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November 6

English Judges and USA Lawyers

The Late English High Court Judge Lord Atkin is remembered as the first English Judge to have a Law Degree prior to being appointed to the Bench. How did earlier judges receive their legal training if not in a university or law school? And secondly, if US Lawyers are graduates who have earned a JD degree (Doctor of Laws), why don't they use that title (Doctor) as do medical, dental, veterinarian, pharmacological, musical and other doctoral graduates. Thanks. 94.174.140.161 (talk) 14:07, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Answering your question about US lawyers: First, JD is not a doctor of laws (you're thinking of a LL.D.), but a Juris Doctor. As to why they still don't call themselves "doctor", it's probably historical practice. The JD requirement is a fairly recent thing; there are a number of standing American judges, for instance, who only hold a LL.B. Another issue is what to do with foreign lawyers who only hold a foreign LL.B. and an American LL.M. (as such you can't presume any lawyer holds a JD, though most younger ones do). There may also be prohibitions on lawyer advertising related to calling oneself a "doctor" without holding a Ph.D. or other professional doctorate. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 14:46, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Historically, English barristers were trained at the Inns of Court, followed by a period of pupillage with a practicing barrister. This system is largely still in place today, although a university degree is now an additional requirement. The old university degree of DCL was based on Roman Civil law, and not particularly useful for a practicing English lawyer (any more than getting a degree in military history makes someone a soldier). Tevildo (talk) 15:22, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Law school" in the UK may now be used of an institution attached to a university, but traditionally it referred to either the Inns of Court School of Law or the College of law, neither of which used to grant degrees.

As for the use of titles, I don't know about lawyers in the US, but I can offer some parallels in medicine in the UK: here most medical doctors do not hold a doctorate at all, but the MBBS qualification; but ordinary doctors, whether in hospital or general practice, use the title "Dr". However, senior surgeons, and most dentists, do not use the title "Dr", but just "Mr", "Mrs" etc. --ColinFine (talk) 18:10, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In the U.S., standard practice is that the following people use "Dr." as a title rather than Mr. or Mrs: 1) Any medical professional holding a doctorate-level degree (MD (medical), DDS (dentist), OD (optometrist), etc.) 2) Religious leaders holding a theological doctorate (Doctor of Theology or equivalent), 3) Holders of PhDs in academic settings, usually tenure-track positions (assistant, associate, or full professor) at an educational institutions. Holders of other doctorates in the U.S. do not often use "Dr." as a title, for example holders of PhDs in professional or industrial settings (such as a chemist working in a pharmaceutical lab). There are sometimes other people who earn doctorates and use the title, but it is usually thought of as an affectation in those cases (that is, technically true, but a bit pretentious). A famous example I can think of is Dr. Jack Ramsay, the basketball coach... --Jayron32 19:17, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, certainly Down Here there are people who are medically trained non-PhD "doctors" (of humans or animals), who continue to use their "Doctor" title even after progressing to different careers. For example, Brendan Nelson was a GP-type doctor, then he headed the Australian Medical Association, then in 1996 he went into politics, became Leader of the Opposition, became a diplomat, and now runs the Australian War Memorial. But "Dr Nelson" he remains. Then there's Denis Napthine, who was a veterinarian before entering politics; he's now Premier of Victoria (at least until the 29 November state election). I doubt he's even seen many animals since 1988 when he first entered parliament, but he still gets called "Dr Napthine". Some senior military ranks tend to continue their titles after retirement or career change, but that doesn't apply to police officers. Doctors, who in most cases were never doctors in the same sense as other doctors are doctors, seem to be a special case. PhDs never lose their qualifications; but GPs are doctors who remain doctors after ceasing to be doctors. Neat trick. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:01, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In Australia and the UK, when a physician is awarded their bachelor degree, they receive an honorary doctorate as well. However, this usage is not mentioned in honorary degree.
Sleigh (talk) 02:30, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

