Change proposal written with the assistance of AI. The example graph and SPARQL queries below are CASE SHACL validated (see Pre-submission testing).

Target release

Target: CASE 1.5.0

This is the first of three companion proposals suggesting that CASE add small, jurisdiction-neutral stub namespaces for legal process and procedure — criminal (this proposal), civil, and corporate — so that application-domain ontologies can inherit shared legal-process concepts from CASE instead of each re-inventing them. The stubs are deliberately minimal: they exist to anchor inheritance and interoperability, and domain ontologies build them out.

Background

CASE's investigation: namespace provides durable investigative primitives (Investigation, InvestigativeAction, Authorization, ProvenanceRecord, and roles such as Investigator, Examiner, Attorney, Subject). It has no concepts for the substantive criminal legal process that investigations feed: charges, pleas, proceedings, sentences, forfeiture, and restitution. These concepts are broadly applicable across criminal investigations globally, regardless of crime type or jurisdiction.

Because the concepts are missing, downstream application-domain ontologies are each re-inventing them:

• The CAC Ontology (Project VIC International) defines CriminalCharge, CriminalSentence, ArraignmentProceeding, AppealProcess, DefendantRole, and related classes in its legal-outcomes module (60 classes), plus AssetForfeitureAction, ConsentOrder, and ForfeitureOutcome in its asset-forfeiture module (34 classes), and FederalProsecution and statute-specific charge classes in its usa-federal-law module (40 classes). Related property proposals: CAC-Ontology #40 (charging properties), CAC-Ontology #41 (case identification).
• The CASE-UCO SDK cryptoinv extension (cryptocurrency/financial-crime investigations) independently defines CriminalCharge, PleaAgreement, SentencingOutcome, ForfeitureOrder, RestitutionOrder, and AssetSeizureAction, validated against the prosecution record of United States v. Lichtenstein & Morgan, No. 1:23-cr-00239-CKK (D.D.C.).
• SOLVE-IT notation needs have surfaced similar "classes that do not yet exist" pressure (CASE #185).

Two CASE/UCO domain ontologies defining CriminalCharge independently, with incompatible IRIs, is exactly the interoperability failure CASE exists to prevent. Cross-domain queries ("all charges across CAC and financial-crime graphs") are impossible today.

What we achieve for whom and why it matters: Application-domain ontology maintainers (CAC Ontology, financial crime, trafficking, terrorism, etc.) gain a shared inheritance point for criminal legal process concepts, and tool builders gain one query vocabulary for charges, pleas, sentences, and forfeiture across all criminal investigation domains — while CASE remains non-prescriptive about any jurisdiction's procedure.

Relationship to CASE 1.5.0 work: This complements — and does not overlap — CASE #189 (process meta-model namespaces for workflow/business rules: templates, runs, gates, assignments). #189 models how investigative work is run; this proposal models the substantive legal facts and instruments the work produces or responds to. It likewise complements the new investigator roles targeted for 1.5.0 (CASE #178, #183, #187): a LawEnforcementInvestigator's actions produce charges and sentences that currently have no home.

Design principles (all three companion proposals):

1. Stubs only. Each class carries a label, a definitional comment, and at most a few open-vocabulary properties. Domain ontologies specialize (e.g., cacontology:FederalCharge rdfs:subClassOf case-criminal:CriminalCharge).
2. Jurisdiction-neutral. No hardcoded phases, sequences, or jurisdiction-specific instruments. Open vocabularies (xsd:string with recommended values) rather than closed enumerations.
3. Separate namespace. A new namespace (suggested: https://ontology.caseontology.org/case/criminal/) rather than additions to investigation:, keeping the investigation primitives clean and letting adopters import only what they need.

Requirements

Requirement 1

Define a new CASE namespace for criminal process and procedure concepts (suggested IRI: https://ontology.caseontology.org/case/criminal/, prefix criminal), imported by but separate from investigation:.

Requirement 2

Define the following stub classes, each a subclass of uco-core:UcoObject:

Requirement 3

Define one object property concernsCharge (domain: Plea, Sentence, CriminalProceeding, ForfeitureOrder, RestitutionOrder; range: CriminalCharge) linking process instruments to the charges they concern. All other linkage (charge-to-subject, order-to-property, document provenance) uses existing uco-core:Relationship and case-investigation:ProvenanceRecord patterns — no new relationship vocabulary is proposed.

