The petitioner in this case is clearly Evil, even when he tries to look at it from Axis's or the Boneyard's point of view. (He punishes himself, afterwards, but he'd be punished more harshly if he got to trial and discovered that the judge saw the case as far more ambiguous than he did.)

With this petitioner he's at risk of losing to the Abyss no matter how incompetent their advocate is, if he's not careful. That's not, actually, any better than losing a case to Heaven.

Presumably that's why he's on the case. If it were trivial they wouldn't have assigned it to him.

She had purchased an Early Judgment once, from a travelling minstrel offering them at a discount. It was all very well and good to risk trouble with the law, but risking your eternity would just be stupid. The minstrel cast a spell and made visions of a vast forest dance before her -- "Elysium or Nirvana, if I had to take a guess, though some parts of the Maelstorm look like this too" -- and left her to go on her way.

A year later a cleric told her that that wasn't how the spell worked at all, that it was supposed to be a picture in her mind rather than an illusion, and besides, was she stupid, didn't she know that song-sorcerers couldn't learn that spell at all? She asked if she could purchase one from him and he told her that he wasn't in the business of saving fools from themselves. 

She didn't try again, after that.

Given that half of the representatives at this trial look incredibly evil and the other half are animals it's possible she should have tried harder to get that Early Judgment.

"Do you know your name?"

"Thea Teresis."

"Do you know where you are?"

"Pharasma's courts. Waiting for judgment."

"Does it sound to you like we are speaking in a language you understand, using words that you are familiar with, at a speaking speed you can follow?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand that you had, while alive, the capacity to take actions, and that those actions had effects on the world and on other people?"

"Yes."

"Do you understand that the purpose of this court is to determine your alignment and which afterlife you are assigned to?"

"I said that already."

"Looks like everything's in order, then. Advocates?"

He could try to have her stipulated as Evil, but if he does that every other advocate will be united in trying to show her non-Lawful. If there's even a remote possibility of her being judged as anything else then the Nirvana advocate could be a useful idiot for keeping her out of the Abyss's hands. Nirvana's attorneys hate to close off doors, no matter how absurd those doors might be.

If the devil isn't going to be the first to talk he's definitely going to take advantage of that! He's not about to let a perfectly good opportunity go to waste by not trying to win, where would the fun in that be.

"Right, so, she's clearly Evil as fuck, right? Murder, blackmail, running a crime ring, the whole deal. Then you consider the 'crime ring' part of that and you've got Chaotic too. Seems pretty obvious to me."

"Your Honor, Hell disputes that it is 'obvious' that this woman is Chaotic, and indeed that she is Chaotic at all.

"The Abyss has raised a number of arguments in favor of her being Evil, to which Hell adds her attempt to frame an innocent man for her crimes. We do not disagree with any of that. But attempting to argue that her being a criminal makes her intrinsically Chaotic flies in the face of precedent and neglects the context of her crimes. Ac--"

"It's not just that she was a criminal! She was literally running an entire criminal organization! That's not just one crime."

"I am speaking. Do not interrupt me."

There's something about the tone of voice, or maybe the phrasing, that's half-familiar. 

It's probably just a coincidence. There are countless devils in Hell.

But -- he needs to know.

"As the Abyss just pointed out, she was running a criminal syndicate, not merely partaking in miscellaneous violations of the law. No crime is intrinsically Chaotic -- Norgorber himself is systemically Neutral -- but criminal organizations are particularly unlikely to be Chaotic when compared with other forms of criminal activity, due to their typical structure, their tendency to enforce strict codes of conduct on their members, and their function in some locations as quasi-governments. That's originally from In re Kuzuryu but it's well-established precedent at this point.

"The implication that criminals are presumptively Chaotic is also dubious even discounting the unusual nature of her criminal activity. Murder is illegal nearly everywhere, yet murderers are commonly judged Neutral or Lawful Evil. Asserting that the mere act of breaking the law makes someone unLawful is a child's misunderstanding of Law at best."

...He also needs to defend the petitioner. Figuring out whether this is Milites can come later.

"Your Honor, Nirvana disputes that this woman is Evil."

"Of course you do. Nirvanans, am I right?"

"Like I was starting to say, this woman may have killed someone, but that doesn't make her Evil. The person she killed was literally trying to kill her first, and she was defending herself, which is well-established as non-Evil in most circumstances. In this case it's particularly unambiguous, since she wasn't even trying to kill him, even though he was attacking her. She pushed him away from her -- again, while he was trying to kill her -- and he fell into an ornamental fencepost and died from his injuries. Even describing this as 'murder' is a stretch."

He is ... going to hold off on arguing about all the other things until he has to. He's pretty confident he can get the judge on his side about the thing where she killed someone, and less sure whether he can persuade them about everything else.

"Sure, maybe it was an accident, but it's not like she ran off to find a cleric."

