Quote Originally Posted by Jasdoif View Post
Yeah. I figure that if Shojo didn't have the legal authority to hold the trial in such a fashion, then him staging the trial as a trail would be fraud. A fraud rooted in abuse of his position, since the purported defendants were "retrieved" at his command, on the basis of the charges the trial was supposedly for.
Hinjo & Roy agree between them that Belkar was "imprisoned falsely by a ruler acting outside the law" when he escaped and killed that guard:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0420.html

which is how Belkar's charge got reduced to Voluntary Manslaughter.