Miranda's Journal

May 20- Day 12
Crime and punishment tour
Imperial War Museum
We began the day with a walking tour through London learning about crime and punishment. Most of the tour describe crime that happened way in the past with a few present day crimes. Around the Bank of England we learned of big crimes that happened there. One crime was of Ann Hearl who had a stolen check and was trying to withdraw money from the account. She was arrested and went to Old Bailey where she tried to plea “the belly” (pregnant). After determining she was not pregnant she was sentenced to death. She was supposed to be hung by a new method, the drop hang, but guards were being lazy and did not want to set it up so she was dragged behind a horse, which did not immediately kill her. From that day forward the decided that hanging by horse would no longer be used.
Another interesting story was about body snatching in the 1700-1800’s. In 1752 surgeons were only allowed to work on executed murderers but people discovered that they would pay from fresh bodies. Body snatchers would dig up freshly buried bodies and sell them to the surgeons, which was the start of the black market. The government did really stop it from happening because it was for medical purposes. In 1822 the Anatomy Act was put into place where surgeons had to get a license to acquire and take care of their cadaver.
It was interesting to learn some of the progressions of the death penalty from horse dragging, drop hanging, burned at the stake, boiled in a vat of oil and drawn and quartered. It is good see there has been also been progressions in the U.S. when it comes to the death penalty methods, including abolishing it in some states.
Some of the stories we heard did not all end in death as a punishment. Some of the lesser crimes the people were punished by public shaming as a deterrent. I’m curious when public shaming no longer became a deterrent?

May 19- Day 11
British Museum
Jack the Ripper Tour
We went to the British Museum with three tasks to complete while there. The first tasks was to find something about the museum. The few things that I found was the Enlightenment Room was a dedication to the Museum when it was first founded. The Enlightenment Room is a recreation of the sense of the exploration of the ways that England viewed the world from the past to the present. The other thing that I discovered was the Museum Britannicum was a published guide to the Museum that was the first popular guide in 1778.
The second task we had to complete was explore at least three of the collections. The Museum was so large with some many exhibits I have no clue how many I walked through. I basically was transformed into different continents and different time periods through the whole Museum.
The third task was to find something criminal justice related. Though none of it was necessarily related to American criminal justice the few things I found were interesting. The first thing I found was an engraved piece of metal from India that granted ownership to land. In the 1100’s legal documents were engraved into metal. The second thing I found was dating back to Ancient Rome where there were laws that only high ranking members of society, like senators and magistrates could have their “portraits” taken.
Later in the evening we did a walking tour that took us back into time and gave us the history of Jack the Ripper. Though the tour was fascinating it was hard to see that a part of London’s dark history is being long forgotten and replaced with new buildings. One of the most fascinating things I learned was the murder of Mary Kelly was the first evidence of crime scene photography. The photos shown were from the crime of the scene and not autopsy photos from the morgue.
One question I had was related to the evidence that was destroyed. Our guide mentioned that some of original evidence was destroyed in the Blitz and the rest destroyed in another way. Will this be the greatest serial murders in the history of London that will never be solved because of evidence destruction?

