2020 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction Shortlist

The shortlist for the 2020 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction has been announced by the University of Alabama. The following books from the 21 entries were chosen:

1.) The Satapur Moonstone by
Sujata Massey;

2.) The Hallows by Victor
Methos; and,

3.) An Equal Justice by Chad Zunker.

I have already read The Satapur Moonstone and thought it an excellent book. I plan to read the remaining two books on the shortlist and provide my reviews and thoughts on the best book.

It is interesting that it is the second year in a row Massey has had a book on the shortlist. Last year it was The Widows of Malabar Hill, the first in the Perveen Mistry series.

I am not familiar with the other two authors.

The press release from the University of Alabama School of Law did not include any reference to the ABA Journal. In recent years the Journal has invited readers to vote for their choice on the shortlist with the readers choice to be one vote for the winning novel. I will be watching the Journal to see if readers get a vote. I thought it good way to promote interest in the Award.

The judging panel for 2019 will be:

         A'Lelia Bundles, author and journalist
         Dr. James A. Crank, UA associate professor of
         English specializing in American literature and
         culture 
         Jesse Holland, journalist, author and  
         Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Kluge
         Center in the Library of Congress
         David Mao, associate president and chief 
         operating officer for Georgetown University 
         Law Center
         C.E. Tobisman, attorney and winner of the 2018 
         Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction

Of that group I know C.E. Tobisman having read her book, Proof, which was the 2018 Prize winner.

The Award will be presented later this year. There were no particulars about the presentation. Traditionally it has been given out at the Library of Congress during the National Book Festival.

Following my reading practice I plan to read the shortlist and provide posts on each book and my thoughts on the winner.

It is a special year for the Prize as 2020 is the 10th Anniversary for the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

The English Girl by Daniel Silva

(20. - 1045.) The English Girl by Daniel Silva - An English rose, Madeline Hart, disappears in Corsica. Her future had been bright:

With her television good looks, keen intellect, and boundless energy, Madeline was being groomed for a safe seat in Parliament and a ministry of her own. It was only a matter of time. Or so they said.

A few weeks later a video is delivered to the Prime Minister’s director of communications, Simon Hewitt, in which Madeline speaks of her sexual relationship with the PM, Jonathan Lancaster. With it is a sheet of paper that says:

You have seven days, or the girl dies.

He passes it on to the PM’s Chief of Staff, Jeremy Fallon, who contacts Graham Seymour of MI5 who reaches out  to Gabriel Allon, Israeli intelligence agent and assassin and art restorer. Calling on a favour Seymour asks Allon to find Madeline.

I was hooked.

Where should he even start? French police were unable to find a trace of her or even identify the man with whom she had lunch the day of her disappearance.

Not surprisingly Allon looks to contacts in organized crime who have access to different sources of information than the police.

He further contacts an expatriate Englishman, Christopher Keller, who is a former member of British special forces and British Intelligence. Keller is making a living in the dark shadows of the world.

I was surprised by a mystical element to Keller’s life. He wears a talisman and has faith in the visions of an elderly Corsican woman concerning the future.

As the search becomes more complicated Gabriel is called to a meeting at 10 Downing Street:

After a lifetime of service in the secret world, Gabriel had lost count of the number of times he had entered a room in crisis. The nature and setting didn’t seem to matter; it was always the same. One man pacing the carpet, another staring numbly out a window. And still another trying desperately to appear calm and in control, even when there was no contol to be had.

When the kidnapper specifically demands Gabriel handle the ransom it is clear there is clearly a personal connection between the kidnapper and Allon.

There is a disaster and Gabriel seeks revenge.

Gabriel’s search for the mastermind “Paul” is the best part of the book. Where the early section relied heavily on violence there was more intelligence in pursuing Paul.

You need to suspend some disbelief on what the Israeli Secret Service might do for an agent’s personal vendetta but the convincing of Israeli leadership was well done.

Tension built for a classic thriller ending.

The bodies piled up rather easily early in the book but there were none for several hundred pages.

Silva is skilled at moving the thriller forward. I wanted to read the next page and the next and the next. Yet I wished Gabriel used his fine mind more than his killing skills. It is smoothly written but I am ambivalent about reading another in the series.

****

Silva, Daniel – (2000) - The Marching Season; (2001) - The Kill Artist; (2003) - The Confessor; (2009) – The Secret Servant

Tibetan Demon Masks

In The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison the Buddhist faith is ever present. In Tibetan Buddhism spirits and demons play important roles. In the book a demon, Tamdin the Horse-headed, is involved in a series of murders.

