Jonathan Mitchell

A Barrister in Disguise: The Trial of Counsellor Tucker, 1840 From the Belfast Commercial Chronicle, 29 July 1840: “DUBLIN POLICE Henry Street – A Barrister in Disguise – Counsellor Richard Tucker was brought on Thursday before Mr Duffy, just as the morning s…

At least he wasn't arrested-H/T to bsky.app/profile/ruth...; "I took too much drink yesterday evening, and when proceeding home I met with a female with whom I unfortunately went home, and while I remained there my coat, hat, trousers and waistcoat, were stolen." ruthcannon.com/2023/11/21/a...

///senses.knee.claims This is the what3words address for a 3 metre square location near Edinburgh.

Ah, you're more or less at what3words.com/senses.knee....

Regent Bridge A roadway designed for a visiting monarch.

That's very true, but the photos are of Regent Bridge in Waterloo Place- where again the three-dimensional structure isn't obvious till you're actually on the bridge. See www.atlasobscura.com/places/regen...

Sheriff Collins's decision is so lengthy, 419 pages, because the litany of failures is so long, but it bears reading in full. I hope MSPs get their teeth into this; description of wrongs is what courts are for, but they need political action to remedy them. 2/2 www.scotcourts.gov.uk/media/1olg15...

This article is a first-rate introduction to the awful stories of two unnecessary deaths and the reaction/indifference of the Scottish state and its justice system. There's a lot more to be said- why do so many more young people die in custody here than, it seems, any other country in Europe? 1/2

It's a lovely and historic theatre, well worth visiting, but it wasn't built till the 1880s. Burke was dissected in what is now the Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre in the Law School, designed by Robert Adam but remodelled in 2019.

🚨The first ever UNCRC Act case has been decided in Scotland!

In a significant judgment, the High Court in Edinburgh has accepted our arguments and ruled that the Lord Advocate’s power to prosecute children is within the scope of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024.
1/5

#UNCRC

The Court of Session decision, however it should be named (Hafþórsdóttir or Hafthórsdóttir properly I think, not Hafthorsdotir- surely Scottish courts can cope with accents even if not the letter þ!) has some slight interest as to similar bad practice. www.scotcourts.gov.uk/media/xwjdaz....

Judge Orders Lawyers to Have Lunch Together and Discuss “How They Can Act Professionally” The lunch report they filed suggests all went well.

The Alabama decision, one for court lawyers to bookmark for future reference, is given fully in the excellent Lowering The Bar site, and I assume that's what Lord Cubie was referring to: www.loweringthebar.net/2025/01/judg...

While at avizandum I came across a judgment of R. David Proctor, Chief United States District Judge in the Northern District of Alabama (McCullers v Koch Foods of Alabama, LLC, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 218902, 2024 WL 4907226 (N.D. Ala. Nov. 26, 2024). The decision was noteworthy for ordering counsel on each side to go to lunch together to discuss how to act professionally through the case. In the course of the judgment he said: “The Golden Rule – do unto others as you would have them do unto you – is not just a good rule of thumb for everyday life. It is a critical component of legal professionalism. ” I agree.

🧵 A Court of Session decision today between two Icelanders raises the novel (to me) question of how to cite the case; by patronymic or by given name, or indeed by full name, and how to spell it. But I note it for its final paragraph, which is even more novel - although maybe it shouldn't be!

The Queen and segregation: ‘the blunder in Bermuda’ In her long reign, the Queen witnessed the 180-degree transformation of Bermuda from a racist and insular economic backwater into a progressive, cosmopolitan powerhouse, punching above its weight in t...

Bermuda had still a Jim Crow segregated society at that time; it didn’t even have universal suffrage until 1967. Exceptional in the British Empire then. So a social invitation from the Governor in 1951 wouldn’t extend to Blacks. See this article: www.royalgazette.com/general/news...

It was true; see Jimmy Carter’s own telling of the incident www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbn...

Jimmy Carter himself told this story well; it happened in 1951, and he made the point that this was a very early story of anti-racist solidarity in the US Navy. Read his vivid account; www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbn...

‘History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave…
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.’
Seamus Heaney, The Cure of Troy

Perhaps the default setting should be changed? I’m inclined to hide ‘Rude’ and ‘Threats’, not warn, and I turn ‘Intolerance’ off. But when you can do this yourself so easily, that’s not much of a problem. I suspect a sliding scale for all this in the app settings would be inoperable in practice.

Well, it’s utterly subjective whether you regard someone’s posts as ‘intolerant’. For myself I see nothing intolerant in Naomi Cunningham’s feed (and I follow her). But it’s for the reader to make that judgment, and Bsky allows that. Better than X, quietly stifling what it chooses to stifle.

It’s a choice you make yourself in your preferences. To turn it on or off, go to ‘Settings’; ‘Moderation’; ‘Bluesky Moderation Service’; there’s a list of choices; ‘Intolerance’; turn it off. It all seems geared to the idea that it’s up to the user not the platform to fine-tune what they’ll see.

Good example of the Streisand Effect (h/t Dan Neidle): anonymity sought by barristers chambers on plea that ‘everyone will scorn and mock us if the facts come out, so please don’t let anyone know…. ‘ . Result: facts come out in far more detail, and more widely, than if they’d just stayed quiet.

Ian Hamilton Finlay
FOX

see me
wan time
ah wis a fox
an wis ah sleekit! ah
gaed slinkin
heh
an snappin
yeh
the blokes
aa sayed ah wis a G R E A T fox
aw nae kiddin
ah wis pretty good
had a whole damn wood
in them days
hen

17 September is #NationalFoxDay 🦊

Chapter 136 at en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_His...