“Never plead guilty!”
January 16, 2009, 9:32 pm
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Rumpole of the BaileyJohn Mortimer, author of the deeply loved Rumpole of the Bailey, has died today at the age of 85. It’s an event that can’t really be missed on a law student’s blog because it was a very good legal drama and it’s a shame to see Mortimer bow out along with Leo McKern, the face of Rumpole.
Mortimer, as well as a prolific author, was also a practicing family and later criminal barrister. He experienced the two very different fields and later remarked:
“Matrimonial clients hate each other so much and use their children to hurt each other in beastly ways. Murderers have usually killed the one person in the world that was bugging them and they’re usually quite peaceful and agreeable.”
This is a wise word for anyone who’s looking at fields to enter from law school.
Although his health was failing in his later years it did not stop Mortimer from writing and he was in the process of dictating (his eyesight became too poor to continue writing in longhand himself) a book when he died, he only had “three or four chapters written”. This is a great loss of a talented barrister and a talented comedy writer, of which there can never be too many, whose works are probably some of the earliest popular entertainment which concentrated on humanising the legal process and providing a very necessary accessible insight into the profession.
Mortimer was also a strong advocate of free speech and civil liberties while at the same time, to quote his autobiography, he was “the best playwright ever to have defended a murderer at the Central Criminal Court.” His like is always needed in the profession.
A different definition of Alibi
June 24, 2008, 5:43 pm
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lawJust a quick definition post here but it’s far too good to hide away in my glossary of terms.
I’ve already got alibi listed in the glossary and as all law students who have done their semester of Criminal Law know :
alibi Lat, [I was] “somewhere else.” A special defence providing a complete defence from any accusations if accepted. As it is a special defence the defending counsel must submit it in advance of the trial beginning and defending counsel must accept the burden of proof to prove that the person truly could not commit the crime. The Criminal Law Deskbook of Criminal Procedure states: “Alibi is different from all of the other defenses…it is based upon the premise that the defendant is truly innocent.”
However, in the words of “Ireland’s International Comedian” Hal Roach:
“The judge said to Murphy, “Are you guilty or not?” Murphy said said, “I don’t know until I hear the evidence and that’s my alibi.”
The judge said, “Don’t you know what an alibi is?” Murphy said” Yes, your honour, an alibi is to be after proving that your weren’t where you were when you committed the offence that you didn’t commit at all, and what’s more I wasn’t there at the time.”
Now that’s one to remember when you start to practice drafting pleadings.
I know a little of that copy looks odd so I’ve included the original for the quote here:
