The using the word “pannel” in place of prisoner is peculiar to Scotland. It is believed it took its rise from the niche or place where the criminal was placed at the bar, which was called the pannel.—Creech.
Note 25, [page 210.]
During the whole time of this trial the Court was uncommonly crowded, notwithstanding the fees of admission were raised so high as three, four, and five shillings. The heat was for a great part of the time intolerable; and the noise and tumult occasioned by orders given by the Court to clear certain parts of the house frequently interrupted the business of the trial. But the audience, who had paid for their places, were determined not to be turned out of them, and therefore maintained their ground, although the soldiers’ bayonets were two or three times mentioned. The Court’s being occasionally subjected to such inconvenience proceeds from the doorkeepers being allowed to extort money for admission—a practice directly contrary to the statute law of the land, and derogatory to the dignity of the High Court.
The doorkeepers not only demand money, but they claim the privilege of determining who shall and who shall not be admitted. They even presume to exclude, when they think proper, a great proportion of the members of the Court. Many of the agents during this trial were compelled to pay a crown for their places, and others were refused admittance upon any terms. When it is considered that the practice of the criminal law of Scotland cannot be acquired from books, nor by any one man in the course of his own experience, and that the agents are often charged with the conduct of trials, upon the issue of which the lives and fortunes of their fellow-citizens depend, it seems highly inexpedient, not to say unjust, to deny them the privilege of admission to the Court, where alone they can have an opportunity of acquiring that knowledge which it is highly necessary they should be possessed of. The Court, however, seem to think differently, for upon a late occasion, when an agent complained to them of being excluded by the doorkeepers, they gave him no redress.
I have only to add that if it is still thought proper to allow the doorkeeper to take money, a fare should be established for admission to each of the different parts of the house, in proportion to the accommodation they afford, that all His Majesty’s lieges may be upon as equal a footing there as in other public places.—Morrison.
APPENDIX II.
A Brief Account of the Judges and Counsel Engaged in the Trial of Deacon Brodie.
Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield (1722-1799), eldest son of John Macqueen of Braxfield, Lanarkshire, sometime Sheriff-Substitute of the Upper Ward of that county, by his wife, Helen, daughter of John Hamilton of Gilkerscleugh, Lanarkshire, was born on 4th May, 1722. He was educated at the Grammar School of Lanark, and thereafter attended a law course at the University of Edinburgh, with the view of becoming a Writer to the Signet. He was apprenticed to Thomas Gouldie, W.S., Edinburgh, but finally decided to try his fortune at the bar, and, after the usual trials, was, on 14th February, 1744, admitted a member of the Faculty of Advocates. He was employed as one of the counsel for the Crown in the many intricate feudal questions respecting the forfeited estates which arose out of the Rising of 1745. He quickly gained the reputation of being the best feudal lawyer in Scotland, and is said to have received greater emoluments from his practice than any counsel before his time.
On the death of George Brown of Coalston, Macqueen was elevated to the bench on 13th December, 1776, and assumed the title of Lord Braxfield. He was also appointed a Lord Commissioner of Justiciary on 1st March, 1780, on the resignation of Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck. In the same year was published an anonymous “Letter to Robert Macqueen, Lord Braxfield, on his Promotion to be one of the Judges of the High Court of Justiciary” (Edinburgh, 12mo). This pamphlet, which points out the common failings of Scottish criminal judges is attributed by Lord Cockburn to James Boswell, the elder (“Circuit Journeys,” 1889 p. 322).