May 17- Day 9
The Hunterian Museum
The Foundling Museum
The London Police Museum
Tracy- Director of Forensics
We did a tour of The Foundling Museum which was originally a children's orphanage started by Thomas Coram. In the 1700’s woman who either had illegitimate children, their husband was imprisoned, or had died would have no means to support themselves or their first born child and would have to abandon them. The hospital was opened to help these children. One interesting thing that I could tie to criminal justice was the children's tokens, basically an identification process. When the child was dropped off they there given a token of some sorts to identify them later when the family was able to take care of them again. Which they also had to pay to regain custody.
Next we did a tour of the London Police Museum followed by a talk with Tracy, the director of forensics. It was interesting to learn about the history of the London Police and what they do. The London Police follow the community policing standards where they are on foot patrol or on horses and make themselves visible and present. I found it odd though that it was said that most police do not wear uniforms because they do not want to stand out if there was a tourist attack. That seemed a bit of a contradiction if they are trying to make their presence known.
One of my biggest questions I wanted answered was how are CSI’s trained in England and Tracy was able to answer that. She said that all CSI are trained in-house and do not need prior education. Each CSI can choose their own specialty, like fingerprints or blood spatter, and those are the only “crime scenes” they process. Much like the judges where you get a “ticket” to further yourself in different cases the CSI’s can gain progression by doing different trainings to eventually processes a murder scene. This is very different from the U.S. since we need at least a bachelor's degree to become a CSI and we process all scenes not just what we’ve specialized in. I was also surprised to hear that they sent their forensic evidence to privatized, contracted crime labs. There is no requirement for accreditation for these labs so certain standards may not be met. Also, their turn-around for evidence process was about 48 hours which is almost unheard of in the U.S. She also mentioned that they have largest DNA database because they collect DNA swabs from every person arrested.
I wish we had more time with Tracy so I could have asked her more questions about CSI. I would have loved to know how long the training was for CSI? If police collect the evidence do the CSI’s just collect patent evidence like fingerprints and DNA? Do they use other presumptive test besides Hemistix since that can detect blood other than human?

May 16- Day 8
Old Bailey
Mounted police
Tower of London
The day began with going to Old Bailey to meet a judge, Judith, then go to the public galleries to listen to court cases. Something of the things I found interesting was that any defendant in custody have 6 months to be tried. It sounds much like our right to a speedy trial but it is something that is on every case where we have the right to waive it. The court can ask the judge for an indication if the defendant was thinking about a plea deal. The indication is where the judge will indicate a sentence and once the judge had decided on that there is no changing it. Unlike the U.S. If the barristers have objections they do not interrupt the court to do so. It seems like they have to file an object at the end of the day to be discussed without the jury, which we witness this in the first case we saw there. I also found it interesting that there is no stenographer. Judith said that they used to but now everything is being digitally recorded. Something else that is different is the defendant is always in the dock and the only way to communicate with their barrister is to write them a note. I think one of the biggest differences in jury trials is that in England they do not have to have a unanimous decision.  If a jury of 12 does not all agree on a verdict it can go to a “majority direction” of 10-1 or 10-2 where the 10 people all have to have the same verdict.
The mounted police presentation was very interesting to learn about their role in the city. I enjoyed the fact that this was something that started in 1839 and still exists today. The mounted police presence seems to help the community understand the role of the police by allowing them to ask questions while interacting with the horse.
Something that I would still be curious to learn about is how the barristers object to evidence or witness testimony?

May 15- Day 7 
Police Q&A
V&A Children Museum
Lewisham police Q&A
Today we met two Lewisham police women, Susan and Tara, for a Q&A. I found this to be very informative and interesting to hear the differences between England and the U.S. police forces. One of the biggest surprises to me was that the police basically cannot defend themselves because of personal rights. Susan told us about an encounter which her partner was stabbed with a pair of scissors and she was not willing to even hit the guy with her only defense, a baton, because the guy could come back and claim his personal rights were affected by the police. In the U.S. we try to respect personal rights but if you are being attacked everyone has the right to protect themselves with whatever force necessary. It was interesting to hear that if the unarmed police encounter someone with a gun or knife their training instructed them to either run and hide or if close enough try disarm the offender. This is a strange concept to Americans since the use of a gun is so prevalent in policing. Something that was similar between the policing was their stop and search. They need probable cause to do any type of search which is the same in the U.S. One thing that they do with their stop and search that I think could somewhat help the U.S. is to have an ethics department to randomly review the stop and search to ensure that an officer is not abusing their rights or there is not profiling of certain people,
One question that I had was how the police are portrayed in the media and it sounded like they are much like the U.S. where they get a bad reputation for doing their job and most of the people do not understand the restrictions they have. Another thing that was different was the communication amongst each part of the criminal justice system. The police build the entire case against the defender in reports which get sent to the courts but then there is little interaction between the police and the barristers. I suppose much like the U.S. there is not a whole lot of cross training between what the police and the attorneys do as their part of the criminal justice system.
Some questions I had was about the crime scene and what the police do when someone walks through the scene and destroyed evidence. Does the case get thrown out because of that? Sounds like written reports are a big thing, which they should be, if it was written in the report that someone walked through the scene does that excuse the tampering of evidence? Do they not rely on evidence to solve crime if they are “allowing” people  to walk through the crime scenes?

