[REVIEW] End of Month Reviews #45 - September 2007 [spoilers]

[Martin Phipps]

On Dec 8, 12:32 pm, Tom Russell <milos_par... at yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Dec 7, 4:48 pm, Martin Phipps <martinphip... at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > There's no confusion on my part.  The fact is that Martin was sent to
> > jail on a misdemeaner possession charge and he wasn't even guilty.
>
> No; he was _remanded_ to custody in jail.  He was not _sentenced_ to
> jail.  "Reasonable doubt" and guilt have *nothing* to do with whether
> the judge would set bail or remand him to custody, and do not enter
> into the proceedings in any way, shape, or form.  This decision is
> largely determined by weighing the seriousness of the crime (in this
> case, the Supervillain charge) and the flight risk posed by the
> defendent.

I never said he was sentenced, just that Martin made no effort to
prevent being sent to jail.  What about the police officers that
arrested Martin?  Were they also working for Snapp?  Because Martin
could have made the argument that he surrendered freely and is not,
therefore, a flight risk.  In fact he should have had a court
appointed attorney make that argument for him.

> I don't mean to accuse you of being confused, but when you continue to
> claim that Martin went to trial despite all evidence to the contrary,
> it's a natural assumption.

When you claim that I am claiming that Martin went to trial when I am
claiming no such thing, the natural assumption is that _you_ are the
one who is confused.  Martin was entitled to legal representation, be
it a trial or a bail hearing, and a fair judge would take the time to
listen to arguments from both sides.

> > The Assistant DA knew that Martin knew that he was working for Snapp.
> > That made Martin dangerous.  Putting him in jail isn't enough,
> > especially if he was scheduled to go to trial and tell everybody about
> > the ADA's links to Snapp.
>
> The ADA also knew that Martin had no way to prove it, and probably
> figured that someone as powerless and as unpopular (re: park massacre)
> as Martin Rock would probably end up being killed in prison.

Martin didn't massacre people in the park.  Willis did.  But, yes,
somehow that did make Martin unpopular, even though Martin was the one
who stopped the Crooked Man.

> >  Martin deserved to go into protective
> > custody, not prison.
>
> He's not a witness, but a defendent awaiting trial.

Of course he's a witness.  He knew that the ADA was working for
Snapp.  The fact that he would keep quiet about it makes no sense at
all.

> >  They didn't have to know that he was the Green
> > Knight.  That is the part that, quite frankly, did not make one bit of
> > sense no matter how you try to spin it.
>
> > > Also, another reason why Martin wouldn't reveal the undercover plan is
> > > that he would have to prove it.
>
> > Nonsense.  Martin was the one being charged with a crime.  The onus
> > was on the ADA to prove that he was guilty.  Again, a misdemeaner
> > possession charge should not have been cause to put Martin away into
> > prison.
>
> Again, he wasn't "put away" and THERE WAS NO TRIAL OR CONVICTION.
> Please see above.

He was put into prison, into general population..  He wasn't just
simply being remanded into police custody.  I never said there was a
trial or a conviction.  You don't have to shout. :P

> > > The only proof he has is the chip in
> > > his neck-- and the chip is the only thing that would keep him alive
> > > should Snapp send someone to kill him.
>
> > Again, nonsense.  There are thousands of ways to kill people, none of
> > which involve vibra jackets and all of them would be less likely to be
> > traced back to Snapp.
>
> I'll give you that one, though the jackets _were_ Snapp's modus
> operandi and most reliable method.  At the same time-- and this is
> where keeping things from Martin's point of view is a bit of a
> liability on my part-- maybe having Martin remanded to custody in
> Earbox was a way to expose him to those htousands of ways.
>
> > > And since Martin had no
> > > evidence on the ADA even if he did prove the undercover assignment--
> > > not a single scrap against Fisk, even afterwards-- risking his life
> > > to, in the end, accomplish nothing seems highly illogical. :-)
>
> > Indeed.  He risked his life by going to prison.  That didn't make one
> > bit of sense.
>
> I think the point of the story, if stories have points, was that
> Martin was counting on himself to keep himself alive, which is more or
> less what he did.  (That is the "badass" part of things.)
>
> And, whether he says anything incriminitating or not, without any
> evidence it's likely that he's still going to be remanded to custody.
> You make it sound as if he had a choice.

He had a choice as to whether or not the authorities would grant him
protection rather than put him into general population but he kept
quiet.

> >  You could say that people don't always behave logically
> > but here we have a case where Martin's survival instincts should have
> > been screaming at him to tell the judge something, anything that would
> > keep him from going to prison, especially when the ADA and who knows
> > who else is working for Snapp and can have him killed at any time and
> > make it look like an accident.
>
> Well, he _did_ try to talk the judge into letting him be released on
> bail-- a bail that, more likely than not, Pam Bierce as a bailbondsman
> would have been able to pay.

He only made it worse for himself by not asking for representation and
then trying to argue on his own behalf.

> >  Say nothing and they get away with it
> > and there's no suspicion on anybody in theystem.  Speak out and
> > there's less chance of the ADA arranging to have him killed for fear
> > of he himself being considered a suspect.
>
> I disagree.
>
> If Martin _did_ claim the ADA was crooked without any proof, he would
> probably have been remanded to custody anyway. And now the ADA _would_
> have a compelling reason to try and have him killed and probably would
> with one hundred percent certainty.  I don't think the ADA would have
> much to be afraid of in that case: after all, there is no evidence
> against him and Martin Rock is a man known to have many enemies.
>
> In the other case-- the one in the story-- there's certainly a chance
> the ADA and Snapp could have him killed, but since he's no real danger
> to them, there's also a chance that they won't bother.  And if there
> was a hundred percent chance on the one hand that they'd try to kill
> me, and slightly less than that that they wouldn't, I'd personally go
> with the latter.

Either way, Martin was a potential witness and he would have been much
safer if he actually had been remanded into police custody than if he
had been placed in general population.  Couldn't Martin have requested
not being placed in general population?  All he had to say was that he
had informtion regarding Snapp's organisation and had a reasonable
fear of being eliminated, just like Fay and Dani.  Where was the DA
all this time anyway?  Was he also working for Snapp?  Fisk was only
the assistant DA.  Was this case not important enough for the DA not
to get involved?  Yet another reason for Martin to speak out then: the
police had just had all their evidence against Snapp destroyed and
would have been desperate to rebuild their case.  The destruction of
the evidence also suggested an inside job and there would logically
have been an ongoing investigation into it and they'd want to hear
what Martin had to say even if this particular judge didn't.

More to the point, Martin is supposed to be an example of honesty and
courage so some calculation as you described above shouldn't dissaude
him from wanting to get the truth about Fisk out.

Martin