According to the MBBS article, most Australian medical schools are now issuing MDs instead of MBBS. Hack (talk) 03:51, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sleigh, can you provide a citation for the claim that MB/MBBS graduands are awarded honorary doctorates in Australia? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:28, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

... and the UK, for that matter. I'm sure this isn't correct - perhaps just confusion from the fact the medics are called "Doctor X" when they usually don't have doctorates. (In the UK, dentists and vets are never called "doctor".) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 21:36, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There was a case a few years ago ([1]) when the ASA prevented a dentist calling himself "Doctor", and the BDA objected - I don't know what the final result was, I'm afraid. Tevildo (talk) 00:00, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, yes, the famous Arthur Lemming case. μηδείς (talk) 18:24, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On the original question, please see our Reading law article. Nyttend (talk) 13:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An attack at Chelmsford station (Essex, England)

Late October I saw on the site of the BBC CCTV footage of an attack on a blind deaf man and his brother that took place on February 20 at Chelmsford station (Essex, England). There was also an article: the two attackers were sentenced to 22 months and 9 months. Does anyone happen to know the circumstances of the attack (e.g. the reason)? What kind of sentence would you get for similar facts in your part of the world? Contact Basemetal here 15:13, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Because both men pleaded guilty, there wouldn't have been much of a trial and so the reason why they attacked the man probably wasn't aired in open court (and hence isn't being reported). Counsel for the defence may have made some remarks in mitigation prior to sentencing which might shed some light on the circumstances, but the press don't seem to be reporting anything along those lines. --Viennese Waltz 15:31, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can't answer either of your questions, but can offer some references and observations that may answer some thoughts that may or may not be behind your questions.

English law has a variety of offences covering events similar to this, whose names are often misused, mixed up or abbreviated by the media. Thus affray is an offence, and there is also assault; assault occasioning actual bodily harm; "Wounding or Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm"; and "Wounding or Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent". We can note that neither of the attackers were convicted of attempted murder, which they could have been if a jury had been convinced that they pushed the victims onto the track with the intention of them being hit by an oncoming train. I am also going to presume (for reasons I shall explain, in addition to the media report not using the phrase), that the GBH conviction was not with Intent.

Normally we see actual bodily harm and grievous bodily harm convictions in the context of the injuries suffered by the victim. Thus very commonly grievous bodily harm is the charge if the victim suffers, for example, a broken limb; and actual bodily harm for lesser injuries (which might be as minor as cuts and bruises).

However, the sentencing guideline lists the physical injuries as only one of numerous factors used to decide the level of harm and culpability, which together are used to decide the "offense category".

So of particular note in this case, the sentencing guidelines mention the following possible factors as requiring consideration:

the level of psychological harm
"Victim is particularly vulnerable because of personal circumstances"
"Offence motivated by, or demonstrating, hostility to the victim based on the victim's disability (or presumed disability)"
"Deliberate targeting of vulnerable victim"

We could therefore postulate that neither victim suffered serious or even significant physical injuries, but based on other factors the GBH offence was deemed as "Category 2: Greater harm (serious injury must normally be present) and lower culpability; or lesser harm and higher culpability". The starting point for this category is an 18 month prison sentence, and the offender got a 22 month prison sentence. Thus the Crown Court has chosen a higher category to reflect the factors you mention in your post, but not been especially severe with the sentence (the maximum for this offence, in any category, is 60 months) - partly because the category chosen already takes those factors into account.

Potential factors such as early guilty pleas, first offence, or other mitigation might have helped to achieve that not especially severe sentence within the framework of the sentencing guidelines.

It is worth noting that for "Wounding or Inflicting Grievous Bodily Harm with Intent", for the same category, has a starting point of a 72 month prison sentence (instead of 18). Attempted murder has various dissimilar categories, with starting points from 84 months to 360 months. So we have there a range of sentencing recommendations (72 to 360 months) that perhaps better reflect the kind of sentence you might expect in these circumstances. But, the assailants were not convicted of either of those offences.

