Most people, early in their careers, have a moment that shapes and defines the rest of their working life.

When Len Murray's moment came it wasn't so much a shaping, as a shaking to the core.

He was a 27-year-old lawyer in the Scottish city of Glasgow, and his 19-year-old client had just been hanged.

"The young man in question was hanged on the 22nd of December 1960," Mr Murray said.

A news clipping from the Scottish Daily Mail about the execution of Tony Miller. ( Supplied: Scottish Daily Mail )

"He had never offended before, he came from a family to whom trouble of any sort was unknown.

"His parents were decent hardworking people and the punishment in fact was not a punishment of the boy, it was a punishment of his family."

The young man's name was Tony Miller.

Mr Murray was the junior defence lawyer, or to use the Scottish term, a pleader, on the Miller case.

Mr Murray said while there is little doubt Miller was guilty of killing a man, his punishment most certainly did not fit the circumstances of the crime.

The law of the time insisted the death penalty be imposed because the killing occurred during a robbery.

Miller's accomplice, who had masterminded the crime and then blamed his friend, was only 17 and ineligible for the death penalty.

Tens of thousands signed a plea for clemency, which authorities in London ignored.

"I had no particular view on the rights or wrongs of capital punishment but my experience in Tony Miller's case made me a pretty bitter abolitionist," he said.

"I'm not entirely sure if I have forgiven our society for having taken the life of that boy."

Time limits to speed up cases

The 19-year-old was the last man hanged in Glasgow, and the second to last in Scotland.

Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison in the distance. ( Flickr: Kirsty McLaughlan )

The lasting effect on Mr Murray was to forge a lifelong, passionate advocacy of timely and fair justice.

That passion has brought the now-retired pleader to Adelaide to deliver the annual Bray Oration, named in honour of the late chief justice of SA, John Bray.

Mr Murray spoke about a particular feature of Scottish law: time limits in which criminal matters must be dealt with at trial.

"In the past half-dozen years new time limits have been brought in to speed up the disposal of criminal cases," Mr Murray said.

"For a person in custody [if the time limit isn't met] they are released with no further ado. In some cases failure to bring cases within that time limit may bring about the end of the prosecution all together."

Mr Murray said there were protections to ensure defence teams did not try to seek an advantage by purposely delaying a case.

"I can't imagine the circumstances in which that would happen, but in any event, time limits may almost always be moved along if a cause is shown," Mr Murray said.

Speeding up court processes has some resonance in South Australia, because the state's district court system has a 19-month backlog.

"I'm pretty horrified by that," Mr Murray said.

"It's the old saying justice delayed, is justice denied, and I'm not sure many of us would disagree."

Sharing a passion for words

Chief Justice Chris Kourakis has told the ABC that South Australia suffers unacceptable delays in the District Court, affecting the quality of criminal justice delivered in the state.

John Bray's portrait hangs in the South Australian Chief Justice's office.

Mr Murray's Bray oration was not all prose and procedure though.

The pleader took time to dwell on his other favourite subject: poetry. Specifically the poetry, and other writings of Scotland's most famous literary figure, Robert Burns.

Mr Murray is dean of the guild of Robert Burns Speakers, delivering more than 400 after dinner speeches on the subject.

"The contribution Robert Burns made to literature and society is enormous," Mr Murray said.

"When he was writing in the later part of the 18th century, he was expressing notions of the equality of man, these are ideas that led the Americans to independence and the French to revolution ... these ideas were anathema in Great Britain as it then was."

The poet and the lawyer have much in common. Both ply their trade through language, neither is of much use if they speak doggerel. So it is unsurprising a lawyer would love poetry.

It is fitting Mr Murray shares this particular passion with the man his oration commemorates. Chief justice Bray was known for both his elegant judgments and his poetry.

Outside the judge's former home in Adelaide's Hurtle Square, there is a plinth recording one of his poems.

John Bray's poem in Adelaide's Hurtle Square. ( ABC News: Simon Royal )

It is a homage to the pigeons with whom the slightly irascible Bray shared the square and a slice of bread: a ritual that's continued to this day.

The last line reads, "so fly off bludging crew and don't shit on my shoe".

"It's not Burns, it doesn't quite rival him." Mr Murray observed of the poem.

"Nonetheless, I have great admiration for John Bray and I confess, I wish I had met him."