Risk / Benefit analysis

Benefits

1. Stops concept forking already underway — CAC Ontology and the SDK cryptoinv extension have both independently minted CriminalCharge; a CASE stub gives them a common parent before more domains (trafficking, terrorism, narcotics) fork again.
2. Cross-domain querying — one SPARQL vocabulary for charges, pleas, sentences, and forfeiture across every criminal investigation domain.
3. Globally applicable — charges, pleas, sentences, forfeiture, and restitution exist in essentially all criminal justice systems; stubs carry no jurisdictional commitments.
4. Cheap to maintain — six classes, five datatype properties, one object property; domain complexity lives in the domain ontologies.
5. Complements 1.5.0 roles and Adopting CASE Investigation Ontology by Communities with Defined Business Rules #189 process meta-model — roles say who, Adopting CASE Investigation Ontology by Communities with Defined Business Rules #189 says how work is organized, this namespace says what legal facts resulted.

Risks

• Scope creep toward a full legal ontology (e.g., LKIF, LegalRuleML territory). Mitigation: stubs only; anything jurisdiction- or procedure-specific belongs in domain ontologies. The committee may wish to note the boundary explicitly in documentation.
• Overlap concern with investigation:Authorization — warrants and court orders authorizing investigative action remain Authorization; ForfeitureOrder/RestitutionOrder are case outcomes, not investigative authorizations. Documentation should state this distinction.
• Naming/namespace choices (case/criminal/ vs. additions to investigation:) are committee decisions; this proposal only needs some stable inheritance point.
• The submitter is unaware of other risks.

Competencies demonstrated

Competency 1

Scenario: A federal prosecution record (PACER: information, plea agreement, statement of facts, sentencing memorandum) is modeled as a CASE knowledge graph. The defendant is charged with money laundering conspiracy (Count One, 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h)), pleads guilty under a plea agreement, receives a government sentencing recommendation of 60 months, and consents to a forfeiture money judgment with in-kind restitution to the victim exchange. (This mirrors United States v. Lichtenstein & Morgan, No. 1:23-cr-00239-CKK (D.D.C.), for which a validated exemplar graph exists in the CASE-UCO SDK.)

Competency Question 1.1

What charges were filed in the case, under which statutes, and as which counts?

Result 1.1

Competency Question 1.2

For each charge, what plea was entered and what sentence was recommended or imposed?

Result 1.2

Draft SPARQL

PREFIX uco-core: <https://ontology.unifiedcyberontology.org/uco/core/>
PREFIX proposed: <http://example.org/ontology/proposed/criminal/>

SELECT ?chargeName ?statute ?count
WHERE {
    ?charge a proposed:CriminalCharge ;
            uco-core:name ?chargeName ;
            proposed:statuteCitation ?statute .
    OPTIONAL { ?charge proposed:countNumber ?count }
}

# ---

PREFIX uco-core: <https://ontology.unifiedcyberontology.org/uco/core/>
PREFIX proposed: <http://example.org/ontology/proposed/criminal/>

SELECT ?chargeName ?pleaType ?sentenceStatus
WHERE {
    ?plea a proposed:Plea ;
          proposed:pleaType ?pleaType ;
          proposed:concernsCharge ?charge .
    ?charge uco-core:name ?chargeName .
    ?sentence a proposed:Sentence ;
              proposed:sentenceStatus ?sentenceStatus ;
              proposed:concernsCharge ?charge .
}

Example instance data

The example graph is also available as a standalone file (change_proposals/criminal-process-and-procedure-namespace-stub-concepts.jsonld) for validation and SPARQL testing. I am fine with my examples being transcribed and credited.

