Chapter 860: Storm, guilt, and testimony

Ms. Debbie's words hit home for these people. Now they couldn't find work and were also burdened with huge debts.

Once this was mentioned, everyone's mood became depressed.

"It's all caused by the Labor Alliance!", when she said this sentence, which everyone already had a guess about in their hearts, in an instant they seemed to have found a... goal?!

Before this, it wasn't that they hadn't considered this matter, but the Labor Alliance was too huge, and they also sent staff to do follow-up work.

They helped them solve some problems, except for the most important money problem.

This also made them embarrassed to make things difficult for the Labor Alliance, which also led to them finally having to bear these "injuries."

Now Ms. Debbie directly said that all this was caused by the Labor Alliance, and everyone's emotions became a bit excited.

"You're right, Ms. Debbie. If it weren't for the Labor Alliance planning and requiring us to participate in this strike parade, we wouldn't have been injured, wouldn't have lost our jobs, and wouldn't have been burdened with heavy loans!"

A worker complained loudly, which caused more workers to echo. Soon they reached a consensus on this issue: it's all the Labor Alliance's fault!

This was the "interview task" Lanse gave Ms. Debbie. She needed to use the identity of a former Labor Alliance official to lead these injured people to directly challenge the Labor Alliance!

If a worker appeared at this time, or someone who had some relationship with this matter but not a very deep relationship, and attributed the bad ending to the Labor Alliance.

It was very likely that this wouldn't form a storm. The speed at which the Labor Alliance handled these problems and the speed at which the federal government covered people's mouths were the same, fast to an outrageous degree.

But if it was a former middle-level Labor Alliance official leading a large group of people whose lives and work were unsustainable due to this failed strike to stand out and challenge the Labor Alliance, someone would definitely pay attention to them.

This matter wasn't so easy to do.

Because once she made a decision, what she had to face was the largest political organization in the Federation, the Labor Alliance, which claimed to have twenty million worker brothers united!

This kind of pressure also made Ms. Debbie feel huge pressure.

However, she still chose to do it. Her husband was one of the main inducements; she would make herself look stronger, and she would prove that the man had done a stupid thing!

She looked at these people whose emotions had been pushed to a suitable position, and then opened her mouth to say, "We must tell the truth. This money shouldn't be borne by us. This money should be paid to you by the Labor Alliance or the union."

"They asked you to strike, you did it, but you were injured. Shouldn't they bear the medical expenses?"

"They always say we are brothers and sisters, but they are always deceiving us, treating us as pawns."

"I can't stand it. I want to stand out and tell the truth to the media and the public. What about you?"

She looked at these people. "I will hire professional lawyers to file a lawsuit for us, but I will only do it for 'us'."

This sentence had already been said very clearly. She emphasized the word "us," making people realize that if they wanted to follow her to seek justice, they had to stand with her.

"I'll join." Immediately someone raised his hand to indicate his willingness to become "us." He owed more than seventeen hundred dollars to the hospital because of the complexity of the surgery and the difficulty of recovery.

He not only emptied the savings of several families but also mortgaged his house to barely pay this money.

Now he couldn't find any job. If he couldn't pay the interest generated by the usury within a year, the financial company would change the property certificate and take his house!

Everyone here was like Oge; ten years of hard work, just because they participated in a strike and stayed in the hospital, it was all gone!

Before, they had no way to vent, but now they had!

Soon all six people chose to participate, but Ms. Debbie shook her head again. "Just us is not enough. We need more people to stand on our side. We need to expand the momentum."

"This is not a responsibility we should bear ourselves. Factories hire us to work, we are injured, and the factory will bear our medical expenses. This is a work-related injury."

"Now the Labor Alliance and the union hire us to strike, we are injured, this is also a work-related injury, and the union and the Labor Alliance should pay the medical expenses."

"But there are too few of us. Contact more people, unite all forces that can be united!"

Ms. Debbie's tone gradually became a bit excited. "The unity of the working class, brothers, we can unite to fight against capitalists, and we can also unite to fight against all unfair phenomena!"

"I will arrange for lawyers to help you register and collect evidence. Now what you need to do is to find those injured people who are willing to stand out like you. We are going to sue the Labor Alliance and the union!"

"We can't let us pay for other people's mistakes. This is unfair!"

After saying these words, Ms. Debbie felt that her body was full of strength!

She could kill a cow with one punch now!

The six people infected by her emotions also left her villa soon. They were going to contact those brothers and sisters who faced the same fate as them. They were going to unite everyone, as Ms. Debbie said, and fight against all injustice!

Lanse soon arranged a legal team to cooperate with Ms. Debbie's work. Although the lawyers didn't find legal clauses supporting that strike participants needed to find organizers to be responsible in the law, they also didn't find clauses and precedents that didn't support doing so!

