The Probable Cause

5 days ago | theprobablecause.com | Jamie Duffy

ALENÇON, FRANCE ---In France, businesses who have a beef don’t take their argument to a civil court. They take it to a Tribunal de Commerce, a specialized court where the matter is judged by volunteer judges known as juges de commerce. These judges are businessmen elected by their peers and, after being elected, must undertake training. Any training is very important in France.

6 days ago | theprobablecause.com | Jamie Duffy

ALENÇON, France ---Next week in the Tribunal in Alençon, a murder trial is scheduled (May 12-16.) This week (the week before), nothing was scheduled in the Cour d’Assizes (trial court.) France is divided into departments and Alençon and Caen have the two major courts in the Orne department. In Caen, there is the appeals court (cour d’appel.) See related article. If I’d known about the murder trial, I might have tried to change my travel plans and unfortunately I have no information on the crime.

1 week ago | theprobablecause.com | Jamie Duffy

Caen, France ---I’m not sure what I was expecting when I attended the morning hearing at the Cour D’Appel in Caen. But one thing for sure, I expected cases to carry some gravity, possibly the same weight you might assign to a case in the state of Indiana’s Court of Appeals. Instead, the cases were run-of-the-mill assault, battery and hit-and-run, the kind of cases normally settled in county courts.

2 weeks ago | theprobablecause.com | Jamie Duffy

OXFORD, UK ----At Oxford (UK) Magistrate’s Court, court matters can be a hodgepodge of criminal cases. It’s like a morning session at Allen County Superior Court during initial hearings. Tuesday (April 29), the first one to appear was Aaron Dos Santos, probably somewhere in his 30s, who got cross with court officials for not producing his papers. The officials he criticized included the three seated magistrates, the legal advisor and the prosecutor who did appear a little disorganized.

2 weeks ago | theprobablecause.com | Jamie Duffy

OXFORD, UK---Three years ago, four men attacked and robbed a man of his £128,000 Mille watch just outside St. Aldate’s Church in Oxford. The victim was sitting on a bench while his friend went next door to a sandwich shop to get some ice cream, a prosecutor said. The police studied the CCTV, closed circuit television found everywhere in the UK, I’m told, and determined one of the men to be Walid Sadaqui, an Algerian national.