United States of America vs. Seafaring Confederation

United States of America vs Seafaring Confederation was a high-profile court case ruled upon by the Supreme Court of the Seafaring Confederation on 7 September, 1984. Part of the United States-Seafaring Confederation spying scandal, the ruling in this case is seen as one of the leading contributors to the 1984 Seafaring Confederation-United States Conflict.

Due to the nature of the case, specifically the involvement of various security services from different sovereign states, names of all participants in the case, including lawyers, were made confidential under the Seafaring Confederate Secrecy Act 1991. The names will be made public in 2034. Access to the proceedings was also limited to only the essential participants.

Context
On April 6, 1984, six U.S. spies were arrested by The Marquess of State's Most Honourable Federal Police Service in An Bhá nan Éirith Ghréine, Rockall. It later emerged, as reported by Nuacht an Leai and The Seafaring Times and confirmed to the Parliament of Rockall several months later, that the MSIS and MFAIS had been involved in the arrests, having identified and followed the U.S. spies for at least six months before the arrests were made.

The six spies were brought before the Special Federal Court in the Rockallic Federal District on April 19, 1984, where they were charged with spying on the Seafaring Confederation with "malicious intent". Four spies pleaded guilty, two denied all charges. A month later on May 20, the SpecialCourt convicted all six spies of spying on the Seafaring Confederation with malicious intent, which is punishable by death. The Special Court ruled in the same sitting that the death penalty would indeed be applied in this case.

In response, the  requested the Seafaring Confederation to intervene. The request was denied, after which Shultz, against the advice of his, requested the right to file a lawsuit against the ruling. The Seafaring Confederation granted the request, and a lawsuit was filed in the Confederate District Court of Hamburg. Immediately after the ruling, the Seafaring Confederation requested escalation to the Supreme Court, which was agreed upon by the District Court and subsequently granted by the Supreme Court.

Arguments
The United States was represented by a lawyer who was hired by the United States Ambassador to the Seafaring Confederation. Two arguments were put forward: 1) that the death penalty was unconstitutional in this case, as the spies had not conspired to cause the death of large amounts of people in the Seafaring Confederation as under Article 45 of the Constitution of the Seafaring Confederation, and 2) that the death penalty constituted cruel and disproportionate punishment as under Article 46 of the Constitution.

The Seafaring Confederation argued against the first argument by pointing out that Article 45 merely describes the acts that are by constitutional law punishable by death, but that it does not exclude other crimes from being punishable by death. It referred to Rockallic laws, where "malicious intent" includes spying on government personnel, which is punishable by death under Rockallic law. In response to the second argument it referred to Emmanuel vs Rockall, in which the Supreme Court had ruled the applications of the death penalty in Rockall to be constitutional.

Ruling
The Supreme Court held the application of the death penalty to be constitutional in a unanimous ruling written by Lies van Houten, Baroness van Houten of Enschede. The ruling also stated that the spies had a right of appeal within the Rockallic Federal Justice System, but that a final appeal to the Supreme Court of the Seafaring Confederation would be rejected in any case.

Aftermath
Having lost the case, the United States urged the six spies to appeal, which they did. Their appeal was granted, but the ruling was not overturned, on 3 October 1984. A final appeal to the Supreme Court of Rockall was rejected on October 7. The six spies were executed in The Earl's Vineyards Prison on November 13 of that year.