[legalxml-courtfiling] Preliminary List of "Roles" in Legal Proceedings

[John Messing <jmessing@law-on-line.com>]

My understanding comes more from contemplating personal and anectodal programming experiences rather than formal training. My claim to expertise is thus all but non-existent, but to me there a number of attributes like a role which do not meet a necessary level or degree of persistence which I think is implicit in a proper definition of a property. 

Your question about multiple roles involves perhaps less case management issues(relational database tables) and more courtroom formalities, strategies and tactics, including legal arguments, precedents and authorities. One does not normally describe what happens in a courtroom in  terms of roles (participants are more interested in processes and results generally speaking). It is difficult to give an honest answer about the existence and need for multiple roles without a new discipline of thought emerging specific to this content area. The RDF statement about the criminal law looks like it could adapt itself more readily to such an undertaking than straight XML from what you have said.

I find the attempt at creating a hierarchy of entities to be noteworthy. Too often it is tempting for the sake of expediency to include in a dictionary terms in pork-barrel fashion so that a certain cartesian legal quality is immediately compromised and like the saying about virtue itself goes, once compromised, it is not easily regained.

Unfortunately, the particular hierarchy you have outlined from time to time inadvertently steps through a minefield of semi-sacred terms and politically correct behaviors with the grace of a bull in a china shop, but that is only out of unfamiliarlity with the terrain, which perhaps is easily cured by obtaining the services of a guide who knows the way.

I think you posting may be of considerable help to those looking to work on 2.0 and data dictionaries.

Best regards.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John McClure" <jmcclure@hypergrove.com>
To: <legalxml-courtfiling@lists.oasis-open.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 5:10 PM
Subject: RE: [legalxml-courtfiling] Preliminary List of "Roles" in Legal Proceedings