Pattison describes a costume made for the demon protector, Tamdin:

The magnificent costume was here, its face a savage bulging mask of red lacquered wood, four fangs in its mouth, a ring of skulls at its neck, a tiny, ferocious, green horse head rising about its golden hair.

The costume includes arms for the wearers which end in clawed hands.

It is a terrifying sight to encounter Tamdin in daytime, let alone night when he moves about most freely.

Looking around the internet provided examples of the masks used in Tibetan ceremonies.

While I could not find Tamdin masks I found Hayagriva mass. Hayagriva, known as the horse-necked one, is chief among the wrathful emmations in Tibetan Buddhism.

I know little of Tibetan celebrations but I found some dramatic photos of Cham dancers wearing demon masks.

From Wiipedia:

The dances is accompanied by music played by monks using

traditional Tibetan musical instruments. The daces often offer

moral instruction regarding to karuns (compassion) for sentient

beings and are held to bring merit to all who perceive them.

Chams are considered a form of meditation and an offering to

the gods. The leader of the cham is typically a musician,

keeping time using some percussion instrument like cymbals,

the one exception being Dramyin Cham, where is kept using

dramyin.

The term "devil dance" was an early 20th Century Western

description of the performance, its name was derived from the

costumes worn by performers.

What a sight those dances must be in real life. I wish I could attend a cham dance.

****

Pattison, Eliot - The SkullMantra - Begun and Finished and Tibetan Demon Masks

The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison Finished

In my last post I started a review of The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison. It is an intriguing thriller set in Tibet in the late 1990’s. Shan, a prisoner on a work brigade, is chosen to conduct a show inquiry into a murder. Shan, formerly a top level investigator in Beijing, cannot do a superficial examination of the facts and is given latitude by Colonel Tan.

Shan patiently commences his investigation by studying the location where the body was found. He asks another prisoner, Jilin, who is a murderer, his professional opinion on why the body was left there rather than tossed over the nearby cliff. Jilin explains:

“Someone told me once about a tree falling down in the mountains. It don’t make a sound if no one’s there to hear. A killing with no one to appreciate it, what’s the point? A good murder, that requires an audience.”

When the head is found the status of the murdered man means his death cannot be bureaucratically confined to file obscurity. Tan is confident Shan will not flee or fail to do his duty for the lives of his fellow prisoners will be forfeit if he disappears or shirks his responsibility.

There is a special bond between Shan and the monks forged in the misery of their imprisonment. The lama, Chotje, physically shielded Shan from a beating by a guard on Shan’s arrival.

While a convenient killer is avaiable Colonel Tan has unexpected integrity in wanting the actual killer found.

An unexpected character is Rebecca Fowler, an attractive American woman, who has come to manage a mine as China promotes the development of Tibet. Extroverted and outspoken she is a striking contrast to the reserved Chinese and even more reserved Tibetans.

She is precipitating rare minerals that have leached out of the volcanic rock of the mountains and accumulated over the centuries. It is a mine made of ponds.

As the investigation proceeds Shan learns of more murders and convenient killers being identified. The local people are resentful over Tibetan resisters being identified as the murderers. Shan provides the Colonel with a good socialist reason for finding the actual killer. Too many murders and Beijing may consider him negligent.

A competing investigation by the Assistant Prosecutor for the County is ready to convict the preferred killer.

The exploration of the mystical world of Tibetan Buddhism is fascinating. Demons inhabit the mountains. Ghosts are real. Rituals are vivid. Sorcerers wearing conical hats are respected and feared. Yeshe says:

“... To the old Buddhists, words were the most dangerous weapon of all.”

Yet there are so many government departments involved. Colonel Tan from the Army is in charge of the County. The Ministry of Justice has an important role in maintaining public order. The Ministry of Geology has a strong presence in regulating any actions involving the mountains. The Religious Affairs Bureau licences Buddhist activities. 

The mountains aid the meditations of the monks. They can retreat into reflections for hours to days to months to years. It is a spiritual world of an intensity beyond the Western mind.

Shan cannot question monks by conventional methods. They rarely respond directly. They ask questions in reply. They are sometimes in another world, a different reality. 

Shan recognizes a fundamental challenge of life:

Investigations, meditations, careers, relationships were much the same, he mused. They failed because no one thought to ask the right question.