May 14-Day 6
Camden Lock Market
Sloan Street/Harrods
Natural History Museum
At the beginning of this day I wasn't sure how I was going to incorporate criminal justice into essentially a day of shopping. I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with a local artist at Camden Lock Market, Nicola Quilter, whose family is all barristers and she served as a juror. She was telling me about the case that she sat on as a juror and how their system is broken when it comes to the rehabilitative side. The case involved two homeless seventeen year olds who were charged with drug possession (sounded like marijuana) and dealing and were sent to prison. She did not spend too much time giving me details but it ended up in a mistrial since both of their confessions were under duress. Her biggest qualm about the whole thing was that these were kids that were sent to prison instead of trying to help them. She implied that this was not a serious crime since the kids were the lackeys to the bigger drug dealer but the prosecutor was not interested in finding that person. She wanted either the law to change and legalized to decriminalize simple drug charges or spend the money, she said around £400,000 for the whole trial proceedings, to get these kids off the streets and into programs that would help and educate them to make a better life for themselves. I wanted to ask her so many questions but she had other customers needing her attention but i’m glad to have had a conversation with someone who gave me a little insight to my question about rehabilitation within the criminal justice program. It definitely sounds like there is not a program set up to help criminals get out of the “rut” of reoffending or general help to get people off the streets.
If she/I had the time I would have loved to ask her what her thought of magistrates were or what general conception of them were with a family background of barristers were.
After hearing one side of thoughts I wonder what a more conservative side of thinking would be on the rehabilitative side of criminal justice.

May 13- Day 5
The Baths
Lacock
Stonehenge
On our first free day I decided to do a tour of Stonehenge with two others from our group; Jennifer and Tori. We got a small tour of Victoria and Kensington with some information about Princess Diana and some of the historic buildings including the Victoria and Albert Meseum and Natural History Museum. We did a short stop at The Baths which is a natural hot spring that the Romans discover and created a bath house around. We then went to the town of Lacock which is about a 400 year old farming town. Our last stop was Stonehenge on a private tour which we got to go into the inner circle. We learned some interesting laws about the land along the way. Around the late 1600’s there was a window tax. While building a house if you had more than 9 windows you would be charged a window tax to add more. This is also where term “stealing daylight” came from. Another weird law was there was a death estate tax. Anyone who passed away and their estate was being handed down to their kin would have to pay 10% of what the estate was worth. If you were not able to pay the tax you could “loan” your land to the Land of Trustees. At that point they would take over the land but would allow your to still live on it.
Though there may to have been any criminal justice related topics while on the way to our destinations it did give me time to reflect on some of the things that I found to be interesting in reguards to some of the differences in the U.S. and England’s criminal justice systems. Something that I have noticed is that in England committing a crime is a serious thing but they do not seem to spend much time on the rehabilitative aspects. After watching the Magistrates court it is clear that they have habitual criminals, are aware of it but just accept that the offender will be back in court for another crime. I feel in the U.S. we try to prevent hibitual criminals a little more. I do not know if maybe we have longer sentence or higher fines that may deter some criminals from committing again? Much like the U.S. the lower courts seem to work about the same outside of a magistate instead of a judge. Something I thought was extremely unusual was that the magistate, who is a volunteer with no legal background, can issue a warrant.
We have spent the last week learning about the court aspect of criminal justice that i’m excited for next week with learning more about the policing. One thing I wish we had time for and maybe I will be able to ask someone along the way is their forensic side of criminal justice. How are their crime scene investigators trained? Do they have some of the same issues we have with mishandleing evidence? Do they have the same procedures like a chain of custody? Are the police trained to handle crime scenes or are they all civilian investigators?