> 
> Well, in the world of OOP, objects only have properties (other than a pointer to
> their class metadata). Given this, a role is as much a property of the Person
> object as much as title is. Lin's statement refers to the notion that in the
> world of RDBs, one creates an intersection table between its Person table and
> its Case table, each row of which contains the Role being played by the Person
> in the case (as well as pointers to specific Case and Person rows). Of course in
> XML we don't worry about tables per se but we still worry about the cardinality
> of each property associated with an object. For example, Lin's system probably
> doesnt allow multiple titles for a given individual, but I think one should, in
> an XML encoding, because that is the reality -- people are able to claim
> multiple honorific titles -- while most RDB systems store multiple honorifics,
> comma-separated, in a single field (a huge no-no for XML encoding), because it's
> not worth the effort to establish a separate table keyed by Person.
> 
> I think a key question is whether in fact multiple Roles can be played by a
> single Person in a single Case. Since I am but a neophyte in case management
> systems, I haven't a clue. If the answer is yes, but very infrequently, I still
> take that to be a yes, and would recommend that markup allow such statements of
> fact. Besides that, I'd suggest that the name of what's being discussed be
> sharpened to include the event in which the role is being played by the actor.
> For instance, CriminalTrialRole would identifiy all the roles found in the
> generic criminal trial. By 'chunking' the discussion in this way, much benefit
> and faster progress is readily assured. If one is using a metadata markup
> language that provides multiple inheritance (like, RDF), then the same role can
> be a subclass of multiple categories. If not (like, XML Schema), then there's a
> considerable challenge ahead.
> 
> I substantially agree with Roger's explanations of the distinction between Role
> and Title. The statement about a "Judge" -- that one owns the title throughout
> it all -- needs much more refinement I believe. To me, a Judge is BOTH an
> honorific AND an occupation (as defined by the US Government). Yes, any Judge
> can be an ElectedOfficial or an AppointedOfficial but, as you might suspect, I
> would establish these as sub-terms of a QualifiedOfficial term, applicable as
> they would be to any subclass of Judge (as an occupation). Anyway, what is
> crystal clear to me is that "Judge" is not an example of a Role. Rather, for the
> role fulfilled by a Judge in a CriminalTrial, I would suggest that such be
> called a CriminalTrialJudge, a term within the CriminalTrialRole category, which
> is a subcategory of LegalRole (or CourtRole or JudicialSystemRole), which is a
> subclass of Role, which is a subclass QualifiedActor. [Aside: a Judgeship is
> another interesting item, because it refers to the jurisdiction had by a
> judge...] For the honorific case, I wouldn't establish Judge as a subterm of
> Honorific -- rather, "Judge" is an *instance of* an Honorific and I suggest
> publishing such as a resource standardized by LegalXML, like <Honorific
> rdf:ID='http://www.legalxml.org#Judge'><en>Judge</en></Honorific> which can be
> referenced then by systems in a standard way such as <Person><addressedUsing
> rdf:resource='http://www.legalxml.org#Judge'/></Person>. While I'm at this, for
> a role, I would hardly recommend a <Role> tag, but rather a more readable, more
> intuitive, more explicit, RDF treatment, as in <Judge><actedAs
> rdf:resource='http://www.legalxml.org/dictionary.rdf#CriminalCourtJudge'/></Judg
> e> for the simple, non attributed referential statement, and for the more
> complex statements that are sure to occur:
> 
> <Person rdf:ID='Person1234567'>
> <LegalName><en>John Marshall</en></LegalName>
> <addressedUsing rdf:resource='http://www.legalxml.org#Judge'/>
> <employedAs rdf:resource='http://www.legalxml.dictionary.rdf#Judge'/>
> <actedAs>
> <CriminalCourtJudge>
> <addressedAs><Honorific><en>Your Honor</en></Honorific></addressedAs>
> <at rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Location12345'/>
> <occurred><ElapsedPeriod><iso>2002-12-12/P4D</iso></ElapsedPeriod></occurred>
> <forEvent rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Case1234567'/>
> </CriminalCourtJudge>
> </actedAs>
> </Person>
> <CriminalCase rdf:ID='Case1234567'>
> <occurred><ElapsedPeriod><iso>2002-12-12/P4D</iso></ElapsedPeriod></occurred>
> <at rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Location12345'/>
> <presidedBy rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Person1234567'/>
> <prosecutedBy
> rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Person7654321'/>
> <answeredBy rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen12345'/>
> <arguedBy rdf:resource='http://www.MaineBarAssociation#Attorney321'/>
> <decidedBy rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Jury12345'/>
> </CriminalCase>
> 
> Of course, this can be equally exchanged as
> 
> <CriminalCase rdf:ID='Case1234567'>
> <occurred><ElapsedPeriod><iso>2002-12-12/P4D</iso></ElapsedPeriod></occurred>
> <at>
> <CourtHouse rdf:about='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Location12345'>
> <PhysicalAddress/>
> </CourtHouse>
> </at>
> <presidedBy>
> <CriminalCourtJudge
> rdf:about='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Person1234567'>
> <LegalName><en>John Marshall</en></LegalName>
> <addressedAs><Honorific><en>Your Honor</en></Honorific></addressedAs>
> </CriminalCourtJudge>
> </presidedBy>
> <prosecutedBy>
> <CriminalProsecutor
> rdf:about='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Person7654321'>
> <LegalName><en>Joe Prosecutor</en></LegalName>
> </CriminalProsecutor>
> </prosecutedBy>
> <answeredBy>
> <Defendant rdf:about='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen12345'>
> <LegalName><en>Jill Defendant</en></LegalName>
> <defendedBy>
> <PublicDefender rdf:about='http://www.MaineBarAssociation#Attorney321'>
> <LegalName><en>Jane Attorney</en></LegalName>
> </PublicDefender>
> </defendedBy>
> </Defendant>
> </answeredBy>
> <decidedBy>
> <Jury>
>      <consistedOf>
> <rdf:bag>
> <LeadJuror rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen0121'/>
> <AlternateLeadJuror
> rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen0122'/>
> <Juror rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen0123'/>
> <AlternateJuror
> rdf:resource='http://www.USDistrictCourt/District5#Citizen0124'/>
> </rdf:bag>
>      </consistedOf>
> </Jury>
> </decidedBy>
> </CriminalCase>
> 
> The whole POINT of a dictionary then is to identify the range of elements that
> can validly be referenced by, or within, the "predicate elements" <occurred>,
> <at>, <presidedBy>, <prosecutedBy>, and the others that "connect" two nouns.
> Creating a hiearchical dictionary of terms is not merely an intellectual
> exercise of passing interest -- it relates directly to the validation of XML
> streams emanating from the judicial system. Now, it's been said that this seems
> pretty wordy, but I daresay that such explictness should be an ongoing
> requirement as more and more complex information structures are desired to be
> transmitted in a reasonable, stable, fashion. Simply having a <Role> element
> won't cut the mustard in the final analysis in my view.
> 
> For more information about this "style" of markup, please reference
> 1. "Make Your XML RDF-Friendly" at
> http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/10/30/rdf-friendly.html
> 2. "RDF - What's it good for?" at
> http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/11/13/deviant.html
> 3. "Ontology Building: A Survey of Editing Tools" at
> http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/11/06/ontologies.html
> 
> Regards,
> John
> 
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: John Messing [mailto:jmessing@law-on-line.com]
> >Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 8:50 AM
> >To: legalxml-courtfiling@lists.oasis-open.org
> >Subject: RE: [legalxml-courtfiling] Preliminary List of "Roles" in Legal
> >Proceedings
> >
> >
> >Another way of looking at this may be that if there is a person
> >object, a title is most clearly a property of the person object
> >whereas the role is probably not.
> >
> >---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
> >From: "Winters, Roger" <Roger.Winters@METROKC.GOV>
> >Date:  Thu, 21 Nov 2002 07:40:27 -0800
> >
> >>As you have described it, then, does this follow?
> >>
> >>ROLE = something one enters and leaves. We all play many roles--father,
> >>co-worker, civil servant, mechanic, mentor, penitent, child, caregiver, and
> >>on and on. In a case, one may be the plaintiff but, on the stand, also a
> >>witness; the next week, called for duty, a juror and, if a Judge, one owns
> >>the title throughout it all.
> >>
> >>TITLE = something that sticks with one (unless revoked or modified). Being a
> >>plaintiff is not to acquire a title, nor witness, nor juror. A medical
> >>doctor who steps into (and out of) such roles would still be titled
> >>"Doctor."
> >>
> >>Roger Winters
> >>Electronic Court Records Manager
> >>King County
> >>Department of Judicial Administration
> >>516 Third Avenue, E-609 MS: KCC-JA-0609
> >>Seattle, Washington 98104
> >>V: (206) 296-7838 F: (206) 296-0906
> >>roger.winters@metrokc.gov
> >>
> >>
> >>-----Original Message-----
> >>From: Lin, Meng-chun [mailto:Meng-chun.Lin@usdoj.gov]
> >>Sent: Thursday, November 21, 2002 4:03 AM
> >>To: 'Winters, Roger'; 'Mohyeddin Abdulaziz'; 'Chambers, Rolly'
> >>Cc: legalxml-courtfiling@lists.oasis-open.org
> >>Subject: RE: [legalxml-courtfiling] Preliminary List of "Roles" in LegalPr
> >>oceedings
> >>
> >>>From the programming point of view, the titles and roles are separate in the
> >>federal courts' case management database.  A more common case is a retired
> >>judge becomes an attorney and represents a client in a case.  The judge
> >>retains his/her title, but plays different role in different cases.  Also,
> >>under the party, there are different "party roles" in a case.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
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> 
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