"That seems like awfully much to expect of her under the circumstances, just saying."

He hates everyone in this courtroom, with the possible exception of the judge. At least Axis sometimes manages to be tolerable.

"Your Honor, Nirvana's characterization neglects several relevant factors, such as the fact that she was familiar with the lethal potential of her surrounding environment, and the fact that she immediately attempted to cover up the murder rather than securing magical or non-magical healing, reporting what happened, or taking literally any actions whatsoever to mitigate the effects of her actions.

"Killing in self-defense is non-Evil in isolation, but it can still be Evil under certain circumstances, such as if the killer continues to use lethal force when their safety is assured, as articulated in In re Kuwata, 3559. This woman did not continue to attack the victim, but she did knowingly take actions that made him more likely to die even once her own safety was assured.

"Furthermore, Nirvana has neglected to address numerous other factors which are sufficient on their own to support a finding of Evil. Hell moves that, given the lack of response, those factors be taken as conceded."

"Uh, Nirvana objects to doing that! We don't think any of those make her Evil either! I was just focusing on the murder first."

"I agree with Nirvana. Your motion is overruled, Caracies, and in the future please be more selective about your procedural requests."

He barely processes the name. It's not important, not compared to avoiding any further missteps like that.

He'd sort of assumed that Milites would have some kind of scary-sounding devil name, like all the devils he'd heard of, and when he hadn't been able to track one down he'd figured that's because it was well-hidden. Maybe you only get a scary-sounding devil name if you're a pit fiend or something like that.

That's not really what's important here.

"Thea, can you explain why you didn't try to get a cleric to heal Martellus?"

"He was already dead by the time I'd have had the chance."

"Wow, great question! Hey, why don't you ask her a real question, something like, I don't know, why she tried to frame someone else for the murder!"

"I didn't think anyone would believe me that it had been an accident."

He is deeply unsure whether the Abyss's efforts are increasing the odds of an Evil verdict compared to just having someone yell "flesh" until they get kicked out. It's a good question, but the delivery is all wrong for its purpose, and now that the Abyss has asked it he can't very well just go and ask it again.

........Not that an Evil verdict is particularly in doubt, of course. 

"We've heard a lot about 'self-defense.' But we need to ask -- why was her life at risk in the first place? Why was her victim willing to risk an attempt on her life? Teresis, can you tell us what you think led him to try to kill you?"

"Is that really relevant? I mean, he's not the one on trial here..."

"The relevance will become clear once the witness answers the question."

She's not sure if this is the kind of trap where Hell ensnares you into admitting to things that are incriminating or the kind of trap where Hell ensnares you into looking like you don't think your actions were a big deal but given that they're asking the question at all it's presumably one of the two.

"Veritas, the request to not raise frivolous procedural quibbles applies to you too."

It's kind of weird how the judge keeps referring to everyone by their name? Their ... human name, if her guess is right? Whatever. People are allowed to be weird.

The judge is looking at her, which means trying to delay answering any longer probably won't actually help her.

"Five years ago, Martellus was involved in another incident that led to someone's death. I told him that I would prevent anyone from finding out what he had done as long as he was willing to work in whatever roles I asked of him and accept only the wages he needed to survive. I suppose he was sufficiently unhappy about this arrangement to be willing to take some risks like that."

"Your Honor, Hell requests once more that Nirvana explain why this woman's attempts at blackmail -- which she has just told you she used as an excuse to force her victim into near-slavery -- should not be classified as Evil. Hell believes that Nirvana is avoiding this point deliberately."

...That's not exactly wrong but it's still upsetting.

He needs to focus.

If he's being honest with himself, it does look pretty bad that the petitioner spent years using blackmail to force someone else around. Also that she was part of a criminal organization, but the other afterlives aren't focusing on that point yet, so it's less urgent to figure out how to counter it.

There has to be some way to turn this around. There has to be. He just needs to find it.

With her killing Martellus, there were mitigating circumstances that he could point to. With her blackmailing him, there aren't -- she helped him cover up a murder, that makes it worse if anything --

--Does it?

If she hadn't blackmailed him -- he'd've been taken in for murder, almost certainly, and executed. He'd likely have gone to the lower planes, if Thea's guess about whether it was intentional was correct, though "actually their actions were necessary to stop someone from going to Hell" is rarely accepted as a justification for doing things that would otherwise be seen as clearly unethical. (Admittedly most of the precedent here comes from cases about murdering innocent people.)

Technically speaking, she could have helped him cover up the murder and then not blackmailed him, but -- if it really was a murder -- it's hard to say that that would have been better than what she did. At least this way she could keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't kill anyone else.

The obvious issue is that Thea's memories don't really support this interpretation of her motivations whatsoever. But at least it's a start.

