in all cases. Does Hell — or anyone else — wish to rebut the arguments of Axis and Heaven that it is not Evil in this case?"

Cheerful shrug. 

"Indeed. Hell would be overjoyed to do this, as Axis is mistaken on multiple points. First, a conspiracy does not need to be perfect to be successful; that Priest Blai Artigas was convinced by the evidence for it is hardly evidence that he noticed it. Tremendous evidence is leaked in the vast majority of cases in which Hell's lies damn souls by convincing them to evil; it would hardly entertain Hell otherwise. The vast majority of good soldiers such as Priest Blai Artigas ignore this evidence and obey their orders, and Axis and Heaven have presented no evidence that the decedent did the requisite information to investigate.

"Second, Axis underestimates the unreliability of the basic knowledge about his person, his environment and his tools a typical Chelish person possesses, since they are systemically mislead about all these things in the vast majority of cases, a deceit that Select Artigas made no particular attempt to mend. He did not check if Detect Evil falsely detected paladins as evil, did not even check if Detect Evil as well as Detect Fiendish Presence detected all demons as evil, and, most damningly, trusted his superiors about the limits of Zone of Truth rather than investigate them himself. He at no point observed a paladin falling, did not interrogate any paladins to determine what would make them fall, did not even seek out books written outside of Cheliax for more information on demons or on paladins. He trusted the information given to him from his superiors. Detect Fiendish Presence is a spell invented by Asmodeus, as he would have known if he had bothered to learn, which should have made him doubt its effectiveness as a source of moral guidance and fiends. He never considered it."

"Third, orcs regularly torture prisoners to death, often using magic to do so, often for purposes of rituals. The majority of orcish prisoners are enslaved, but a large portion of demonic prisoners are also enslaved. The difference is smaller than Axis presents it as."

How are you supposed to interrogate a paladin about what would make them fall without it looking like you're shouting I'd love to break the Worldwound treaty over your head. Asmodeus invented Detect Fiendish Presence? Why? If it was for the Worldwound why wouldn't you make it Detect Demons And Their Cultists or something?

"Alright, I've heard enough about the question of whether it was Evil for the decedent to fight at the Worldwound. At this time I rule that it was not in general Evil for him to fight at the Worldwound. Does anyone have further arguments as to other elements of the decedent's conduct, or should we proceed to closing arguments?"

this has been going on for an eternity and when it's over they're probably sending him to Hell but it is so hard to hope that it goes on anyway.

"Hell registers a protest and states its intent to file an appeal," says Hell as if it didn't do that about twenty percent of the time.

There's APPEALS??

"Can Hell explain exactly what precedent it intends to attempt to overturn? Given that the final destination of the decedent is not subject to appeal." 

Oh. ...wait that means that when he goes to Hell he cannot be appealed out shit

"Hell holds that a probabilistic weighting of the available worldsets the decedent might have found himself in, as justified in Doilos v Hell, is the appropriate tool for weighting this situation," Because the Doilos test would damn Blai Aritgas, "and believes that future courts will uphold that judgement instead of overturning it."

"Your objection is acknowledged. We will now proceed to closing arguments."

There's the sound of some papers shuffling.

"The Abyss has been selected to deliver the first closing argument."

"I would say that Hell has said nothing but stupid bullshit, but in fact I am quite certain that Hell has said just enough things that aren't stupid bullshit that if I did say it Hell could smugly announce that I am technically incorrect. If Pharasma's courts actually cared about truth-seeking arguments, they would ban Hell, and possibly Nirvana, although I guess they could maybe just impose some kind of strict filter on Nirvana lawyers, I don't think this one said anything stupid this whole trial, I was surprised. Since Hell lawyers are allowed, the courts clearly don't actually care what alignments people actually are, and should give me this guy because I have a great rack." 

Because she WHAT. Either the Abyss can't win people this way and it's confusing they ever get even orcs and goblins or they can sometimes win people this way.

".................What a fascinating legal theory. Nirvana, you're next."

It would be amazing if Hell had to go after that statement instead. Oh well. "I find it highly relevant that Hell used 15% more disingenuous arguments than fall within a standard deviation of their average when arguing for souls that are ultimately ruled Evil." They have a graph about this which can be presented to the judge. "Even if Newton doesn't apply to this specific individual, his effort to change in Iomedae's service is still deeply admirable. Thank you for your time." 

You can... measure the disingenuousness of arguments? How does that even work.

Is this the kind of inexperienced lawyer that thinks you can win soul trials just by pointing out that your opponents are arguing in bad faith? Axis sees a lot of those. Most of them quit within their first dozen cases.

"Thank you. Heaven, you're up."