Snaresbrook Crown Court, built in 1841, architect Sir Gilbert Scott. An orphanage 1843-1938; a school 1938-1971, and now the largest Crown Court in Europe. It overlooks a lawn and an ornamental lake.
How to be insulting without being rude
Some classic examples of the polite insult from F E Smith KC:-
- Judge: Are you trying to show contempt for this court, Mr Smith?
Smith: No, My Lord. I am attempting to conceal it.
- Judge: Have you ever heard of a saying by Bacon — the great Bacon — that youth and discretion are ill-wedded companions?
Smith: Yes, I have. And have you ever heard of a saying of Bacon — the great Bacon — that a much-talking judge is like an ill-tuned cymbal?
- Smith (to witness): So, you were as drunk as a judge?
Judge (interjecting): You mean as drunk as a lord?
Smith: Yes, My Lord.
- Master of the Rolls: Really, Mr Smith, do give this Court credit for some little intelligence.
Smith: That is the mistake I made in the Court below, My Lord.
- Judge I’ve listened to you for an hour and I’m none wiser.
Smith: None the wiser, perhaps, my lord, but certainly better informed.
F E Smith went on to become Lord Chancellor of Great Britain (as the 1st Earl of Birkenhead).
Source of quotes: Wikiquote
The Base Court and Gatehouse at Hampton Court Palace at 9 o’clock in the morning, one hour before opening time, and deserted.
Click to enlarge.
The perp walk
The “perp” in the “perp walk” is the perpetrator - the perpetrator of a crime. Those arrested are put in handcuffs and forced to parade publicly in front of any photographer or television camera which cares to record their humiliation on their way to Court.
But what about the presumption of innocence? What about the “perp” who actually is innocent?
From Reuters:
Wed May 18, 2011 6:59pm EDT
Sometimes the subject of a “perp walk” turns out to be innocent. Here are a few cases where that happened.
RICHARD WIGTON
The Kidder Peabody trader was arrested on February 13, 1987, and led from his office handcuffed and crying. Two and a half years later, the insider trading investigations of Wigton and Timothy Tabor, another trader arrested that day, were called off. The New York Times noted the investigation was halted “with nary an apology” to Wigton and Tabor. Wigton retired in 1989 and died in 2008.
RALPH CIOFFI and MATTHEW TANNIN
The two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers were arrested on June 19, 2008, on conspiracy and securities fraud charges related to the collapse of two funds they ran that lost $1.6 billion. Although they surrendered to officials, they were still subjected to a perp walk en route to their arraignment. After a month-long trial in which the defense called only three witnesses, Cioffi and Tannin were acquitted. “We’re going home with the family for dinner, opening a bottle of wine and we’re just going to relax,” Cioffi told reporters after the verdict.
ROBERT BLAKE
Though he was taken in an unmarked police car after being arrested at his sister’s home, actor Robert Blake was still snapped by photographers as he was walked into Los Angeles police headquarters in 2002. Blake was wearing a white t-shirt, a green baseball cap and handcuffs. He was charged with shooting his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, outside of an Italian restaurant. The former TV detective was acquitted in 2005.
(Reporting by Erin Geiger Smith; Editing by Eileen Daspin)
Sir Roger Casement was executed for treason in 1916, and is now a hero of Irish nationalism. The legal basis of his conviction was very weak. There were many appeals for clemency supported by public figures, including Conan Doyle and Bernard Shaw.
Clemency was refused and public support was weakened by deliberate government leaks of the fact that Casement was an active homosexual.
This had not emerged at his trial and was irrelevant to his case. But he was not ashamed of it. His barrister, Serjeant Sullivan, disclosed after his death that “Casement not only admitted to me that he was a homosexual, but gloried in it, saying that many of the great men in history had been of that persuasion. He was proud of it. If the matter came up in court, he wanted me to impress on the jury the fact that it was rather a distinguished thing to be.” (R MacColl, Roger Casement).
The presiding judge was a friend of the artist Sir John Lavery and commissioned from him a vast canvas, ten feet by seven feet, depicting the trial, and all those present in Court. The painting was bequeathed to the Royal Courts of Justice in London (where the trial had taken place, in what is now Court 34). But the Lord Chief Justice refused to have it hung in public, and so it was tucked away in a private room there. Eventually, it was given to the King’s Inns in Dublin on indefinite loan, where it can be seen today.
See A Rare Document of Irish History: ‘High Treason’ by Sir John Lavery (John McGuiggan) Irish Arts Review Yearbook, Vol. 15 (1999), pp. 157-159
True transcripts
The following classics are drawn from actual transcripts of Court proceedings. Some of them you can blame on an inexperienced advocate trying earnestly not to ask a leading question. But some of them have no excuse.
______________________________
>ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
>WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
______________________________
>ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
>WITNESS: July 18th.
>ATTORNEY: What year?
>WITNESS: Every year.
_____________________________________
>ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
>WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
>WITNESS: Yes.
>ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
>WITNESS: I forget.
>ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you
>forgot?
_____________________________________
>ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
>WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can’t remember which.
>ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
>WITNESS: Forty-five years.
_____________________________________
>ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that
>morning?
>WITNESS: He said, “Where am I, Cathy?”
>ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
>WITNESS: My name is Susan.
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
>WITNESS: We both do.
>ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
>WITNESS: We do.
>ATTORNEY: You do?
>WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his
>sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
>WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
>ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
>WITNESS: Uh, he’s twenty-one..
________________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
>WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
>WITNESS: Yes.
>ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
>WITNESS: Uh….
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
>WITNESS: Yes.
>ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
>WITNESS: None.
>ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
>WITNESS: By death.
>ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
>WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
>ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition
>notice which I sent to your attorney?
>WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead
>people?
>WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go
>to?
>WITNESS: Oral.
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
>WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
>ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
>WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an
>autopsy on him!
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
>WITNESS: Huh?
______________________________________
>ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a
>pulse?
>WITNESS: No.
>ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
>WITNESS: No.
>ATTORNEY Did you check for breathing?
>WITNESS: No.
>ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you
>began the autopsy?
>WITNESS: No.
>ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
>WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
>ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
>WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practising law
>somewhere
Quotations from Disorder in the American Courts, via http://www.zgeek.com/forum/showpost.php?s=88d9a4bbbb0e22d2d4a5dc3070a2437b&p=579634&postcount=4