The Tibetans believe a demon is killing Chinese officials.

One of the victims has been killed by small pebbles being dropped into his mouth until he suffocated. One of the pebbles is in the shape of a skull.

Burial rituals and those who prepare bodies provide evidence. For traditional Tibetans there are sky burials.

On almost every page there is a part of Tibetan life and culture filled with fascinating people. My next post will be about powerful masks.

The relationship between Yeshe and Shan deepens during the investigation. Yeshe had been a young monk before he was sent to university in China. As he works with Shan he contemplates his future and his spirituality.

Christians speak of being closer to heaven when atop mountains. Jesus went up mountains to pray. Tibetans, living on the highest mountains in the world are the closest people to God.

Pattison discourses on the American distance from God:

“.... The Buddhists, they have eight hot and eight cold hells. But there’s a whole new level in America. The worst one. The one where everyone’s tricked into ignoring their souls by being told they’re already in heaven.”

As the thoughtful Shan works through the conflicting information, the concealment of evidence, the efforts to mislead him he adopts a Tibetan approach to the investigation. He accepts it is “best to know of not knowing”. To solve the crimes he pursues an understanding of what he does not know.

All of the plot lines come together in a convincing and suspenseful ending.

The Skull Mantra is a brilliant book I wish I had read the book years ago. It is wonderful to read an intelligent thriller.

****

Pattison, Eliot - (2020) - The Skull Mantra - Begun

The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison Begun

(19. - 1044.) The Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison (1999) - Comrade Shan has been placed in a work brigade in the mountains of Tibet. They are in a Chinese gulag. His fellow prisoners in the 404th brigade are mainly Bhuddist priests. They are building roads to accommodate the colonists who are coming to occupy the land. Thousands and thousands of Chinese settlers will gradually dominate the local population. 

Shan has a rare spirit. He survived months of torture and fierce questioning when he was arrested for probing too deeply into corruption in Beijing. Serving an indefinite sentence he has endured 3 years in the brutal work camp. He has learned that he will never give up.

Shan is gradually discovering his inner God, his soul, under the guidance of an abbott. He joins in the evening prayers around an imaginary altar to which the monks offer invisible gifts.

Over the years he has become reflective:

Shan had become a connoisseur of fear, learning to appreciate its many textures and physical reactions. There was a vast difference, for example, between the fear of the torturer’s bootsteps and the fear of an avalanche descending on an adjacent work crew. And none compared to the fear that kept him awake nights as he searched through his miasma of exhaustion and pain, the fear of forgetting the face of his father. In the first days, during the haze of hypodermics and political therapy, he had come to realize how valuable fear could be. Sometimes only the fear had been real.

A headless body is discovered on the brigade’s worksite wearing real American jeans. Shan is brought before the fearsome Colonel Tan. The body is of an unknown unauthorized man. The clothes suggest a visitor to the region. A Ministry of Justice team is coming for an inspection and the Colonel does not want an unsolved death of a significant person awaiting them.

Having discovered Shan was formerly a top investigator in Bejing, the colonel wants him to conduct a short investigation and come up with a plausible explanation of the death. If he succeeds Shan can expect a modest improvement in his life as a prisoner. Tan does not realize Shan is an honest investigator no matter the consequences. Yet no matter the pressure on Shan it will be hard to come up with a report of accidental death for a decapitated man.

Shan does his best compiling an initial report within hours that says “the victim walked up a dangerous ridge at night and suffered a suden trauma to the neck …. possible explanations …, stumbled on a rock in darkness, fell upon razor-edge quartz …. fell onto a tool left by the construction brigade”. Even in the show reality of authoritian bureaucracy the explanations are recognized by the Colonel as fantasy.

Shan tries to help by suggesting they identify the victim as Taiwanese to avoid the attention if he was said to be a Chinese American. The Colonel thinks it could work until Shan says the doctor has noticed the head is missing and is unlikely to sign off on the report.

From past experience Shan says there must be a political explanation of the murder. The Colonel learns the monks will not work upon the mountain because of jungpo:

“It translates as hungry ghost. A soul released by a violent action, unprepared for death. Unless death rites can be conducted on the mountain, the ghost will haunt the scene of the death. It will be angry. It will bring bad luck. The devout will not go near the place.”

