Court Martial -- Cogley's defense strategy

[Mytran]

Here's the problem though: After Kirk and Cogley's pre-court talk about Jamie (and Cogley cementing to himself the idea that Finney is alive) , it runs straight into Cogley admitting defeat!

Here's how it would have played out:

COGLEY: Jim...how well do you know that girl? Jamie - Finney's daughter.
KIRK: Since she was a child.
COGLEY: I suppose that might explain her attitude. Curious though - children don't usually take such a dispassionate view of the death of a parent.
KIRK: She didn't at first. She was out for my blood. Almost hysterical. She kept saying murderer - murderer.
KIRK: I didn't think it was important. Is it?
COGLEY: I don't know yet.
STONE: Court is now in session. The board will entertain motions before delivering its verdict. Counsel for the prosecution?
SHAW: Sir, the prosecution rests.
STONE: Counsel for the defence?
COGLEY: Sir, the defence rests.

At the very least, I'd have expected Cogley to raise the possibility that Finney was alive. Of course, that wouldn't allow Spock and McCoy to rush in and save the day as dramatically

 

[Timo]

I'm not too familiar with the military justice code of America or otherwise, but I would have to assume most present militaries have discovery procedures (and obligatory disclosure). I can't imagine a fair trial system without discovery.

We could probably couple this issue with the other one wherein we learn that highly detailed visual records of shipboard activities exist, yet these virtually never see use in solving shipboard whodunnits. Put together, the two could negate each other...

That is, in "The Menagerie", we see visual material that is no different from what we saw in "Court Martial", yet our characters claim that records with this sort of detail are not regularly created by starship surveillance systems. Or, in their own words,

Kirk: "That's impossible. Mr Spock, no vessel makes record tapes in that detail, that perfect. What were we watching?"

Perhaps the distinction lies in that the "Court Martial" material of bridge activity was dramatically edited (with cuts and zooms) for the purposes of a court presentation, whereas the "The Menagerie" material purported to be raw feed yet was still dramatically edited? Perhaps it is next to impossible to extract and edit the visual recordings of a starship unless one has high level access (way higher than the ship's CO, or otherwise he'd just falsify all his mission logs) and special software akin to PDF extractor-editors, plus a certain amount of time.

The court session intended to ruin Kirk's career came fairly shortly after the actual incident. Quite possibly it would be difficult to the extreme to extract and edit the visual logs in such a short timespan, explaining why our heroes could never use such recordings for, say, solving who tried to kill Kevin Riley, or establishing the exact movements of Ben Finney during the fateful storm - but also explaining how almost everybody would be taken by surprise when Areel Shaw managed to put together a visual presentation for the prosecution.

Let's remember that those visuals would be superfluous, because the computer had already indicated Kirk's guilt by nonvisual means: Stone had that data available in the teaser already. They'd be a courtroom stunt done purely for dramatic effect. As such, Shaw could be excused for not making an effort for providing Cogley with the material, as she could cite well-known practical difficulties.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkozoriz1]

We also saw video from within Pike's cabin. Perhaps video coverage is limited to the bridge, engineering, etc.

 

[Timo]

True enough - but Kirk's exclamation came after he had only seen a few select shots from Pike's bridge. Evidently something was exceptional in those views already.

It's quite a problem there. Often, we can accept that our characters would see differences in the levels of illusion they are presented with, even though the audience sees nothing. For example, the holodeck in TAS "Practical Joker" could have had a cartoony feel, and the one in "Encounter at Farpoint" might have felt flat and tasted bland, justifying character amazement over the Minuet simulation in "11001001". But here the audience sees what the characters see, on a separate viewscreen; there's no tactile or olfactory feedback that the characters might be critical of and the audience cannot observe, there's no editing or zooming the characters would see differently from us, etc.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kkozoriz1]

True. It's been a while since I've seen it so I wasn't sure exactly when Kirk said that about the images from Talos. Didn't the images start with the zoom into the bridge dome? That alone would be enough to tip me off that something odd was going on.

A friend of mine always said that what we were seeing was a dramatization of the real events. That way, it's easier to ignore the little problems and concentrate on the story.

 

[Hober Mallow]

Hi folks,

I love the episode Court Martial, but one thing has always bothered me: Cogley seems to have NO defense strategy until Spock & McCoy burst into the court room with info to save Kirk's hide.

He calls no witnesses (except Kirk) and cross-examines no one. At one point someone in the court room asks him if he's ready to begin his defense and his reply is very cryptic: "No... but I may be getting ready..."

I LMAO at that line every time. Imagine a real lawyer trying that out on a judge. No i'm not ready, I have no case, and I know we're at the trial now, but I'll be ready, all right... by the end of the trial. Just you wait!

Cogley was a little too busy reading his books to formulate a defense strategy.