Who Would Want To Watch Court TV?
Having seen the odd case in a Court of Law, I can’t understand why anybody would want to watch it on television. It must only be for the same freak show reasons, that people watch crap like Big Brother, Britain’s Got Talent, basketball and American football. I’m thinking of setting up a channel where you can watch kettles boil or paint dry. It would be a lot more exciting!
I suppose if it was funded by advertising, Court TV might get them out of programs worth seeing.
But I won’t be watching!
Solicitors from Hell
We’ve all used bad solicitors in the past, but few of us have done anything about it. But Rick Kordowski did according to this article in The Independent.
According to The Times yesterday, the solicitors don’t like what he’s doing and are turning their legal guns on him.
I’m reminded of the old American legal joke.
Q. What do you call a thousand American lawyers at the bottom of the sea?
A. A good start
Kim Kardashian Sues Over Look Alike
I gather that Kim Kardashian is quite famous. Perhaps it is famous for being stupid as she is suing a company because they used someone who looks like her, according to this report. She ought to thank the company for the publicity, especially as I don’t find the lady the least bit attractive. So perhaps she should sue The Times for showing a picture of her, that I don’t like.
You can rest assured that her lawyers will trouser a few dollars, so they will at least been paid well for their time.
The Caroline Law
I like this story in the Guardian. Here’s an extract.
A London judge has made legal history by becoming the first to deliver a verdict on her own after discharging a jury.
Recorder Caroline English performed the unprecedented role at Wood Green crown court because a friend of the accused was alleged to have been in regular contact with a woman juror and have passed information on voting intentions.
Under the 2003 Criminal Justice Act, judges may continue a trial on their own if satisfied the jury has been subject to interference and that the defendants can still have a fair trial. The provision had never previously been used.
I also have a friend, who is a judge with the same first name. She has a reputation for a similar robustness and sensible interpretation of the law.
So the next time, you’re in the dock, make sure the judge isn’t a Caroline or perhaps a Charles!
Dog Control Orders
I have heard of the controversial control orders before, but never ones related to dogs.
Dog Control Order in Newham
They don’t seem to be as oppressive as those beloved of NuLabor.
The Choosing of Judges
The Times today is arguing that judges are generally male, white and Oxbridge and that this is wrong. I will probably agree that we need a broader judiciary, but not with a lot of their reasons.
My late wife was a reasonably successful barrister and she was asked many years ago to take the first steps to becoming a judge. At the time, she was happy in her work, and as she had other responsibilities like breeding racehorses, that fitted well with her career, she declined.
As The TImes argues we may choose our judges from a rather limited pool, but how many of the really creative legal minds, much prefer to form their own career, outside of the legal mainstream. I know one very capable barrister, who went into commerce, chaired a large plc, and now acts as an international mediator. He may or may not have made a good judge, but like many he found the confines of the traditional law, a desert for his creativity.
I have known several judges well. They find the job well-paid and pensioned and in general they enjoy it. But many do find it rather routine and lacking in creativity. And when they are creative, like a judicial friend was, very much to general acclaim, they are slapped down by those that run the Lord Chancellor’s Department.
So in some ways the job chooses the sober line-toeing minds, who want a decent pension and many of those who would make excellent judges make other and better career changes.
The Unbelievable Case of the Hacking of Milly Dowler’s Phone!
I wrote a few months ago about how easy it is to hack many mobile phones. Basically, if your pin is still set to the factory default, the averagely competent ten year old can read your messages and do other things with it.
You could make out a case for some phones to be hacked, especially if a compromising or criminal scandal that has ramifications for us all is ongoing.
but no-one, and especially the editor of a newspaper or the child’d parents could sanction the hacking of the phone of an young girl, as appears to have happened in the Milly Dowler case.
Obviously, to hack a phone you need its number and the problem here is that I suspect that the average child has given their mobile number to dozens of friends and some have even posted it on-line.
But at least, it should be possible to find out the numbers of those, who called Milly’s number and when they did it. It should also be possible to find the number of the perpetrator of this horrendous act. But I suspect that the hacker would have used an untraceable number, from perhaps a pay-as-you-go phone that they bought for cash in a no-questions-asked shop.
There is only one sentence for newspapers that do this sort of thing, if it is fact proved that they did. And that is that they have to suspend publication for an appropriate time.
If you read the headlines of today’s papers, the tabloids mention nothing about the Milly Dowler case. In my view, this indicates that they all know a lot more about phone hacking than they care to disclose.
A Spammer Gets Screwed, Glued and Tattooed
I don’t like spammers and this story is worth a read.
The hero is actually an American law firm, that took up a ridiculous case against a British anti-spam organisation; Spamhaus, on a pro-bono basis.
Will LulzSec Target the UK Legal System Over Jailing of Joanne Fraill?
LulzSec are a group of hackers, who have broken into various computer systems all over the world, including a web site linked with the CIA.
I do wonder whether the jailing of Joanne Fraill for discussing a case where she was a juror on Facebook, will get a response from LulzSec. Especially, as some reports say all jurors who use Facebook to discuss cases will be jailed.
How long before the idiots on Facebook start a “Free joanne Fraill” campaign?
I can’t help feeling, that this one will run and run and in a direction that the government and the judges won’t like.
What Joanne Fraill did was wrong, but then it was also incredibly stupid. So are we now jailing people for doing things, they don’t have the intelligence to realise are wrong? In Joanne Fraill’s case, she should have been given a community sentence. Perhaps one working with the victims and problems of drug addiction, that her actions have inadvertently made worse, by stopping a trial of drug dealers.
Justice By Facebook
I think that this is the biggest threat to justice, I’ve seen in the last thirty years. In this case for example, according to the Guardian, a juror contacted the defendant and the trial collapsed at a cost to taxpayers of £6,000,000.
I don’t know how you stop it, unless you ban those who know about the Internet from juries.
So it might be the end of the jury system in many cases, and we go to a system, where defendants are tried in front of a panel of judges.
I hope not.
The Anonymous Widower 