Believing deep down that every petitioner you represent is a good person is not a job requirement. It is, however, the sort of thing that many advocates find helpful; no one deserves to suffer in Hell, or even to be destroyed in Abaddon, but if you're thinking of your goal as "try to save this obviously terrible person" it can bleed into your arguments no matter how hard you try to hide it.

He doesn't think that Thea is an obviously terrible person. She clearly made a lot of mistakes, but -- so do most people.

He has a question to answer, and if he takes more than a few seconds it'll look like he can't.

"Your Honor, when determining whether a petitioner's actions were Evil, this court must consider their viable alternatives. In some cases, it is impossible to entirely avoid harming others -- the standard citation for that is In re Foot, though the same sentiment exists in earlier cases -- and in general this court has considered a lack of superior alternatives to be a substantial mitigating circumstance.

"In this case, Your Honor, the petitioner had just witnessed what she believed to be a murder. Most people in that position would have just turned in Martellus to the local authorities, at which point he would have been executed. If Thea had done that, no one would seriously believe that made her Evil, but Martellus clearly would have been worse off. 

"That wasn't her only option -- theoretically, she could have covered it up and then just let him go -- but again, as far as she knew, she had just witnessed a murder. What Hell is calling 'blackmail' was, in a sense, her only chance at ensuring that no one else died.

"The motivations of mortals are rarely entirely straightforward. I'm not going to tell you that she was acting entirely selflessly. But the impulse towards mercy is a fundamentally Good one."

This is absurd. Nirvanans are absurd.

"Are you seriously trying to argue that covering up a murder is Good."

"I'm not going to say that's necessarily Good in every case. But -- in this one, yes, or at least Good-intentioned."

"I feel like Nirvana is just putting together a bunch of pretty words to try to get us to ignore the thing where she blackmailed someone. For years."

He needs to ask the petitioner more questions, here. It's risky -- it could lose him the case, if she's unsympathetic enough -- but doing nothing could also lose him the case.

"Thea, do you think the world would have been better off if you had turned Martellus in for murder?"

"I don't know. If he hadn't tried to kill me, then -- yes, almost certainly, it's like you just said -- he would have been executed -- but since he ended up dead anyway I'm less certain."

She hesitates. "I did think it would be better at the time. I don't know if that matters."

"You're still asking easy questions that don't actually matter, just saying."

"Hell agrees with that. The mere presence of a positive consequence relative to some alternative is not sufficient to make someone Good, otherwise Abadar would be a Good god just because trade often improves people's lives. Thea, can you tell us why you decided to spare Martellus?"

"It might not make her Good, but it's a strong argument against that action making her Evil."

"The question was directed at the petitioner, not at you."

There are a lot of different ways she could truthfully answer this question and for some reason the truth effect isn't even allowing all of them.

"I was mostly thinking about the money issue -- our acting troupe was barely scraping by, and he was one of our star performers -- but it wasn't just that. We were on good terms, I didn't want him to die." She hesitates. "I did think this would leave both of us better off."

"...Hell's position is that covering up the fact that your friend murdered someone so that you can profit financially is straightforwardly Evil."

"Nirvana's position is that sparing someone's life while trying to ensure they cannot harm anyone else is Good, whether or not they're your friend and whether or not you benefit from it."

"I don't really think it's evil to be kind of selfish if you're not making people worse off! But I also think it's kind of silly to say that's Good."

"I feel like people have kind of forgotten about the crime boss thing? Can we talk about the crime boss thing at some point?"

"I would prefer if this trial were more grounded in precedent from approximately everyone. Right now, I'm being presented with a lot of abstract arguments. I'm not saying those don't have a place in this courtroom, but I highly doubt anyone has anything novel to say about the proper role of mercy.

"...You can also talk about the crime boss thing, but it might be better to save that for after this point has been resolved."

"I want to talk about it now because I think it makes my side look really good and everyone else look stupid."

"Uh, no offense, but why did you just say that?"

"I'm trying out a new strategy where I mostly say true things! I think everyone else here should consider it. By which I mean that I think it will hurt your arguments and help mine."

Why is the Abyss like this. 

It's objectively unreasonable to be annoyed that they're trying out a strategy that doesn't just involve randomly making things up when it's convenient. He adds it to the long list of things he'll need to punish himself for after the trial.

Regardless, if the judge wants precedent, he can provide it. However Nirvana trains their lawyers, they're too soft to threaten them with anything serious if they forget a citation, let alone discipline them for simply not having bothered to learn an obscure one. It's rare they have an answer for anything more than a few steps from the standard curriculum; that's not the only reason he can win impossible trials, but it's one of them.

There are judges who will discount non-standard precedent if you don't provide the court with a copy, but it's not particularly hard to predict what cases you're likely to need and bring those along. Besides, no one ever actually pauses a trial just to read an entire case; even if the interpretation is arguable, if you're lucky enough to get the sort of judge who particularly cares about miscellaneous rarely-cited cases they'll probably go along with your interpretation simply because you're the only one who has an interpretation. Heaven says it ought to be considered unLawful, sometimes, but it's not as if they're going to get Asmodeus kicked out of the Lawful alignment.

