All articles by James Morton
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NewsDouble trouble on dream dates
Some years ago, I tried to appear in two different courts on the same morning.
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NewsA subtext for a moral crusade?
‘It’s a witch-hunt,’ said my friend Tony, referring to the Windsor-Giuffre saga. James Morton ‘No,’ I said, adopting my academic stance. ‘It’s what we sociologists call a symbolic crusade fuelled by moral entrepreneurs. It’s what happens when a group wishes to change things for what they ...
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NewsWhen legal aid boosted divorce
Back when legal aid became readily available for divorce cases, discontented wives who had married young realised they no longer had to put up with disagreeable husbands.
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News'The best ****ing night of our lives'
Following on from the park baseball boys (1 August), I did defend other brothers who were a bit more venal. They lived near the old cinema in the Caledonian Road, which seemed to show endless Randolph Scott double bills. It was also conveniently near Pentonville Prison, from which another client, ...
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NewsThinking with your eyes shut
Barristers used to pile across the road to a restaurant opposite the Old Bailey for a couple of glasses of wine at lunch. And what about judges?
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NewsLiP service and monkey business
I had several dealings with litigants in person, few of which seemed to work in my favour.
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NewsWriting wrongs: top scribe tips
Once I became editor of a legal magazine I quickly learned some lessons about writing. Here are a few thoughts about submissions.
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NewsExceptions to the cab rank rule
In 25 years of practice, I never met a clerk who, if he or his master did not want a case, could not evade it.
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NewsOn course to find your feet
In the 1960s young solicitors who wanted to do a bit of advocacy were thrown in at the deep end.
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NewsSettling down at the fledgling CPS
Teething problems are overcome at the new Crown Prosecution Service.
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NewsMatron! Cases for the prosecution
Morton's first day acting as an agent for the newly formed Crown Prosecution Service did not begin well.
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NewsLiberties at stake in rush for justice
There are several ways in which justice can be expedited without root-and-branch changes.
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NewsCrimes changing with the seasons
January and February were for burglary, summer months were reserved for hotel theft, while October was the lorry hijack season.
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NewsJudges who took their time
For the fourth time this year, a judge has been given formal advice for misconduct over a late judgment. None, however, was in the class of a 19th-century lord chancellor.
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NewsHow our DPPs are remembered
Every DPP’s tenure is judged by one or two cases which they should have prosecuted but didn’t, or shouldn’t have prosecuted but did.
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NewsJudges behaving badly – again
There must, I suppose, be some sympathy for a judge or magistrate who has a very occasional outburst during a case – provided that they do not do it too often.