Help, I'm American


I just started the second series/season and see that the victim's family selected the prosecuting attorney. Is that really how it works in the UK? We have to use a District Attorney to prosecute for the state here in the States. Also, how realistic is it to have both attorneys/solicitors as well as the judge be female? Of course we have female attorneys and judges but the chance of them all being female at one high profile trial isn't likely to happen here but perhaps the UK is more forward thinking or is this the UK Hollywood version of how things might be?

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I'm American too, and I happen to work in the legal field.

Where I live and work, close to half of the judges are women (judges here rotate, so all of them get a chance to hear criminal trials), and the judge in charge of the "Major Trial Division" is a woman. Our local Bar Association and Inns of Court chapter has lots of women members. So yes, a major trial could indeed have 3 women participating. Broadchurch is not a huge city, so I think it could be analogous to where I live (small-ish city in Florida).

We also don't have anything called a District Attorney here. When I lived in NYC we did, but not here. Here we call them State Attorneys and, unlike in NYC, they are elected for the judicial circuit as a whole (we have 20 "judicial circuits," each made up of at least one county, usually more) not for an individual county. In other words, the judicial system in the US is organized on a state-by-state basis. While there is a Federal court system, even those courts have separate rules on a state-by-state basis. We have Florida Rules of Court - Federal in my office here, but in, say, Oklahoma, they'd have Oklahoma Rules of Court - Federal. There are similarities, but there are also differences. And, speaking of differences, don't get me started on Louisiana. They still use the Napoleonic system instead of the British Common Law system which the rest of us do.

As an aside, solicitors do not do trial work. That's the job of a barrister. A solicitor can write your will for you or help you set up your business, but s/he would not be representing you in the courtroom. Also, a solicitor would not be appointed to be a judge.

As for this series, there is so much wrong with the courtroom scenes that all I can do is to recommend that you peruse the old threads. There is a lot of discussion about the courtroom scenes and a variety of topics was covered.

http://currentscene.wordpress.com

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Thank you for the legal education. It is very helpful. Have you ever heard of the victim or victim's family choosing the attorney/barrister to prosecute? Regardless of the job title, doesn't the 'state' choose the procecutor?

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No. In the previous threads, which IMDB purged a while ago, prosecuting barrister would have been chosen by the court, not the Latimers.

Here's an article from last year when a UK lawyer was asked about the court case errors. The Latimers getting to pick Jocelyn was one of the errors.
http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-01-14/broadchurch-legal-what-does-a-real-criminal-barrister-think-of-the-court-drama

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Though I have nothing to add to the excellent replies you have already received, I must thank you for the amusing thread title.

It sounds like one in a series of useful guidebooks for bewildered travelers, "Help, I'm British", "Help, I'm Scandinvian", "Help, I'm Japanese". 

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