May 12- Day 4
Thames Magistrate Court to watch the Courts
Walking Tour with Phillip
Clink Prison Museum
We began the day with going to the Thames Magistrate Court to witnes actual court hearings. I decided to go into court room number 7 where people the defendant had been taken ino custody with in a day or two and we going to give their plea. The first case was of a man who had stolen £26 worth of chocolate from a local Tesco store. We learned that the man was homeless and suffered from schizophrenia and had other theft charges on his record. He pleaded guilty to his charges. His defense solicitor then plead his case to try to lower the sentence. It was determined by the magistrates that he would either have to pay £100 fine or spend one day in jail. Since he had already spent two nights in jail they determine his sentence had already been served and let him go.
The second case that we saw was a man who had broken into many cars and was a being charged with multiple counts of attempted robbery. He plead not guilty. At this point the court was trying to decide if they should keep the case in the Magistrate Courts or if they should send it up to the Crown Court. After some back and fourth between the prosecutor and the defense about the discovery phase it was determine that the defendant would get a jury trial in the Magistrates court.
One thing that I noticed was the court seemed very disorganized. Not everyone seemed to have the same information or the information they had was incorrect. I have not spent much time in any U.S. Courts to know if this is something common or not. One thing that was very different was the fact that the legal advisor ran the court not the magistrates. In the U.S. the judge is the one who reads charges but in England the legal advisor was the one to read the charges. Another odd thing was  the amount of people involved. There seems to be a lof of people that are apart of the lower court system: magistrates, legal advisors, prosecution, defense, probation office, bailiffs/guards, legal representative and a clerk. It seems like a lot of people that each know one piece of th court puzzle.

The walking tour we had with Phillip was informative with some historic connections between the U.S. and London. Though not everything was related to criminal justice it was interesting to see the Marshall C Prison wall and that ant debt crimes you could not be arrested for after dark or on the weekends.
I would like to know if when you get called to be a Magistrate for the day if you are instructed if you’ll be the lead Magistrate or if that is something that even exist? When we were in the court room there seemed to be a lead Magistrate who did all the talking to the solicitors while the other two sat back and just listened to the cases.

May 11- Day 3
Magistrate Annie
British Library
In the morning we got to meet with Annie a Lay Magistrate who instructed us on what she does. We learned that a lay Magistrate is like the Justice of the Peace but they are volunteers. Magistrates get continual training and have a legal advisor in the court to assist them with any legal questions since they do not have any prior qualifications or legal training. They have a basic guideline for sentencing if the defendant pleads guilty. Magistrates hear all cases in the lower courts from petty thefts, cruelty to animals and non-complaints with planning. One thing that was really surprising to me was that they are able to approve search warrants, which is extremely different from the U.S. Something that was very similar is that the Courts try to get the defendant to take a plea and offer plea bargains. Also much like the U.S. each defendant has the right to counsel. England does have something similar to a pubic defender but because of decrease in funding there aren't as many of them and more people are self representing. If a defendant pleads guilty they may move straight into sentencing. At that point the magistrates can request the criminal records from the probation officer to help determine their sentence. With any sentencing the magistrates have to give a reason why they gave that sentence especially if they deviated from the sentencing guidelines. Sentencing is much like the U.S. where you have to pay a fine, serve time or do community service. If a defendant pleads not guilty and the offense is a summary offense, which is the lowest offense it will remain in the magistrates court and a trial hearing will bet set at a later date.
 I found it very interesting that someone with no legal background and is a volunteer can decide the fate of a defendant.
I would like to know what defendants or in general what people think about magistrates and their role in the courts?

