CHAPTER THREE. PART THREE.

Mens rea! (Part 1 of 2)

A New Life in a New Country…

Everyone, even someone such as Matthew James Fletcher, possesses a guilty mind. It’s a fact of life. It comes with being human. In common law, as legal professionals will uncountably know, the Latin phrase associated with a guilty mind is mens rea.

Not everyone takes Law Latin when attending either college or university. It’s a law degree thing. The only people outside of law students knowledgeable in the Latin are typically Catholic seminary students, various members of the Catholic Church, and of course the Holy See himself. No surprises here. Fletcher, when attending a certain university, took Law Latin as an elective.

Fletcher, long before becoming the educated person he is today, understood various aspects of British Law. There was a brief time, a few years after completing his GCSEs, Fletcher worked for a law firm in the heart of Wolverhampton.

Jefferson & Pierce, not exactly a huge law firm, had made a reputation for itself taking on clients that had nowhere else to turn. Angelica Pierce frequently said that the company picks up the pieces traditional law firms fail to observe.

It was a good fit for Fletcher. Fletcher worked for the company as an Assistant Archivist. Senior and…