Law has a characteristic, which is lag.

Simply put, it is that only after a specific event occurs will the law be updated.

For example, primitive society didn't define murder, only when people in the tribe killed their own people would murder and the explanation and handling method appear.

Just like now, the federal law doesn't mention the legal connection between strike organizers and strike participants, so this case doesn't necessarily lose, but has a great chance of winning, and may promote the revision and update of laws related to parades!

Of course, the final result also has to do with wealth and relationships. To promote the Ministry of Justice to legislate and make judicial interpretations at the appropriate time, one must have relationships in the Ministry of Justice.

Those who believe that federal people gain status by ability and capability certainly don't know that the major law firms in the Federation all have people in the Ministry of Justice, and they are still high-ranking and powerful ones.

Otherwise, why would they help those tycoons win lawsuits that were bound to lose?

By business ability?

To talk about business ability, they might not be the strongest, but their relationship ability is absolutely top-notch.

The victory or defeat of justice is always outside the courtroom!

This case involved the Labor Alliance, so Lanse didn't even need to clear up the relationship in the Ministry of Justice; Senator Cleveland would arrange for people to handle things well.

So what he needed to do was to pay money.

This case would have a wide impact, and it might also need people injured in previous parade conflicts to testify in court, so this required a lot of investigation work.

The chief lawyer of the legal team told Lanse that this case might take one to two years to fight.

Because they were facing the Labor Alliance, and the Labor Alliance wouldn't give up easily.

Lanse didn't have any big thoughts about this. Not to mention one or two years, three or five years would be fine; anyway, he didn't need to keep an eye on this matter himself.

In mid-May, the case of refugees attacking parade demonstrators was opened for trial in the Jincheng Court.

Originally, the Labor Alliance wanted to move this trial to the circuit court, but the circuit court said this belonged to a local case.

Only after the local court trial ended, if one party didn't agree with the result, could it be opened in the circuit court.

On the day of the trial, the courtroom was full of people. People wanted to know the result of this trial, although most people already had an accurate prediction of the result.

Lanse also came to watch the trial. As a Jincheng person, he also had the nature of watching the excitement.

Interestingly, Carl's position was right in front of him, and around him were people from the Lanse family.

What Lanse found interesting was that he also saw Director Derek (Director of the Jincheng Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation), and the two nodded to each other and greeted each other.

Looking at Director Derek's smiling face, Lanse knew that this guy didn't have any good intentions; he must have come with the idea of collecting evidence.

Federal Bureau of Investigation... Lanse had already asked people to inquire. They had updated new official configurations in many important cities across the country. Jincheng was not the only one, or a rare case.

It seemed that this was indeed a collective plan, but Lanse always felt that, at least Director Derek was coming for him.

He had this premonition, and at the same time, the name of the Federal Bureau of Investigation also made him feel uncomfortable.

They would definitely collide in the future. Although Director Derek hid himself very well now, he believed that they would definitely have a chance to become opponents in the future.

Many people also came to the scene, as well as some reporters and a small number of refugees.

This should actually be considered a public prosecution event, but in order to intervene more in this case and influence its direction, the Labor Alliance reasonably passed the judicial process and became one of the joint plaintiffs.

With joint plaintiffs, and the Labor Alliance sending its own legal team, after discussing with the prosecutor, the prosecutor no longer participated in the trial as a public prosecutor.

So now the lawyer attending on the plaintiff's side was the one arranged by the Labor Alliance.

And on the defendant's side, it was a free lawyer.

The purpose of this trial was originally to let them accept legal sanctions, not to let these attackers escape legal sanctions, so the more ordinary their lawyer was, the better.

As for whether an ordinary lawyer could turn defeat into victory, the possibility could be said to be absolutely zero.

With the arrival of the judge, after everyone stood up and sat down again, the trial officially began.

Because this trial involved a criminal case, there were jury members here.

With the lawyer on the Labor Alliance side starting to exert force, everyone could clearly feel that the free lawyer on the defendant's side couldn't even speak clearly.

This was actually quite normal.

The legal profession was also an industry with a shortage of talent. As long as a good lawyer was discovered, he would soon be recruited by a large law firm.

Like these free lawyers, they were basically lawyers who couldn't find a suitable job after graduation and could only come to the court to muddle along.

They had no desire to win or lose, they just wanted to muddle through this life.

After a series of "attacks," the free lawyer finally had his blood bar returned to zero and died suddenly.

Next was the free play time for the plaintiff's lawyer. Except for occasionally shouting "I object," the free lawyer basically had nothing else to do.

People with discerning eyes knew that this case was basically determined like this. These refugee attackers definitely couldn't escape a result of "guilty."