May 10- Day 2
Walking tour around Parliament Square with Jo Ann
Tour with Tim and counter terrorism information
The day began with a tour around Parliament Square where were learned more about the House of Lords, House of Commons and the Supreme Court.  The House of Lords, which used to be the highest court of appeals is made up of Anglican Arch Bishops, hereditary peers and life peers.  25% of these people do not have political affilIation. The House of Lords is legislative part of the legal system which can be challenged. The House of Commons is more of the executive branch of parliament and is affiliated with a political party. The Supreme Court is the final court of appeals for England, North Ireland, and Wales. The judges are the Lords of Laws from the hour of lords.
What was the most interesting thing about the days lesson was the Supreme Court and lack of a written constitution. Because the constitution is not an official "document" it can be constantly changed with majority vote. The U.S. second amendment came directly from England's constitution but they abolished theirs many years ago. It was interesting to learn that since Parliament is basically the law of the land they can get rid of the Supreme Court if they wanted. Since the Supreme Court is a new concept to England many Brits still thought that the House of Lords was still the highest court of the land. This is so off from the U.S. Where everyone knows that the Supreme Court is the "law of the land" where Parliament is the "law of the land." We discussed a little bit about policing and the fact that majority do not carry a gun. This was so amazing considering that every police officer in the U.S. carries a gun since criminals can carry a gun.
Today was more of the political side of criminal justice with learning about the House of Lords, House of Commons and the Supreme Court and how they all work. Though these sectors do have parts of the legal system by passing legislation it was interesting to compare how the political parties set up basically a reform of the current constitution.
I would still be interested in knowing what parts of our constitution came from England? We learned that the Second amendment was word for word and parts of the Eighth came from England.

May 9- Day 1
London's School of Economics to get information about London from Kathleen.
Heart of Legal London walking tour with Jo Ann.
The day began with a lecture from Kathleen that gave us a little overview of London and what difference there was between England and the U.S. One of the biggest thing that I thought was interesting was that London was the central hub for politics, finance, film and technology for England where in the U.S. All of those things happen in different states and cities. Another big difference is that parliament has all the power and can decide to give power to the lower level or take it back and that local governments do not have independent existence. The laws are for the entire country and do not differ from state to state or boroughs. There is only one system for police forces where in the U.S. each state has their own laws and enforcement.
Next we went on a walking tour through Legal London, this included the Court Inn's and the Royal Courts of Justice. This were learned the difference between a solicitor and a barrister and what each Inn specialized in. I found it interesting that each Inn had their own symbol, church and dining hall. It was also shocking to hear that 95% of the trials are publicly funded. My favorite part of the tour was the Royal Courts of Justice. First off the building itself was beautiful! But it was really amazing to sit in on a criminal appeals case. Something that I thought was really interesting was how quickly their courts processes cases and appeals. Another interesting fact was that judges are appointed not elected. The judges also may have studied or specialized in one section of law but when appointed may rule on another section they do not specialize in.
In conclusion it was a fun and informative day. It was fun to hear the history of the buildings and what they stood for. It was exciting to sit in on a court case and see for the most part of how a criminal appeals case is conducted with getting an immediate opinion of the court. One thing I found odd was that the defendant was present via satellite and not actually in the court room. They cannot communicate with their layers like most U.S. defendants can. One of the questioned I had prior to coming to London was what stops a solicitor from always using a specific barrister for every case? I learned that generally the solicitor contacts a barrister's office and could request a specific barrister but if they are busy the office will suggest or appoint another qualified barrister to the case. Since the court cases are conducted very quickly and within a time period the judges decide, the barristers have to oblige by the date or it is  basically thrown out.
A question that I still have is when choosing to become a solicitor or a barrister do you get to chose if you work for the prosecution or defense? I intend to ask Jo Ann this question or do further research on solicitors and barristers.