[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

I don't know the legal standard in Japan, but in the US the case would turn on the question of what a reasonable person in that situation would believe. The prosecutor would march in a few dozen players to testify, "Yup, I thought I was going to die."

at which point the defense will ask the witness "are you 100% certain that you were going to die?", to which they'll have to say no, as no player in SAO had any way of verifying whether what Kayaba said was true.

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

He'd also probably use his closing statement to ask, "If this guy didn't believe the threat, why didn't he kill himself to escape the game?"

because they're living just fine in the game, who knows what will actually happen if they die - will they be logged off and trapped in perpetual darkness forever 'til the game is cleared? nobody knows.


It would be an extremely tenuous case to try to say the least, no sane prosecutor is going to attempt it.

Spoiler for SAO server info:

Moreover, as far as we know there isn't any information that can be used to verify any claims of PK. The agency in charge of the SAO incident was only able to access player and character name, along with their level. They can't even find out who was in LC, much less corroborate any claims of PK.

It would literally be a case of he said, she said, with zero material evidence to corroborate anything.