The colonel seizes upon their reaction to demand a report that “the 404th caused this death as an excuse to halt their work”. Shan is crushed. Such a report would bring harsher punishment on the monks who have become his family. Can he find another explanation that would be satisfactory to the Ministry? He knows the monks would want him to find out the truth no matter the cost to them.

There are deft tidbits of information. Tibetans are derisively called locusts by the Chinese because of “the droning sounds of their mantras”.

The colonel provides him with an assistant, Yeshe, a young Tibetan who had studied in China but has just completed two years of re-education at the labour camp. He has computer skills and is accustomed to dealing with reports. He does not want to be Shan’s assistant but has no choice.

My second post on The Skull Mantra will discuss the investigation.

Winning at the Casino and Losing in Court

In my last 3 posts I have been discussing The Baccarat Case edited by W. Teignmouth Shore in which Sir William Gordon-Cuming lost his reputation when he was accused of cheating at baccarat in 1891. His attempt to restore his honour by a defamation action against his accusers proved disastrous when the jury took a mere 13 minutes to dismiss his claim of slander.

I thought there would be no further major cases involving cheating at baccarat for the game is among the simplest of card games but I was wrong.

In 2016 professional American gambler, Phil Ivey, went to trial against Genting Casinos in England. He was seeking to collect 7.7 million he had won in two sessions of gambling at Punto Banco, a variation of baccarat. (Ivey is also known as one of the best poker players in the world.)

Unlike the casual game of baccarat played in the English countryside in 1891 by Sir William, the trial judge in the Ivey case, Mr. Justice Mitting, explained the casino game of today had been statistically studied to establish the house had an advantage of "1.24% if player wins and 1.06% if banker wins".

Mr. Ivey undertook to shift the odds. Justice Mitting described Ivey's approach to gambling:

The claimant's principle is, by a variety of techniques, to

reverse the house edge and play at odds which favour him. He

does so by means that, in his opinion, lawful. He is what is

known, in particular on the other side of the Atlantic, as an

"advantage player". He is jealous of his reputation and is

adamant that he does not cheat. His principle is to find and

apply accurately "a legal way to beat the house".

His method at Genting was “edge sorting”, a card playing strategy I had not heard of before this case:

"Edge-sorting" is possible when the manufacturing process causes tiny differences to appear on the edges of the cards so that for example, the edge of one long side is marginally different from the edge of the other. Some cards printed by Angel Co. Limited for the Genting Group (which owns Crockfords) have this characteristic. The machine which cuts the card leaves very slightly more of a pattern, a white circle broken by two curved lines, visible on one long edge than on the other. The manufacturers assert that this is not a defect but is within a contractually specified tolerance of up to 0.3 millimetres. Before a card is dealt from a shoe, it sits face down at the bottom of the shoe, displaying one of its two long edges. It is possible for a sharp-eyed person sitting close to the shoe to see which long edge it is. The information thus gained is only useful to the punter if he knows or has a good idea of what the card is.

****

Three conditions must occur before the punter can gain that knowledge: (1) the same shoe of cards must be used more than once; (2) cards with a face value of 7, 8 or 9 must be turned through 180 degrees by comparison with all other cards; (3) when reshuffled no part of the shoe must be rotated. Step (2) is the process known as edge-sorting.

Mr. Ivey and a Chinese gambling associate persuaded the croupier, with the approval of her supervisor, to turn the 7, 8 and 9 cards the required 180 degrees because they were superstitious and the new aligment would be lucky for them. Accustomed to gamblers with “lucky” systems which inevitably are losing systems the casino humoured the high rollers.

It was only when the casino reviewed hours of tapes that it determined Mr. Ivey had used “edge sorting” to gain the advantage he needed to win millions of dollars. They refused to pay saying he had cheated.

Mr. Ivey sued the casino. He forthrightly acknowledged what he had done and said it was not cheating. He had never touched the cards and casino supervisors had allowed the cards to be handled by the croupier as he requested.

Justice Mitting disagreed. He stated:

The fact that the claimant is genuinely convinced that he is not a cheat and even that that opinion commands considerable support from others, - see for example, Dr. Jacobson, - is not determinative of the question. It is necessary to analyse what the consequences are of what he did in relation to the game that he was playing. They were threefold.

