18th Century British Courtroom Proceedings

From what I know of English court procedures (not one of my specialties), there was little change in the procedures from the 1600's through the 1800's. The procedures slowly became more fixed. In earlier times the judge had more control over the court. In criminal proceedings there would have been a jury in moost cases. The Barristers (and they were known as barristers since before 1600) would have been able to make an opening statement. The rules of evidence would have been much as they are today. Be careful how you describe the law that was allegedly broken.

Rhoda - Go down this main page to historical genre, resources by era (a sticky) and see if there's anything there that will help you out. You might also want to post a comment in that forum sending people from there up here to respond to your question. There's a lot of British knowledge in the historical group that hangs out down there. Puma

The following suggestions are based on my experience as a barrister in Canada but I doubt very much that they would have changed in the last couple of hundred years and are likelly enough what would have been the situation in England. The judges are not addressed as Your Honour, they would be referred to as Your Lordship or My Lord.

The Barristers would reference each other as 'my friend' along the lines of

"as my friend has said.."

If they want to be nastier about it it would be along the lines of
"with all due respect to my learned friend"

And if they really, really want to put down the opposition it would

"Your Lordship has heard the submssions of my very learned friend.."

Don't forget that their dialogue would use lots of little Latin tid bits since all of them would have learned Latin at school and it was the mark of an educated man.

Don't forget, they wear robes and not the tacky little things that US judges wear. We're talking yards and yards of black material with bpleats and buttons down past the knee and they're hotter than hell in the summer. Senior lawyers wear silk robes but juniors wear wool ones. When you made the grade, senior counsel might present you with silk robes and you were said to have "taken the silk".

The robes have a strange little elogogated bit of black cloth hanging at the back which represents a purse. That bit of tradition got started about 300 years (??) ago when some monarch or other got tired of lawyers getting in the way of the king's justice and passed some legislation that denied fees to laywers. So they hung a purse in the back sort of over the shoulder and the client would stuff gold in it. That way the laywer could deny that he'd sought payment for his fees. It's a tradition in that it represents the independence of laywers from the control of the state.

Don't forget as well, that they would be wearing wigs. We don't wear them were I practice. In fact about 20 years ago, the younger lawyers brouht a motion before the bar to abolish the wearing of robes. The older ones brought a motion to bring back wigs. Neither motion passed and so it remains the status quo ante.

Hope that helps .

You might want to have a look at Garrow's Law, a new BBC drama which is a legal drama inspired by the life of pioneering 18th century barrister William Garrow.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nvt7z

Don't know if BBC iPlayer will work where you are, it works for me.

What Waylander said!

You could use a Star Chamber approach instead if you end up not liking the legal courts. i.e. Magicians administer their own enforcement of magical laws that is separate from the courts. This would also imply that magicians had a guild/council/other organisation.

I think that you might find some useful stuff in Dickens or Pepys although I don't know of any specifics.

Edit: There are courtroom scenes in Dickens' Oliver Twist (1838)

I also suggest the BBC version of Bleak House. Go for the one with Gillian Anderson in it. Fantastic. The whole show is about a court case in the 1800's. Granted, it's mostly about the characters than the case itself but there's enough in there to make it worth your while.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber

Check out the website Proceedings of the Old Bailey, especially their background articles on Crime, Justice and Punishment.

Rhoda Nightingale:
Since this is an alternate universe, I'm comfortable monkeying around with some things, but I want to start with a clearer idea of what would happen. Do the attorneys give an opening statement? Is there a jury? Is the judge referred to as "Your Honor?" Are there different names than "defendent" and "plaintiff" to refer to my accused magician and his accuser?

Click to expand...

I'd definitely recommend trying to watch an episode of Garrow's Law if you can do so because it gets a lot of the basic procedure right (which it should, given that it's taken from real cases and features a real 18th century barrister).

Failing that, Liza Picard's Dr Johnson's London is an invaluable introduction to all aspects of 18th century life between 1740 and 1770 and Chapter 15 looks at crime and punishment (including trials). It's the first resource I turn to when I'm doing anything about the period.

To answer your queries though, there would be a jury but only men of property or certain wealth were entitled to serve and there were rights of challenge and pre-emption for the defendant. This was about the only right that a defendant had though because assuming s/he had a barrister (and most of them didn't), the defending barrister wasn't actually allowed to say anything in their defence or cross-examine witnesses.

The defendant would usually be referred to as the "accused" and unless the judge/jury were feeling particularly generous, was very likely to be found guilty.

Judges were typically referred to as "my Lord" (magistrates were addressed as "your honour").

Hope that's of some use.

MM

Airella - BIG thanks for the link. Just what I need, too. Terrific site.

When...

you're stuck for historical resources it pays to remember there is, down in Genres, Historical, a sticky called Resources by Era.

The resources have been gathered from writers who share their best resource finds, and so it covers a wide range, books, websites, DVDs, and sound recordings, and is quite comprehensive. The url for the Old Bailey records is there, along with much more.

Aargh! I missed it, pdr. And I've been through your list numerous times, too.

Thanks for putting the list together. It's been very useful to me.