The Honor Committee voted Sunday on four bylaws meant to clarify rules regarding evidence, post-trial procedures and 'the scope of the honor system.' One amendment passed and went into effect immediately. The other three either failed or were combined and later tabled.
The first passed amendment, proposed by the ad hoc Committee on Procedures, sought to clarify rules concerning inadmissible evidence during the pre-trial period.
The ad-hoc committee proposed that evidence shall be inadmissible when its "probative value is far outweighed by its potentially unfair prejudicial effect on the panel," according to the amendment.
In response to the approval of the amendment, Medical Rep. Alex Hawkins said, "people realized this is a fairly simple yet important change that needs to be made."
Not all members, however, agreed that the decision to make the change was so clear cut. Graduate Rep. Peter Teigland said the language did not help explain the rules regarding evidence.
Teigland added that all evidence should be probative, or based on solid proof, and not prejudiced.
Graduate Rep. Adam Trusner countered that all evidence is, by nature, prejudicial.
"If you're in a murder trial, and you have the confession of the murder, that's fair prejudicial evidence," Trusner said. "The only prejudice we're worried about is unfair [prejudice]."
Josh Hess, vice chair for community relations, noted that probative evidence simply means the evidence is "on point" and prejudicial deals with how persuasive the evidence is.
The next amendment, proposed by Hess, called for the elimination of the current procedure -- found in training manuals, not by-laws -- that rules "close evidenciary issues," or evidence that may or may not be excluded at pre-trial, in favor of the accused student's interest.
Hess argued that this rule is inconsistent with the pursuit of truth. Some argued, however, that the rule could simply be changed in the training manuals.
"I agree it's a good point and a correct point," Hawkins said. "But ... this is something that should be done in training."
Others said the evidence should still go in the accused student's favor.
"The only time this rule comes into play is when there's a close call," Trusner said. "And when there's a close call it should be for the party that is most affected."
Hess argued that the amendment does not aim to eliminate the slant that is in the accused student's favor.
"I don't think it's fair to say that this change means we're no longer going to be protecting the people who have the most to lose," Hess said. "This proposal is about restoring balance. Wrong decisions are made in pre-trial because of this rule of thumb."
The motion failed with one more vote needed to pass it.
The next two amendments, one proposed by Hess and the other proposed by the ad hoc committee, sought to change post-trial procedures, specifically the appeals process. Under the current bylaws, Honor's five-member executive committee is responsible for deciding whether there is a substantial basis for appeal.
The ad-hoc committee's amendment proposed the creation of an appeals review committee that would be composed of three rotating non-executive members and two executive members, one of whom would be the Committee chair.
Hess' proposal was an amendment to the ad-hoc committee's amendment. Hess called for a standing appeals review committee that would be comprised of three non-executive members and one alternate, all of whom would be appointed by the Committee chair. The amendment also stipulated that the vice chair for trials would be responsible for making any additional appointments to the appeals committee.
Hess said an all-executive appeals committee "encourages second-guessing."
Teigland said the appeals committee should be selected at random to avoid any bias.
Hess' amendment passed, thus changing the ad-hoc committee's proposal so that it would include the new language.
Debate arose over the ad-hoc committee's altered proposal, however, and the Committee did not vote on it. Many still favored a rotating appeals review committee instead of a standing one, though members had voted to amend the proposal.
"We favor a rotating body appointed by the vice chair for trials, as one of the primary goals is to make more committee members available for trial," Hawkins said, noting that such a body would also allow "fresh eyes" to see the case.
Vice Chair for Trials Brian O'Neill countered that a standing committee "generates expertise."
The Committee voted to table the amendment until next semester.
The final amendment of the evening, proposed by Hess and Vice Chair for Investigations Linda Liu, clarified the scope of the honor system.
"The present bylaws are vague about what can be considered an honor offense or not," Liu said.
The amendment further defined what constitutes an honor offense. According to the amendment, an honor offense could only be committed if it involved University coursework, a University-sponsored extracurricular activity or any other situation in which the student identifies him or herself as a University student in order "to gain the trust of others" -- a phrase that caused much debate.
"This is the first time where we would be inserting a motive into the system which I'm not entirely comfortable with," O'Neill said.
O'Neill added that it may be difficult to judge whether an accused student was trying to gain the trust of others.
Hess argued that if the phrase is removed from the amendment, the honor system's scope may grow too wide.
The amendment failed by a large margin.
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