I am still wondering why we would not try
to keep it simple by agreeing that a person or a thing can have a "role"
appropriate to a certain context, including a legal case. Although I don't
know how this would be modeled technically, I am comfortable with the notion
that human beings and things, animate or inanimate, can be said to play or
have or be assigned "roles." Some might prefer calling this a "function"
rather than a "role" when dealing with a thing, but it seems to me to amount
to the same thing. Roles and functions change with time and context. The point
is to know which role applies to the case in point and to give the person or
thing the metadata attribute naming the role within the context of the case
or, more particularly, of the court document in which it
appears.
The context of the case should show
whether it makes sense to say that a certain role can be assigned to a person
or thing. While a thing like the Bank of America Tower could have a role of
"victim" or "evidence" or "plaintiff," it would make no sense to assign the
Tower the role of "judge."
Rolly and others have called out a number
of possible role names relevant to court matters. Isn't the point of our work
to define each distinct role specifically enough so we could tell in a given
case who has that role? Wouldn't we all use the same tag for a given role,
e.g., for "defense attorney" defined as "legal counsel for an accused person
in a criminal matter," regardless of the title used for that role in a given
place, e.g., "Defender," "Public Defender," "Mouthpiece," "Counsel for the
Accused?"
A person can have, but might not have a
"title" that goes with a "role" the person is playing. The person who has the
"judicial officer" role would usually have a formal title, e.g., "Judge J.
Jones," "Magistrate Barney Fife." The person who is in the role of "victim" in
a criminal matter would not have a formal title--although the person might be
referred to as "victim Winters" to distinguish him from "victim Chambers."
Later in the case, it might be discovered that "victim Winters" is actually
"perpetrator Winters," who would then start having other roles like
"defendant," "convict," "inmate," and "parolee," used as appropriate in
context of the series of documents that record the proceedings and disposition
of his case and subsequent events.)
If what I'm asserting is not helpful to
deciding how the JXDDS Person Object relates to what we are trying to
accomplish, please say so and let's move right along. I'm hoping, however,
that we could avoid adding categories of metadata (e.g., "Actor" or
"Citizen") that, I suspect, might not add real value to our
enterprise.
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: Chambers,
Rolly [mailto:rlchambers@smithcurrie.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 7:29
AM
To: Court Filing
List
Subject: RE:
[legalxml-courtfiling] JXDDS Person Object
The
diagram indicates that the "subclasses" of the "person" element would
be "citizen," "official," and "subject." These subclassifications are not
intuitive or particularly meaningful to me as an attorney. For instance, it is
unclear to me what the distinction would be between a "subject" and a
"citizen" in a court document.
From
my perspective, a more intuitive and meaningful set of subclasses of the
"person" element at least for purposes of court documents would be
"witness," "attorney," "judicial official" or "judicial officer" (for judges,
justices, magistrates, possibly court clerks, etc.), "enforcement officer" or
"enforcement official" (for law enforcement officers), and "administrative
official" or "administrative officer" (for administrative hearing officers,
administrative law judges, board members, etc.). Members of these subclasses
are invariably individual "persons" in the context of court
documents.
I recognize that a "party" (as well as a
"victim") in the context of a court document can be either a "person" or
an "organization." Thus, where the subclasses of "person" are limited to those
whose members are invariably individuals, "person" would not include "party"
or "victim" as subclasses.
-----Original Message-----
From: John M. Greacen
Sent: Fri 9/20/2002 4:58 PM
To: Court Filing List
Cc: Mark Kindl; John
Wandelt
Subject:
[legalxml-courtfiling] JXDDS Person Object
Dear colleagues:
I have been in further
discussions with Mark Kindl and John Wandelt at
GTRI about the person
object and possible ways to accommodate Court
Filing's need for an
element that accommodates persons, organizations
and things.
They
have suggested that an actor object could be created which allowed
the
use of either the person, organization, or property object.
They
have also
suggested that this object might be more easily
understood and accepted
if it were called "party" rather than
"actor."
I attach a PowerPoint diagram of the possible "actor"
element that we
have been discussing. I would appreciate getting
your comments on it.
Can anyone think of another instance -- other
than party -- in which we
need to be able to accept persons and
organizations or persons,
organizations and things? It seems to me
that witnesses are invariably
individuals, even when they are testifying
as agents or officers of an
organization. "Party" would seem to
work for contracts as well as for
court cases. In sum, what do you
think of the idea of "party" as the
name of the object instead of
"actor?"
I look forward to your ideas and
suggestions.
--
John M. Greacen
Greacen Associates, LLC.
18
Fairly Road
Santa Fe, NM
87507
505-471-0203