{
  "@context": {
    "kb": "http://example.org/kb/",
    "proposed": "http://example.org/ontology/proposed/criminal/",
    "case-investigation": "https://ontology.caseontology.org/case/investigation/",
    "uco-core": "https://ontology.unifiedcyberontology.org/uco/core/",
    "uco-identity": "https://ontology.unifiedcyberontology.org/uco/identity/",
    "xsd": "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#"
  },
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@id": "kb:investigation-1",
      "@type": "case-investigation:Investigation",
      "uco-core:name": "U.S. v. Example Defendant (money laundering prosecution)"
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:defendant-1",
      "@type": "uco-identity:Person",
      "uco-core:name": "Example Defendant"
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:charge-count1",
      "@type": "proposed:CriminalCharge",
      "uco-core:name": "Count One: Money Laundering Conspiracy",
      "proposed:statuteCitation": "18 U.S.C. § 1956(h)",
      "proposed:countNumber": { "@type": "xsd:nonNegativeInteger", "@value": "1" }
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:plea-1",
      "@type": "proposed:Plea",
      "uco-core:name": "Guilty plea to Count One",
      "proposed:pleaType": "guilty",
      "proposed:concernsCharge": { "@id": "kb:charge-count1" }
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:proceeding-plea-hearing",
      "@type": "proposed:CriminalProceeding",
      "uco-core:name": "Plea hearing",
      "proposed:proceedingType": "plea-hearing",
      "proposed:concernsCharge": { "@id": "kb:charge-count1" }
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:sentence-1",
      "@type": "proposed:Sentence",
      "uco-core:name": "Government sentencing recommendation: 60 months",
      "proposed:sentenceStatus": "recommended",
      "proposed:concernsCharge": { "@id": "kb:charge-count1" }
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:forfeiture-1",
      "@type": "proposed:ForfeitureOrder",
      "uco-core:name": "Consent order of forfeiture with money judgment",
      "proposed:concernsCharge": { "@id": "kb:charge-count1" }
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:restitution-1",
      "@type": "proposed:RestitutionOrder",
      "uco-core:name": "In-kind restitution of forfeited assets to victim",
      "proposed:concernsCharge": { "@id": "kb:charge-count1" }
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:rel-charged-with",
      "@type": "uco-core:Relationship",
      "uco-core:source": { "@id": "kb:defendant-1" },
      "uco-core:target": { "@id": "kb:charge-count1" },
      "uco-core:kindOfRelationship": "Charged_With",
      "uco-core:isDirectional": true
    },
    {
      "@id": "kb:rel-charge-part-of-investigation",
      "@type": "uco-core:Relationship",
      "uco-core:source": { "@id": "kb:charge-count1" },
      "uco-core:target": { "@id": "kb:investigation-1" },
      "uco-core:kindOfRelationship": "part_of",
      "uco-core:isDirectional": true
    }
  ]
}

Solution suggestion

Draft Turtle for the stub classes (namespace and naming subject to committee preference):

@prefix criminal: <https://ontology.caseontology.org/case/criminal/> .
@prefix uco-core: <https://ontology.unifiedcyberontology.org/uco/core/> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

criminal:CriminalCharge
    a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:subClassOf uco-core:UcoObject ;
    rdfs:label "CriminalCharge"@en ;
    rdfs:comment "A criminal charge is a formal accusation, stated as a count within a charging instrument, that a person committed a specific statutory offense."@en .

criminal:Plea
    a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:subClassOf uco-core:UcoObject ;
    rdfs:label "Plea"@en ;
    rdfs:comment "A plea is a defendant's formal answer to a criminal charge."@en .

criminal:CriminalProceeding
    a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:subClassOf uco-core:UcoObject ;
    rdfs:label "CriminalProceeding"@en ;
    rdfs:comment "A criminal proceeding is a formal event in a criminal case conducted before a tribunal."@en .

criminal:Sentence
    a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:subClassOf uco-core:UcoObject ;
    rdfs:label "Sentence"@en ;
    rdfs:comment "A sentence is a penalty recommended by a party or imposed by a tribunal upon conviction of a criminal charge."@en .

criminal:ForfeitureOrder
    a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:subClassOf uco-core:UcoObject ;
    rdfs:label "ForfeitureOrder"@en ;
    rdfs:comment "A forfeiture order is an order, or pre-conviction allegation, requiring surrender to the state of property involved in or traceable to an offense."@en .

criminal:RestitutionOrder
    a owl:Class ;
    rdfs:subClassOf uco-core:UcoObject ;
    rdfs:label "RestitutionOrder"@en ;
    rdfs:comment "A restitution order is an order or request that an offender compensate victims for losses caused by the offense, monetarily or in kind."@en .

Plus datatype properties statuteCitation, countNumber, pleaType, proceedingType, sentenceStatus and object property concernsCharge, with permissive SHACL shapes (open vocabularies as xsd:string; only statuteCitation required on CriminalCharge). Domain ontologies then declare e.g. cacontology:FederalCharge rdfs:subClassOf criminal:CriminalCharge and the SDK cryptoinv extension retires its local duplicates.

Related proposals and references

Pre-submission testing

SPARQL query testing

Graph validation

$ make test-proposal PROPOSAL=criminal-process-and-procedure-namespace-stub-concepts
case_validate --built-version case-1.4.0 --inference rdfs --allow-info \
  --ontology-graph change_proposals/criminal-process-and-procedure-namespace-stub-concepts.ttl \
  change_proposals/criminal-process-and-procedure-namespace-stub-concepts.jsonld
Validation Report
Conforms: True

Unresolved issues

• Namespace IRI and class naming are committee decisions; the example data uses a proposed: placeholder namespace.
• Human-readable IRIs are used in the example for readability; production data should use UUID-based IRIs (informational validator notes suppressed with --allow-info).