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January 2[edit]

Case length/scheduling in English Crown Courts[edit]

Dear all,

I enjoy courtroom dramas on TV and was thinking of visiting my local Crown Court to see how it happens in real life. I'm hoping to see an entire case and was wondering if there is a specific time I should go to ensure that. Do more cases start on Mondays, or fewer on Fridays, for example? And how many days should I expect to set aside if I want to see an entire case?

Kind regards, 89.240.74.25 (talk) 14:39, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

From experience of serving jury duty in the UK, I can tell you that your question is pretty much impossible to answer. Some cases last less than a day, some take weeks. Some don't even happen, as the accused change their plea to guilty just before the court is due to start. Some cases start first thing, some later in the day. AFAIR there is no better day than any other. I can only advise that you make a preliminary visit to ask a court official what is likely to happen in their specific courtrooms, and to see what cases are listed.--Phil Holmes (talk) 15:16, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And other cases are put on hold partway through and recommenced days later. Juries sometimes deliberate for days too.

I think that if all you want to see is how the court really operates - then by all means go and spend a day there - but if you're planning to see an entire, complex criminal case unfold and come to a complete conclusion, then unless it's a short one - you'll probably be disappointed.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:26, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This site has a handy guide to attending Crown Court. According to our Crown Court article, the average trial takes about 1.5 days, although a complex fraud case can go on for many months. Individual court lists can be found here. Tevildo (talk) 15:33, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For a school project I once attended an entire trial at a Sheriff court; the matter (GBH) would have been disposed of in Crown court had it been in England. It was certainly an instructive experience, but it was not at all racy or exciting, and it would have made for very bad television. The major differences between it and a TV court:

The court sat for very short days, and often adjourned for various reasons. So they only got through maybe four hours of public trial each day. The whole thing could have been over in a day or two, but took five.
Questioning was pedestrian, repetitive, and prosaic. You might get 45 minutes of questioning of a witness which yielded that he didn't see, or couldn't remember, or wasn't sure. Lots of the witnesses had been quite thoroughly in cups during the events, and so had hazy memories. Others (perhaps who themselves had faced charges following the melee) claimed to remember little or nothing.
The lawyers were professional to the point of dullness. There were no great rhetorical sweeps, no cunning tricks, no great outbursts. It was like overhearing a school-leaver's job interview. The Sheriff's summation was a bit better, perhaps because she could talk on the subject continually, rather than in the Q&A - but it was still precise and descriptive, without any colour.
There was no forensic-science or technical evidence, beyond a doctor's report stating the facts we already knew ("X had been hit on the head with a stick").
Questioning of police witnesses, which may have been necessary for legal reasons, gave no worthwhile evidence at all. It took dozens of questions to confirm that someone claimed to have been hit with a stick, but that the police hadn't been present and didn't find a stick.
As a member of the public, you don't know how long the jury will deliberate, and you don't get much notice that they've finished. And if the verdict is guilty the court will probably adjourn for reports, which can take several weeks. You'd need to closely follow the court's calendar in order to know when the actual sentencing is going to happen. And sentencing is brief and often the defendant gets a complicated and undramatic finding like a community payback order and £6 deducted each week off their giro. Then their lawyer says they can't afford £6 because they're recovering from habitual lighter-fuel drinking, and the Sheriff grumbles and knocks it down to £4.

TL;DR - much fat, little meat, no drama. 90.214.210.141 (talk) 18:12, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

addendum - and lots of sadness. The people involved had desperate lives of abuse, disease, unemployment, violence, and despair. Another trial I saw part of was a revenge beating, by a 16 year old, of a man who had beaten up the teens mother. The mother was a drug addict and a prostitute (who really was the most shattered, tragic witness), the victim was a diabetic alcoholic with no feet, and the teen really did drink lighter fuel regularly. It was the damned fighting the damned, and it wasn't a fun think to watch. 90.214.210.141 (talk) 18:22, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks 90.214, for your detailed comment (many thanks all other contributors too, of course). I do expect it to be nowhere near as racy or, well, watchable as what we see on TV. But I'd like to know what it actually looks like, just for personal interest. 89.240.74.25 (talk) 20:14, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

With the appropriate expectations, attending a trial is a worthwhile thing to do. One, perhaps telling, thing you'll find is that there may be no-one there in the audience beside you. Maybe you'll get some 19 year old being tried for something serious enough to put him in prison for years, and surely to have a massive effect on the rest of his life - and there isn't a soul in attendance. No friends, no family, no press, no students, no lookielooks. 90.214.210.141 (talk) 21:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Danang Tourane[edit]

According to our article, in 1889 the French colonists renamed the city now called Đà Nẵng as Tourane. How was it called during the Japanese occupation of Vietnam and the subsequent short-lived Empire of Vietnam? --151.41.173.96 (talk) 16:21, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

During the Japanese occupation of French Indochina, since the Axis powers also occupied France, the French Vichy government ostensibly remained in control while Japan operated in the background. Jean Decoux was the French governor general of Vietnam during this period and Da Nang kept the French colonial name, "Tourane". (See this paper for references to "Tourane" during this era). In 1945, however, Japan took complete control, ousted the French and set up a puppet government (the Empire of Vietnam) to garner support from the Vietnamese people. Part of this effort was to erase evidence of French colonialism and re-institute native institutions which included uniting Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina under the old name, Viet Nam, and restoring native names that the French had changed. I can't find any sources right now specifically about Da Nang/Tourane, but there's no reason not to assume that it too had its name restored during the Empire. The Vietnamese people most likely always referred to it as "Da Nang" among themselves anyway, even during the French period.--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 11:05, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

'How To Get Away With Murder'-inspired US search warrant query[edit]

Dear all, I've just watched the first series of HTGAWM (hence the question above also), and there was a legal issue which confused me. A man is murdered, and the police (upon finding the body) wish to search his home for evidence. His wife objects, and the police seem stumped until another character provides them with the evidence needed to get a search warrant of the home on probable cause. My question is: Isn't it being the victim's home probable cause enough, and does anyone know a good source of information about the limits of such 'automatic-probable cause' for warrants (where probable cause will be presumed unless it is shown not to be reasonable, sort of like the crime scene). 89.240.74.25 (talk) 20:02, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is some information in our article Search warrant. --194.166.22.194 (talk) 20:58, 2 January 2016 (UTC) Oops, forgot to log in. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 20:59, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If he wasn't murdered at home, then it's not obvious that there would be any evidence in the home. Also consider that the family, after having a member killed, may not appreciate having their home searched for evidence, which very much makes it look like they are the suspects. StuRat (talk) 22:05, 2 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See also: Exigent circumstance, Probable cause, Search and seizure, Expectation of privacy (applies to the residents of the home in this case) and Plain view doctrine, all of which are pretty sparse but should help you out. Assuming this is the USA we're talking about (I've never heard of the program in question), as Stu says, if the home/property wasn't the crime scene and barring any exigent circumstances (such as the wife answering the door covered in blood or holding a smoking gun), investigators would have to demonstrate to a judge probable cause to believe that evidence of the crime is to be found in the house. In most (all?) jurisdictions, said probable cause justification must be specific.[1] They can't just get a warrant "to have a look around".[2] If they believe evidence to be on the victim's computer, the warrant will be for the computer; if they believe the wife's cross bow to be the murder weapon, the warrant would be for the cross bow, etc. Or the warrant could specify all the personal property of the victim. Of course, if they enter the premises with the intention of seizing a computer, for example, but happen to see other possible evidence, then the plain view doctrine would apply.--William Thweatt ^Talk^Contribs 10:16, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]