It was also at this time that the plaintiff's lawyer suddenly asked, "Such an orderly attack behavior doesn't look like it was formed spontaneously at all. There must be someone behind the scenes who organized the whole case. Am I right?"

He didn't wait for the defendant's lawyer to shout "I object" again, nor did he wait for the judge to call a stop, he looked directly at one of the defendants. "... Am I right?"

The defendant he greeted had already seen his "defense lawyer" and his family before the trial.

His family told him that they were doing very well now, had moved to a state in the middle of the Federation to live, and both family members had been arranged with a decent job, adding up to about ninety dollars a month.

They also had legal status—

The Labor Alliance had great energy, otherwise it wouldn't be regarded as "a huge trouble" by Congress. They had a great say in "talent introduction."

They entrusted an enterprise that had a very good relationship with them to hire the two family members of this attacker in the name of "talent introduction" and applied for "talent immigration" to the federal government, which was approved.

Whether this talent was really a talent, the Labor Alliance itself was one of the appraisal agencies. They directly gave these two ordinary people a senior title, and the federal government approved it.

Suddenly the whole family became federal people and had high-income decent jobs. The Labor Alliance fulfilled their promise.

So at this moment, he didn't hesitate, nor did he have room to hesitate, and nodded directly. "Yes."

There was an uproar in the courtroom. The uproar was mainly those ordinary people.

During the trial just now, these defendants claimed that they attacked the parade demonstrators because they felt threatened.

The main target of this strike parade was these refugees and illegal immigrants. They were afraid that because of the pressure of the parade, they would lose the hope of survival, so they spontaneously began to impact the parade team, leading to the final tragedy.

But now someone admitted that they were organized, which made many people listening to the story exclaim that there was a turn!

Carl sat in the gallery and narrowed his eyes slightly. The refugees who defected to the Labor Alliance also saw Carl, but he wasn't very afraid. Instead, he pointed in Carl's direction and said, "It's him, it's him who organized us!"

People's eyes crossed Carl and fell on Lanse. Lanse looked very calm, but people were very surprised, or rather, terrified!

Was this something they could listen to?

Just when they doubted whether they would be killed as eyewitnesses because they heard things they shouldn't have heard, Carl, who was sitting in front of him, suddenly stood up. "This is slander!"

His voice was very loud. For some reason, people breathed a sigh of relief. They looked at Carl with friendly eyes, hoping he would say more.

Carl also felt inexplicable. What was going on with these people's eyes?

But he soon came back to his senses. "What evidence do you have to say that I organized you?"

The defendant still intended to say something else. The judge had already come back to his senses. He hammered the gavel in his hand hard. "Quiet!"

The courtroom suddenly became quiet. His eyes stayed on the defendant for a moment, and just as he was about to say something, the plaintiff's lawyer stood up.

"Your Honor, I suggest that the defendant's confession be used as a supplementary evidence and handled together!"

His appeal was to drag Carl into this case. From the perspective of the legal team, letting Carl become a person under trial and being detained with these criminals would help some stubborn people among them reconsider the choice.

The simplest way to suppress a person's authority is to tie him with a dog. Simple, crude, but effective!

What they wanted to do was this kind of thing, letting Carl, who was high above in their eyes, be locked up and interrogated. In this way, their attitude and position would change, which would help them take down Carl and would be more likely to affect Lanse.

It's just a pity that this is Jincheng.

The judge hammered the gavel again. "We cannot identify whether the defendant's testimony is lying, and whether there is enough evidence to prove that his accusation is valid, so the question of whether Carl is the organizer will be investigated separately."

"Now we will continue the trial with the completed trial work."

He lowered his head and glanced at the file in front of him. "Plaintiff and defendant, closing statements."

The lawyers on the plaintiff's side discussed it. They had time to prepare for the closing statement, which was allowed by law.

They also communicated with the people arranged by Mr. Walter to the scene and decided not to protest the judge's decision.

Although very unwilling, it was already very difficult for them to achieve this point on someone else's territory!

Want to take down Carl in court?

Completely impossible!

After a short discussion, both sides made closing statements, and then the jury began to discuss.

A few minutes later, the jury members unanimously determined that the defendants were guilty.

Next, it was the judge's matter of sentencing them.

Because the facts of the case were clear, the evidence was sufficient, and the defendant pleaded guilty directly, there was no disagreement, and the judge's sentencing speed was also very fast, basically more than ten years.

Accompanied by the last fall of the gavel, this trial ended here.

A reporter took a photo of the scene when the crowd dispersed. The winner didn't seem to have the smile that a winner should have.

And Carl, as well as Lanse behind him, as losers who might be related to the case, had a smile on their faces.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 861 =====