Hey Dan, it's a bit late over here so what I say may not be the easiest to follow, but try to bear with me.
It has come to my attention that the definition of property according to the criminal code has two interpretations.
A. Definition of property
i. Any structure or development of the land that does not conflict with existing ownership of property and for which all material has been legally obtained, such as a structure’s legally obtained contents.
There are two ways in which we can understand this definition due to it's current wording
The first way we may interpret this is that property is defined by the land used, and the materials used to build on this land. By following this method of interpretation, there are zero laws on the ownership of goods (meaning someone could take items from an un-reinforced chest placed on the property without breaking any laws)
Now the other way in which we can interpret this definition is that property is all materials, land, and items within chests. By using this interpretation, we can assume that items are also considered property.
First, I feel it would be best make this section of the constitution a little clearer, since it has multiple possible ways it can come across. However, secondly, I'd like to bring this into the context of the criminal case between the 14 players and Tookio.
If we follow the first interpretation, we can assume that the players who simply accessed chests, or picked up items did not break any laws (since as I stated earlier, items would not be considered property, and the only law on theft is on property theft). This would reduce the potential criminals by about 7-8 (depending on whether Tookie presses charges on numbers based upon the few hits on a chest before leaving when he realized it was not legal what was going on)
On the other hand, if we interpreted the definition of property the second method, the land in which Tookie had items taken, would not be considered property at all. This is due to the fact that the definition of property states that "all" materials and items have to have been legally obtained. Since we know Tookie stole from both Zaphod, and another player, his land would be no longer considered property, and as a result, there would be no laws against what the suspected criminals did (at least until ALL illegally obtained items were taken from the land. Since we cannot pinpoint when the illegally obtained items were removed from the land, we could assume that the land was not considered property until the end of the "raid") As a result of this, none of the players on the land ever broke any laws in taking items.
In no way am I condoning the actions these players took, and I'd personally take the first route since we could still convict more players who we believe to have broken the laws badly.
Regardless of which route taken to deal with this case, I feel it may be better to make some things clearer in the definition of property, in order to prevent future problems like what I have found.
Thank you for spending the time out of your busy schedule to read this
Goldin