Dumpling in a Hanky

I'd never heard of the prolific forger "Antique" Smith before I saw the email notification about the talk on him from the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland. But I like archives, and history, and the fact there was a legal case that arose from it meant it sounded like an interesting outing. So last night I went along to the National Library of Scotland, where this talk was being hosted. So, what did I learn? Mr Alexander Howland "Antique" Smith had quite a busy time of it between 1887 and 1893, churning out at least 500+ known (at a conservative estimate) forged manuscripts and letters attributed to a wide variety of well known people over all sorts of time periods. However, he seems to have had a particular liking for Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott....or maybe they were just more saleable items! He was trained as a law clerk, in the firm of Thomas Henry Ferrier WS, and it seems that old legal documents stored in the firm may have been the early sourc...

There was a motion proposed last week by the Magistrate's Association in England and Wales, to end the swearing of oaths in court on the bible and other holy books. Although the motion was defeated , there was a sentence that caught my eye: Had the motion been passed, it would probably have needed the approval of parliament to bring the change about. The previous version of the story mentioned it in this way: The practice is so old that it is not clear whether it is simply custom or if Parliament would have to change it. And Oaths sworn on the Bible are old enough for the Magistrates' Association to be unsure whether they are mere custom and practice or whether they were laid down by law. So, whatever the decision in Cardiff, it might need the approval of Parliament to bring the change about.  I found this quite unusual: changes to the law were being proposed, but the people proposing the changes didn't actually know how they would go about changing it! ...

The mock trial, something more commonly seen in University law schools, is popping up in Scotlands primary schools , with real court practitioners involved. I like this. I know that, as an adult, the day I went into a court when I went for jury duty was the first time I'd ever been in a working court, despite having worked in the Scottish Courts complex in Edinburgh for years (we're not counting the time when lots of staff in the court complex downed tools and shuffled in to watch Jack McConnell being sworn in as First Minister) . I didn't know what the court would look like: I was surprised by how modern it was (not like the ones I'd looked through the door windows of at the court complex) . I had a vague idea of who would/should be there, but nothing more than that. I don't work with criminal law, so had only the vaguest of ideas about how things worked in such cases. Question - has anyone reading this ever visited a court, unless required to for jury duty? ...

What judges like best This news from America  about the online version of court opinions being the "official" version reminded me of a situation we have here in Scotland, although in this case it's about acceptable electronic versions for submission to the court. Technically, there's no reason that Judges and Sheriffs won't accept an electronic version of a case report - Practice Note 2 of 2004  authorises the use of an electronic case report when it is: "reported in a series of reports by means of a copy of a reproduction of the opinion in electronic  form that has been authorised by the publisher of the relevant series, provided that the report is presented to the court in an easily legible form and that the advocate presenting the report is satisfied that it has been reproduced in an accurate form from the data source." What this should mean is that the electronic version of a case report should be perfectly acceptable to the court, unless some...

Today, for the first time, live tweeting will be allowed from the High Court in Glasgow , for the sentencing of Tommy Sheridan in his perjury case. STV News made a formal written application to be allowed to do so, and permission was granted. I wonder if this will be an exceptional situation, and live tweeting will only be allowed for this case (due to the media/public interest), or whether this is likely to be something allowed in future for other, less "exciting" cases?

So, it's safe to say it's a Bad Thing when there's a breach of security and confidentiality in a meeting between a solicitor and client. So when a technician from Cable and Wireless intruded into a client meeting by popping up on a monitor int he meeting room, that can't exactly have put a smile on many faces... However, I personally like to imagine the technician popping up, and doing this:

If you're in England and Wales, here's the newly released guidance on using social media in public courts. It's probably not so relevant if you're the defendant though.

Oh, it’s all go on the jury front at the moment! First, I’m called up to be a juror, then the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales decides to d iscuss the topic of tweeting and doing online research while acting as a juror . In terms of my own experience in a Scottish court, I have to say, there weren’t any warnings about tweeting or going online via our phones by anyone official while I was in the public area of the court, or the jury room. I think there may have been a comment by the Clerk to turn phones to silent while we waited to be selected, but that may be a figment of my imagination, as I was reminding myself to make sure my phone was on silent while sitting there. Once selected and led to the jury room we were told by the court officer that we had to turn our phones off, and we were to be allowed one phone call to a relevant person who needed to know we’d been selected and therefore unavailable until 4pm (childminders etc) on the landline in the room, but other than ...

I imagine the first entry on the How To Be A Sheriff checklist would be this: 1: Remember to turn up for court when you're meant to. Therefore, this sheriff is really gonna be in the Bad Books with the Scottish Court Service...

....I mean, the Scottish Courts logo doesn't look at all like a rude hand signal, oh no, not at all. Of course, the logo / image used on their site is a far nicer "lion with paws full of arcane stuff", so maybe the "bird" version is an outdated one. I may have blogged about this before, I may not, who knows, I'm currently functioning (or not) in a sleep deprived daze. Is it the weekend yet? Can I go home now?

Something @infobunny was trying to find out this morning...she was looking for what she believed to be the 2 cases decided so far. Where would they be? Well, any sane person would think "Ah, the Decided Cases section, that's where they'll be". But no, sanity does not prevail here! Obviously, where you should be looking for decided cases is in the News and Publications section, where you'll find a link to a topic called Judgments . Here, you'll find a case. Just one case. The other is mysterious, and not to be accessed by the likes of us. It may be real, it may not. There's no way of confirming that from the mish-mash of the website. Although @johnhalton has suggested that the delay in judgments going where they're meant to be is due to the fact that it takes a while to transcribe from the vellum onto computer... And of course, why would anyone want to be able to pick up an RSS feed of any important areas, like, ohhh, News? Judgements? Anything? Sil...

The appeal by Nat Fraser of his conviction for the murder of his wife Arlene will be filmed today , and the footage shown later on the BBC. There will be no footage of Nat Fraser himself, or of the members of the public, just the judges giving a summary of their verdict. I think this is a good step for the Scottish justice system. This case been very controversial, with huge difficulty for both sides in proving guilt or innocence. Being able to see the judges explain, themselves, exactly why they will uphold or quash the conviction should be far more persuasive to the public than a reporter reading out a transcript. Lets just hope Lord Justice Clerk Lord Gill, Lord Johnston and Lord Osbourne make their judgement easily intelligible to the layman. And laywoman.

… do it with style!! I’d like to know what type of MP3 player it was: Apple, Creative, Microsoft et al could have a great marketing opportunity in this: “quiet enough to get past a judge in court” Link from Boing Boing And there's more jury-room gold here!