"Your Honor, to answer your question, there is substantial evidence of blackmail being Evil, even when the one being blackmailed would otherwise have faced a worse fate. In re Arlet, 4651, a woman discovers that her son is committing treason, blackmails him into paying her to hush it up, it ends up being fairly decisive in her being sentenced to Hell. In re Khonsu, 3841, the petitioner discovers that his employer killed someone, rather than turning him in he uses it to get special treatment at work, he was judged Neutral Evil though he ultimately chose Hell. In re Otoro, the petitioner had proof of an assassin's identity and kept it for blackmail rather than turning the assassin in, the issue was raised at his trial and he was sent to the Abyss--"

"Nirvana disputes Hell's characterization of In re Otoro."

"Nothing Hell said is technically speaking false, but if you'll direct your attention to the document Hell has just handed us, there were a number of other contributing factors to him being judged Evil, among them the fact that he had been the one to hire the assassin."

"The blackmail was also cited among the reasons for the judgment."

"Even completely discounting every other reason he was judged Evil, the case is still not analogous, because unlike the petitioner in this case, Otoro had no intention of preventing the assassin from continuing to kill people! There is a substantial difference between mercifully granting someone another chance after the biggest mistake of their life, and letting an assassin continue to assassinate people."

"It is not as if the petitioner in this case was particularly successful at preventing the man she blackmailed from trying to kill anyone else. Furthermore, even if this case is determined to be completely irrelevant, that still leaves the other cases I mentioned."

"I don't know if there are similar issues with the other cases you cited but under the circumstances I'd rather not take your interpretation as stated." He starts making a pointed show of reading through one of them.

"Can we talk about the crime boss thing now?"

"...I think there's still more to say on the topic of the alleged blackmail."

"Do you, in fact, have any case law supporting your position -- I'm not condoning misrepresenting the facts of a case, but Khonsu seems to be good law." Probably. He's only actually read the case summary on the first page but he's not about to stop the trial just to read it.

There have been billions of trials just of souls in Golarion. There's precedent somewhere to support just about any bizarre argument you can come up with, it's just a matter of finding it. Even once you get past the standard citations there are cases that come up more often and cases that come up less often -- it wasn't sheer luck that he knew the details of Otaro -- but there's a reason most trials don't just turn into a competition of who can cite the most similar case.

He still came prepared, though. If you can't manage to truthfully cite cases that support your argument, what are you even doing?

"Your Honor, the obvious analogy is In re Rantella from 1213 -- the petitioner had discovered two attempted murders by another member of his household, deliberately chose not to report them, and took steps to supervise and redeem the would-be murderer. He was judged Neutral Good. Beyond that, you also have cases like In re Greenhilt from 1184, where the petitioner was judged to be Lawful Good even though he wasn't even succeeding at preventing the other person from killing people." He can go on for a while. He has physical copies.

He skims them as fast as he can to make absolutely sure the judge realizes Nirvana's argument is unreasonable.

"In re Rantella isn't analogous, the petitioner was the primary target of the murder attempt. Not reporting wrongs committed against you is substantially different from denying justice for wrongs committed against someone else."

It's not a good argument. It doesn't cut to the heart of why Nirvana is wrong. But the judge asked for fewer "abstract arguments" about the "'proper' role of mercy," and he's not stupid enough to ignore him.

"Cool, they both have some cases on their side, now can we talk about about the crime boss thing? I really want to talk about the crime boss thing."

"Yes, we can talk about, as you put it, the 'crime boss thing.' We'll return to the blackmail later if it ends up being decisive."

"Awesome! Criminal organizations: pretty Evil! Maybe not as much as murder, but still pretty bad. Like, we've got threats, we've got violence, we've got all kinds of things that hurt other people. The, uh, the annoying human god dude who lives in Heaven for some reason, he's Neutral Evil. Even though he doesn't live in Abaddon. Don't ask me how that works. Anyways, they're also Chaotic -- like, you are literally breaking the law, and usually you are also lying to people or breaking promises or other things like that that Lawful people care about for some reason. So, the crime boss thing makes her Chaotic Evil. Hell and Nirvana have barely touched this because they know I'm right and don't want to admit it."

There are so many things wrong with that but for some reason the one he's stuck on is the fact that the demon knows Norgorber's realm is not in Abaddon but inexplicably thinks he lives in Heaven.

"Wouldn't that make her Neutral Evil? If Norgorber is Neutral Evil? Just saying."

"I'm fine either way, I think she'll choose the Abyss if she gets the chance. But she's obviously not Lawful."

She's been trying to avoid thinking about it, actually.