Lest I may appear to be overly defensive of the Crown Court in this instance, I will also note that this is the sort of case where commentators often mention the detail that the more serious offender in this case could easily end up serving less than a year in prison. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:24, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No-one has attempted to answer the OP's second question, which is a pity. Could someone make an attempt at it, even briefly? User:Baseball Bugs, you're in the USA, can you offer any sources or estimates or, ahem, guesses? Anyone else? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:25, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Guessing is actively discouraged here, Demiurge. It's a policy that is sometimes more honoured in the breach than the observance; but please don't be actually inviting guesses. We'll get enough of them without any prompting. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:42, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm not mistaken there've been legal experts answering recent legal questions here. Maybe they could offer more than guesses regarding what would happen in analogous circumstances elsewhere. As an aside: Is there such a thing as plea bargaining in England? If yes, would the guilty plea have resulted from such a process? (Trying to understand what seems, at first sight, like a fairly lenient sentence, although part of the reason I asked about other parts of the world was to get a sense if this was justified). Incidentally (before I forget) thanks to Viennese Waltz and Demiurge for their help trying to answer these questions. Contact Basemetal here 21:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Watergate Babies

Is there information who (journalist? news paper? TV commentator ...) coined this term? ("Where does it appear first?") Anybody has access to dictionaries which could supply the required information? GEEZER^{nil nisi bene} 16:30, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Watergate babies" first appears in Google's corpus in 1972, see ngram here: [2]. OED doesn't have a separate entry for "Watergate baby" but their entry for Watergate in this sense also has first use in 1972:New Republic 19 Aug. 4 "The very name, ‘the Watergate caper’, tells how funny it is". [3] SemanticMantis (talk) 16:46, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given the amount of time that has passed... we could probably start calling them "Watergate geezers". Blueboar (talk) 16:08, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please help me find the source of this story.

There once was a very poor couple. The man said to his wife that he would go out and seek his fortune. He met demon(s). The demon(s) challenged the man in brawniness, but the man's intelligence outwitted the demons. The first time was that the man tricked the demons that he could make the earth cry. In reality, he placed an egg below his feet, underneath the earth. The second time was that the man tricked the demons that he could remove an entire forest and not just one tree, which frightened the demon(s) because the forest was the demon(s)'s home. The third time was that the man placed stones on his bed, while he slept below the bed, thereby tricking the demons that they might have killed the man at night. The man left with the demon's treasures and took them home to his family or village. Then, there was a fox that had a conversation with the demon, which made the demon realize how much he/she/it (not sure about the sex of the demon, as I basically learned of the story orally, even though the original story was said to be written) had been fooled. The demon went to the man's house, but the man tricked him again by saying that the fox was trying to trick one demon instead of a whole family of demons. This made the demon angry at the fox and killed the fox. Does anybody know the source of this story? 140.254.227.92 (talk) 17:34, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That could be a distorted story featuring a kitsune ( see also Kuda-gitsune, or visit spirit-foxes-and-raunchy-demons-in-japanese-netsuke-art ), as kitsune are not intended to be killed in stories where they appear. Foxes appear in many native folkores, including Russian, Indian, North-American. --Askedonty (talk) 07:27, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This feels like something that should have a chengyu (Chinese idiom) associated with it. I've never been good at finding those, though. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 13:02, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It reminds me of a medieval Latin story on one of the old exams we used for translation practise in grad school. But I can't remember any other details... Adam Bishop (talk) 01:19, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the man stole from the demons to enrich himself, I'm trying to figure why they are demons and he isn't. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:18, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe he was a Republican, and he was going to use the proceeds to trickle down jobs to the poor, lazy demons, who were probably illegal immigrants from Kenya anyway. Yeah, that's it. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:12, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Or from that little known Caribbean nation, Pandemonia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:56, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder who the ambassadors from Pandemonia to Gibberania and vice-versa are. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:01, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The one is Gog, and the other is his mother, Ma Gog. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:58, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]