APPROVED TEXT
¶8 Appealing the Decision of a Jury
Only decisions that result in a penalty being placed upon a member can be appealed, and only by that member.
All requests for an appeal must be heard, and decisions made by an Appeals panel are final.
The Appeals panel will consist of four former administrators. Starting with the administrator whose term ended most recently, and moving in reverse order through terms served, former administrators will express their availability and willingness to serve until four of them are assembled.
A member will present their Appeal in writing to a current administrator, who will convene the panel of former administrators. Each member of the panel will review the original Hearing Thread to evaluate the merit of the Appeal. They may confer among themselves in private by PM or email. Agreement by three of the four members of the panel will constitute a decision. Their decision must state whether to uphold or overturn the decision of the jury, and whether to void, reduce or uphold the penalty imposed by the jury. Any factors which they took into consideration should be stated honestly in their decision.
The decision will be sent to the member by email, and posted in the original Hearing Thread twenty-four hours later. The names of the Appeal panel are posted with their decision.
Ideally, an Appeals process should not take longer than seven full days.
Jury decisions and penalties can be appealed under the following circumstances:
• A decision can be appealed if the Hearing procedure specified in the by-laws was not followed. If the Appeals panel decides that the member was disadvantaged in any way by a breach of procedure, such as failure of notification, failure to announce the close of the hearing, failure to pursue witnesses, etc., they may overturn the jury decision and void all penalties. The hearing must then be held again for that offense. The posting rights of the member cannot be restricted over the course of the second hearing until a proper jury decision has been reached.
• A decision can be appealed if the statement which opens the Hearing Thread, or the statement of the jury’s decision exhibits any bias based on nationality, ethnicity, religion, native language, gender, age or collateral relationships that administrators or jury members might have with the member in question either in person or on other websites. A jury decision can be overturned and all penalties voided in this case. If demonstrable bias exists, no second hearing will be held for the same offense.
• A decision can be appealed if new evidence comes to light before a penalty has expired.
• A decision can be appealed if there was insufficient evidence to support the finding that a violation occurred. The appeals panel can not overturn evidence. However, they can decide that the facts of the case do not justify a decision that the violation occurred.
• A penalty can be appealed if there were delays in executing the hearing, or if jury deliberations took longer than seems reasonable for the type of offense in question. This might happen if the responsible administrator was off-line at a critical time, or if witnesses did not appear promptly, or if jurors did not deliberate promptly. If the member upon whom the penalty was imposed was restricted to the Jury Room for the duration of the hearing, they may appeal for “time served†to be deducted from the penalty.
• A penalty can be appealed if the jury had discretion in determining the penalty, and the penalty they imposed is excessive by comparison with other penalties specified in the by-laws for similar offenses.
[approved May 17, 2005]