arraignment
An arraignment is a classical ritual in the courtroom where a defendant wagers their fate by performing a binary choice of ‘guilty or not guilty.’ Before a mountain of paperwork, the defendant mutters their plea as if reciting lines from a script, transforming justice into a grand spectacle. Everyone from prosecutor to judge participates in the staging, often valuing ceremony over truth. It is a scandalous arena where innocents are forced to act like criminals while true offenders sometimes walk away with unearned absolution.