(1) He gave himself an advantage, throughout the play of the sixth and subsequent shoes, which the game precludes – knowing, or having a good idea, whether the first card was or was not a 7, 8 or 9. That is quite different from the advantage which may accrue to a punter as a result of counting the cards, so that very near to the end of the shoe he may obtain a legitimate advantage by doing so.
(2) He did so by using the croupier as his innocent agent or tool by turning the 7s, 8s and 9s differentially. He was not simply taking advantage of an error on the part of the croupier or an anomaly produced by a practice of the casino for which he was not responsible.
(3) He was doing so in circumstances in which he knew that she and her superiors did not realise the consequence of what she had done at his instigation. Accordingly, he converted a game in which the knowledge of both sides as to the likelihood that player or banker will win - in principle nil, - was equal into a game in which his knowledge is greater than that of the croupier and greater than that which she would reasonably have expected it to be.

This in my view is cheating for the purposes of civil law. It is immaterial that the casino could have protected itself against it by simple measures. The casino can protect itself by simple measures against cheating or legitimate advantage play. The fact that it can do so does not determine which it is.

The case made its way to the English Supreme Court. Probably only a lawyer such as myself would  find it interesting to watch the oral argument which is easily available online.

While Mr. Ivey’s counsel pointed out all actions with regard to the cards were consented to by Genting staff, the Justices were troubled by the manipulation of the cards. They considered the subterfuge of “lucky” turning the cards to be more akin to physically marking or deforming a card than card counting.

Lord Hughes on behalf of the panel of judges dismissed the appeal. He said:

The (trial) judge’s conclusion, that Mr Ivey’s actions amounted to cheating, is unassailable. It is an essential element of Punto Banco that the game is one of pure chance, with cards delivered entirely at random and unknowable by the punters or the house. What Mr Ivey did was to stage a carefully planned and executed sting. The key factor was the arranging of the several packs of cards in the shoe, differentially sorted so that this particular punter did know whether the next card was a high value or low value one. If he had surreptitiously gained access to the shoe and re-arranged the cards physically himself, no one would begin to doubt that he was cheating. He accomplished exactly the same result through the unwitting but directed actions of the croupier, tricking her into thinking that what she did was irrelevant. As soon as the decision to change the cards was announced, thus restoring the game to the matter of chance which it is supposed to be, he first covered his tracks by asking for cards to be rotated at random, and then abandoned play. It may be that it would not be cheating if a player spotted that some cards had a detectably different back from others, and took advantage of that observation, but Mr Ivey did much more than observe; he took positive steps to fix the deck. That, in a game which depends on random delivery of unknown cards, is inevitably cheating. That it was clever and skilful, and must have involved remarkably sharp eyes, cannot alter that truth.

Where the baccarat case of 1891 involved the Prince of Wales and prominent members of “society” the 21st Century case featured as witnesses a professional poker player and Dr. Jacobsen, a former professor of mathematics, and David Mills, “a levelheaded and experienced English expert in casino gambling”. It is little surprise the modern case gained modest attention even though millions of pounds were at stake. It is hard to have a scandal gaining public noteriety when much of the focus is on mathematical calculation rather than a baronet surreptiously moving counters to deceive a Prince.

And Ivey lost another case in New Jersey over “edge sorting”. After winning its court case against him the Borgata casino has been pursuing Ivey for several years for the $10.1 million it paid out to him.

****

Shore, W. Teignmouth (editor) - (2020) - The Baccarat Case and Cross-Examination and Argument in the Baccarat Case and The Judge and the Decision and Reflections on the Baccarat Case

The Judge and the Decision and Reflections on The Baccarat Case

Lord Coleridge

In my previous posts I have discussed the trial evidence and arguments in The Baccarat Case. This post will move on to the judge’s charge to the jury, the verdict and my thoughts.

The trial judge, Lord Coleridge, was far from neutral in his charge. Indeed, he gave a better argument for the accusers than Sir Charles.

The Justice spoke of the jury needing to make their decision upon what is on the surface (the evidence) not what is in the public mind about the case (the role of the Prince of Wales).

He dismissed the discrepancy between the précis and the evidence over the question of subtracting stakes as a matter on what “so very little turns”.

He asked rhetorically if the evidence of the young officer, Mr. Levett, from Sir William’s regiment, was so unlikely?

He clearly indicated his belief in the evidence of other accusers.

He disliked the mockery of Mr. Lycett Green by Sir Edward and goes so far as to make the argument for the defendants that Mr. Lycett Green was the man who, from the start, stood resolutely by his word and was strongly ready to have it out with Sir William on the night of the accusations.

