--- title: A fair trial, and the Wonderland court that gets it all wrong — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «A fair trial, and the Wonderland court that gets it all wrong», a lesson of the world course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: At the end of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» the Knave of Hearts is put on trial for stealing the Queen's --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / A fair trial, and the Wonderland court… # A fair trial, and the Wonderland court that gets it all wrong Lesson 191 of the world course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/0/) — At the end of «Alice's Adventures in Wonderland» the Knave of Hearts is put on trial for stealing the Queen's tarts. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/1/) — Alice has read about courts in books and proudly knows the judge by his wig and the twelve jurors in the jury-box, and then she watches the court break almost every rule of a fair trial. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/2/) — In a fair trial, the person accused is treated as innocent until it is proved, with evidence, that they did it. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/3/) — Witnesses tell what they saw, the jury listens to all of it, and only then does the jury give its verdict: guilty or not guilty. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/4/) — Only after a guilty verdict does the judge give the sentence, the punishment. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/6/) — Alice shouts «Stuff and nonsense!», and she is right. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/8/) — A trial is a meeting in a court where it is decided, by careful rules, whether someone did break the law. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/9/) — In England and Wales a jury in a serious criminal trial is twelve ordinary adults; in Scotland it is fifteen. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/10/) — «Innocent until proven guilty» means the person accused does not have to prove they are innocent: the accusers must prove they are guilty. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/11/) — Evidence is anything that helps show what really happened: things that were found, what witnesses saw, written papers, pictures or recordings. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/12/) — A witness is someone who tells the court what they saw or know, and they must tell the truth; threatening a witness is a crime. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/13/) — The verdict is the jury's decision, guilty or not guilty; the sentence is the punishment the judge gives, and it can only come after a guilty verdict. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/14/) — A judge must be fair and must not judge a case in which he or his family is involved; in the book the judge is the King, and the tarts belong to his own wife, the Queen. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/15/) — In a fair court the rules are written down before the trial and are the same for everyone; nobody may invent a rule in the middle to win. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/18/) — British judges have worn wigs and robes for hundreds of years as a tradition; in the book the King wears his crown on top of his wig and looks very uncomfortable. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/191-a-fair-trial-and-the-wonderland-court-that-gets-it-all-wrong/19/) — The jurors in the book write their names on slates «for fear they should forget them», which is Carroll making fun of juries that do not pay attention. - ← previous: [Saying "I was wrong" and laughing without being cruel](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/190-saying-i-was-wrong-and-laughing-without-being-cruel/) - next →: [Olympiad: time and calendar puzzles ★★★](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/192-olympiad-time-and-calendar-puzzles/) - ↑ back to [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/)