Great post Lil :sun

And for what it's worth, the legal system aboard the Copernicus has, by necessity, become a quasi-hybrid of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (as applied to the US Armed Forces) and the American judicial system. "By necessity," I mean that the Copernicus was never designed to hold a crew that contained so many civilians with so little knowledge or preparation for interstellar travel. Its original purpose was a colonizing ship, not an ark for whoever the hell just happened to be in the immediate area when the whole world suddenly went to shit. 

I'll try to put up a post a little later today, that might outline things a bit better.