He doubted the monarchy would suffer much harm if it was known the Prince of Wales occasionally participated in gambling. He questioned anyone giving up his honour over what could be in the court’s opinion but a minor issue for a scandal. He suggested a man might prefer death to dishonour.

In the end he adopted the language of generations of judges who want the jury to know and follow what the judge thinks about the evidence but seek to avoid being overturned on appeal for interfering with the duty of the jury to decide the facts by larding his charge with repeated comments of “it is for you to say”.

I do not believe the lengthy arguments of counsel and the biased summing up of the case by the trial judge had an impact upon the jury for there was barely time to clear the courtroom before there was a verdict. The jury took but 13 minutes to reach its decision in favour of the accusers. The swift decision meant they considered the evidence overwhelming.  

I have had a jury trial in which the jury took 15 minutes to acquit my client. It was a striking vindication for my client.

In the baccarat case it was always going to be very difficult to convince a jury that a man of honour, especially one who has faced death in battle, would succumb to pressure, even be it from the highest of the realm, to sign an incriminating document when he had never cheated.  

In a criminal proceeding the admissibility of such a written form of confession would be challenged as signed under duress and with an inducement to sign. In a civil case it was going to be admitted. While Sir Edward had a sound argument on the pressure applied a jury was bound to give the signature significant weight.

Going to trial meant 5 accusers would testify against Sir William. While not impossible, the combination of so many opposing witnesses and the signed document made an action daunting. I would have strongly advised Sir William against commencing the action. The moment of “folly” when he signed the document was compounded by going to trial.

In many cases of defamation it is pride, as much or more than honour, which is at stake. It is dangerous to go to court upon an issue of pride. A defamation action is better justified when there is financial consequence. When an accusation is limited to damage to character it is often best to let time obscure the personal sting and the memories of others with regard to the purported misconduct rather than have the accusations reinforced in court.

Under cross examination in the baccarat case it was clear that Sir William, had “silence” prevailed, never would have sought to clear his name. It was the knowledge of the event by “society” - his class - that drove him to sue his accusers.

In this century there are attempts to shield disgraceful actions through non-disclosure agreements. They are often no more successful than the private agreement in the late 19th Century

The baccarat case was the sensation of the time, not so much because of the accusations of cheating at cards in high society, but from the involvement of the Prince of Wales. The scandal for the Prince was not his involvement in card games where there was cheating but that he took part in gambling. The public was unimpressed that he could casually participate in gambling, even bringing the counters, with no consequences when it was a crime to play cards for money for the average Englishman.

I cannot know if Sir William cheated but the evidence was overwhelming. It was a desperate gamble for him to insist on a trial. His counsel had to know the odds were much against Sir William. As inevitable his gamble was lost in a very public, very painful and very expensive way. Many in the public saw Sir William as wronged. Reading the transcript I disagree. I would have been shocked by a verdict in favour of Sir William.

Yet it is striking how a reputation was risked and lost over what were modest sums to the participants. 

The editor of The Baccarat Case suggested that had the accusers and accused been able to meet they could have thrashed out the question between themselves.

Sir Patrick Hastings in his book, Cases in Court, while discussing libel suits where the issues were less than monumental said:

If there is any moral to be derived from actions such as these, it may perhaps be found in the suggestion that a little common-senses is the best andidote for tactless speech; but it is a lesson which seems never to be learned and perhaps it never will.

Was it much ado about nothing? Integrity is always important. In 2007 the Law Society of Saskatchewan celebrated its Centennial. I was a member of the committee that organized Centennial events. The committee thought about the word that we thought best characterized the goals and conduct of the lawyers of our province over the 100 years. We chose the word “integrity”.

Should what is minor, a cheating of insubstantial amounts to the participants at a private party, have escalated to a major court action that preoccupied the nation? In the world of the 21st Century I could not see such an allegation of cheating becoming a cause célèbre.

That conclusion does not mean our culture does not have its own taboos. Victorian hyper-sensitivity to questions of honour has shifted in the 21st Century to social issues. Now there is public shaming on the platforms of social media for those who breach or even only appear to break the expectations of society.

And if cheating at baccarat seems an issue only for the 19th Century my next post will be about a 21st Century case of alleged cheating at a form of baccarat that involved millions of dollars.

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Shore, W. Teignmouth (editor) - (2020) - The Baccarat Case and Cross-Examination and Argument in the Baccarat Case