Law Trek: The Measure of a Man, ST:TNG (Season 2)

OK, as some freebloggers know, I am "between jobs" right now. Which means that I have watched more daytime tv in the past week than in the past, oh, ten years. And Spike TV shows three hours of ST:TNG every day. So yesterday I was watching "The Measure of a Man", the famous episode with the trial to decide whether Data is Starfleet property (and thus can be dismantled by a Starfleet robotics expert).

The judge initially rules that Data is property, triggering Picard's appeal. Now, my question is a rather arcane one. How, exactly, did Starfleet acquire property rights in Data? My understanding of the storyline is that Data was discovered on some planet by Starfleet. Does that mean that Data was acquired through first possession? If so, how did the Starfleet crew who found Data resolve that he was not already in someone's possession? The obvious candidate is Dr. Soong, Data's creator. In other words, if Soong created Data from materials he owned (and we have no reason to doubt that), then Soong "owned" Data, if Data is a chattel. So how does Starfleet's claim to own Data trump Soong's (or Soong's heirs, if Soong is dead). Besides, the first possession theory assumes Data is an inanimate object, like a rock. That seems like a bad model.

So far, we've established that if Data is property, then he's Soong's property on a theory of Soong's creation/invention of Data. Starfleet cannot trump Soong's ownership rights without some other argument.

Starfleet's best argument at this point is that Soong abandoned Data. But we'd need some more info before we establish that Soong abandoned Data.

Starfleet may also have a statutory argument here. Maybe the United Federation of Planets has established rules for the acquisition of unclaimed property on uninhabited planets within Federation space. But here, the issue would be whether Data is Starfleet property or Federation property. Establishing that Data is Federation property would not help Starfleet's case, necessarily, unless the relationship between the Federation and Starfleet is closer than, say, the relationship between the United States and the U.S. Navy. So it's a bit quick to claim Data on this basis (and we've never seen these rules, and they're not mentioned in the episode).

Starfleet may make an argument on adverse possession. Starfleet has been using Data for years, without a hostile claim, so Data is Starfleet's property. The problem here is that you generally cannot acquire a chattel through adverse possession (such a rule would reward and, indeed, encourage theft.)

OK, I think that I've established that Starfleet's case for ownership of Data, even if Data is a chattel, is extremely soft. Starfleet can't resolve the issue of Soong's claim (indeed, the court erred in not appointing a representative for the Soong estate); it can't argue that it, rather than the Federation, owns Data; and the mere fact that Starfleet has "possessed" Data can't resolve these problems in Starfleet's favor.

But the weakest part of Starfleet's case is . . . Data is a commissioned Starfleet officer. How did he get to be a commissioned Starfleet officer? He was admitted to Starfleet Academy and graduated, etc. (We know from a previous episode that Data's Starfleet service record states that Data is "alive.") In other words, Starfleet should be estopped from changing its position on Data's nature. I'm assuming that Starfleet does not admit chattels to the academy; once it does, and Data relies on that position, I don't see how, in any system of law based on the common law--and let's be clear, Starfleet law appears to be common law-based--Starfleet could get away with changing that position to harm Data's interests.

What I want to point out is that Captain Picard's defense of Data is completely wrong-headed. He wants to argue that Data is sentient. But I don't see why that matters, one bit, from a legal point of view. Starfleet can't dismantle Data because Starfleet can't possibly establish that Data is its property. It doesn't matter that Data is a non-sentient machine. Starfleet can't just dismantle machines, willynilly, can it? Or, more properly, sentience should have been the last point in a multi-part argument. Here's the roadmap:

Data is not property, because he's sentient; even if Data is not sentient, he's not property; and even if he is property, he is not Starfleet's property. I'll start with the final point, because it requires this Court to decide the fewest controversial questions.

OK, OK, I know that the fun of the episode is the artificial intelligence, "what is Data?" theme that pollutes so many ST:TNG episodes. (I know reader CL thinks Data is the best TNG character, based on this line of episodes.) But if Picard had been a lawyer, the episode would have been . . . less interesting?