After declaration of the Pellaeon-Gavrisom Treaty

You want to go by novelizations and radio dramas from way back then? Alright, then Obi-Wan Kenobi is Owen Lars's brother.

 

But Sidious never stopped resisiting, and he was far from disarmed. While he may have lost his lightsaber, he still had the Force. Mainly his Force Lightning. Now, had Windu just immediately struck him down after the Lightning stopped, he probably would've had no real recourse taken on him. But his hesitation does create some problems. He quite possibly could've made the argument that he felt Sidious still posed a very serious threat to the livelyhood of any and all beings in his immediate vacinity. It's not like they had any Ysilamri (sp?) readily available.

 

The problem falls onto the burden of proof: How could Mace Windu prove that by killing an unarmed man, he was acting in self-defense or in defense of others? Palpatine may have still had the Force to call upon, but as there is no legal precedent for use of the Force (as far as I'm aware), it'd be Mace's word that a man he'd just defeated in single combat was still causing him to fear for his life or the lives of others. This would be especially difficult with the recording of Palpatine pleading, "please don't kill me!"

 

In this situation, if there had been a trial (for either man), I think the evidence would've leaned more towards Windu. Palpatine was admittedly the "second Sith" that the Jedi had evidence was behind the war, as a means to destabalize the Republic. There was proof that he was a practitioner of the Force. A Master one at that. So they would've had to call people whom are knowledgeable of such things. They could've easily stated that Palpatine was still a danger even though he no longer had his lightsaber. And that he still was far from "unarmed" through his abilities in the Force.

And Anakin could've easily stopped Windu's blade without cutting off his arm, but that's a different discussion for a different day.

 

Yes. The son was the heir to the organization, and it wasn't just to save the child that the Jedi and Republic got involved (the Jedi even suspected a trap and asked why they SHOULD get involved...and I add this is in the cartoon version, I'm not talking about the novelization's reading of the situation), and Palpatine makes it clear that Jabba is a criminal but he has strategic information that the Republic needs; thus they are more than willing to work with him.

The comics and other novels have shown plenty of examples of the OJO, the NR, and the GA being willing to work with individuals and organizations that are outside what would be considered the legal system to achieve their own ends.

I'm still rather baffled at how the NR had such tight connections to a criminal organization such as the smuggler's alliance.

 

Because a good majority of them were smugglers and people who worked on the questionable side of the law before they turned legit and worked with the NR. Han's the greatest example, but there is also Wedge.

 

Wedge was a soldier through the entire rebellion. And I'm not talking about former or even then current smugglers who operate under the Imperial regime, but the fact that there was a known smuggler's alliance that the formal government actively worked with post-Endor and after the creation of a legal New Republic always struck me as weird in terms of "are they not still smuggling and is that not illegal?"

Or did they have some sort of deal where they only smuggled through Imperial sectors?

I mean, I'm not making any sort of blanket condemnation, but it's a little like the JDF formally recognizing and working with Yakuza soldiers and crime lords as long as their objectives coincided.

 

That's what I think what happened. Kardde got all the head smugglers he could together in TTT to help with getting the tech and then he just banded them together into the Alliance. They became traders on contract for the New Republic and they smuggled goods in the IR.

 

This sort of behavior is not unusual in the real world either. The tendency for Meso- and South American regimes to tacitly ally with on paramilitary faction in order to defeat another is quite common. After one side is forced to capitulate, the other is absorbed into the state and nominally normalized/legitimized. See El Salvador and the U.S. Green Berets' successful military assistance program.