Silicon ticket

Silicon ticket

By Richard Wallberg

Judge Aaron Goldberg was trying to get each case through as quickly as possible, it was Friday and he wanted to finish work and get home before sunset in time for the Sabbath. Aaron tried to make his judgments quick, but fair and it didn’t hurt that most of the defendants had decided to just pay the fine and leave.

Aaron was fairly young for a judge, being he was only in his mid-thirties. Aaron was something of a prodigy, he graduated from law school when he was twenty-three, his long time dream had been to be a judge trying a landmark case like a controversial law being challenged or a well publicized murder, mafia bust or fraud case. This week however he pulled traffic court, which meant either a quick procedure and a paid fine, or a lot of shouting between the defendant and Susan Lang, the long haired prosecutor who joined the district attorney’s office fresh out of law school.

The clerk announced the next case. “Docket number 409782, people of the City of Orlando v. B-3-N. Charges are excessive speeding, running a red light and reckless endangerment of the public safety.”

The judge looked up and looked at the very unusual defendant; the silver casing, spindly arms and legs, and lack of a visible mouth left no doubt in the Judge’s mind that he was about to try a robot for violating the rules of the road, not the landmark case he was expecting. But what really struck him were the parts of him that looked the most human, the robot had two hands with five fingers, two feet that looked like a pair of shoes and two bright blue eyes; it was almost as if there was a real person in the metal casing.

It was only this year that the Electro Dynamics Corporation had released the first mass produced humanoid labor robot onto the market. Granted they were still quite expensive and there were some very notable bugs when they first came out, but still it was becoming more and more common to see them supplementing the blue collar workforce in dangerous or tedious tasks. Aaron didn’t think too much about them one way or the other, he remembered when he was in middle school when the Smartphone started to really take off; now Cloud Readers were starting to faze them out.

Judge Goldberg cleared his throat; he still had a case to try. “How does the defendant plea?”

“He doesn’t.” said a bald man who stood up from the gallery.

“Your Honor!” Miss Lang snapped.

“Wesley Mitchell, owner of Mitchell Courier Service and the B-3-N, your honor if you are going to fine me at least charge me, not a toaster!”

“The offender is the one to answer charges,” said Miss Lang. “you didn’t commit the crime so you are not being charged.”

“Yeah, but if it’s guilty I still have to pay for it! Where’s the justice in that, when someone is killed by an object dropped from a crane you don’t charge the crane instead of the crane operator do you?!”

Judge Goldberg banged his gavel. “Alright, Mr. Mitchell you may stand with the defendant and advise him, but he is the one to provide his own plea, defense and testimony. It is a him right?”

“I am programmed to approximate a masculine personality sir.” said the robot. He sounded like Steven Hawking’s voice synthesizer,

“Very well, oh and if you don’t mind it would be a little much for me so keep hearing you referred to as B-3-N throughout this whole procedure. Would you all mind if we call him Ben?”

“No objections,” said Miss Lang.

“Ok by me,” said Mr. Mitchell. “I was getting tired of saying it all the time myself.”

“New designation uploaded,” said the robot. “I am Ben.”

“Very well,” said Judge Goldberg. “Now that’s out of the way, how does the defendant plea?”

The robot gave a simple and clear “Not guilty”.

“Alright, Miss Lang you may the people’s case.”

Miss Lang stood up. “The defendant, B-3-N or Ben as the court has designated him, has been licensed by the state of Florida to operate a vehicle including in this matter a delivery truck. At 10:37 AM on the morning of August 19th 2032 the defendant was caught by an automatic camera running a red light at the intersection of East Colonial Drive and North Orange Avenue. The incident forced a sedan to break suddenly where he was rear ended by a pickup truck, fortunately no one was hurt. Further down Colonial a patrol car had clocked him going fifteen miles per hour over the legal limit, the police pulled the defendant over and gave him a citation. These are the indisputable facts of the case your honor.”

Judge Goldberg turned to Ben. “And you deny these claims?”

“No Your Honor,” said Ben. “The Prosecutor’s account of the facts is accurate.”

“But still you claim that you are not guilty of any crime.”

“Affirmative.”

“Doesn’t this strike you as contradictory?”

“Negative, the prosecutor is mistaken. She is under the assumption that since I broke the limit and proceeded on a red signal light that I was at fault, this is the result of faulty logic.”

“And what about her logic is faulty?”

“Objection!” said Miss Lang.

“I ask for the prosecution’s indulgence for a moment,” said Judge Goldberg. “Ben, please answer the question.”

“The prosecution has neglected to take into account the fact that emergency vehicles are allowed to ignore these requirements in the performance of their duties.”

Judge Goldberg took a hard look at Ben. “Do you know what an emergency vehicle is?”

“Yes sir, an emergency vehicle is any vehicle that is designated and authorized to respond to an emergency.”

“You learned this when you were given your license, correct?”

“Affirmative, after proving I was fully capable of driving I was granted a license so I could perform my duties.”

“And you were working properly at the time of the incident, no glitches?”

“I was operating at peak parameters at the time.”

“Then tell me where did you get the idea that a delivery truck is an emergency vehicle?”

“Your Honor, on the day in question my Owner, Mr. Mitchell, had told me to deliver a package to his wife and that it was an ‘emergency’. Since the delivery was an emergency and I was using the truck for the delivery then logically the truck was an emergency vehicle at the time.”

Everyone in the courtroom just stared at Ben for a few moments except for Mr. Miller who buried his face in his hands.

Judge Goldberg was the first to regain his composure. “What were Mr. Miller’s exact words?”

Ben’s voice changed into Mr. Miller’s as he played back what he heard. “Listen, you gotta get this anniversary gift to my wife in an hour or she’ll kill me!” Ben’s voice changed back to normal. “As you can see I was preventing a homicide.”

Judge Goldberg took a deep breath. “It appears we’re all the victims of a big misunderstanding.”

“A misunderstanding Your Honor?”

“Mr. Miller was using a figure of speech, when he said that his wife was going to kill him, he meant that she would have been very angry with him.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t a real emergency.”

“Correct, and when the law refers to emergency vehicles it means Ambulances, Fire Engines and Police Cars; vehicles set aside to aid in emergency situations.”

“So it was my logic that was faulty.”

“Yes, however since the instruction that started this whole mess was given by Mr. Miller I am still going to find in the favor of the people.”

“Your Honor!” said Mr. Miller.

“Let me finish, however since there was no malice or ill intent involved I’ll be dropping the charge of endangering the public safety. The defendant is ordered to pay the fines on the other two charges. ”Judge Goldberg banged his gavel rendering his verdict final. “And with that court is adjourned for the day.”

Mr. Miller started writing checks as the Judge started back to his chambers. Aaron had just enough time to head home in time for sunset and the Sabbath, and he was particularly interested in watching the evening news tonight. A robot being charged with a crime, even one as innocuous as speeding was bound to be picked up by the local news, again not the landmark case he hoping for but it was a start. “Definitely an interesting way to start the weekend,” He thought to himself.