Court watching essay

Court watching essay

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  Lucas Marsico Professor NicoleVan Cleve 11-1-16 Courtroom Observations I. Section 1: An Ethnographic Reflection As I embarked on my journey to the Philadelphia Courthouse of Common Pleas, I could not help but to be a tad bit anxious and nervous about what I might be witnessing in this courthouse. After wandering around city hall for a few minutes, I finally found my way to the building. Pushing the doors open, I immediately saw a very drastic change in the demographic of people. It was very obvious to point out the ones who were here to lock people up and the ones that were more likely to be on the other end. I continued onward through the lobby empting my pockets for the security checking, and to my surprise, made it through with no problems at all. I tried my best at blending into my surroundings but it was very difficult to do that when you have only been in a courthouse one previous time before this moment. I dressed very casually wearing just a jacket and jeans. What might have blown my cover was my big red folder and my pen and my confused expression on my face as I navigated my way through the building. My main focus going into the courthouse was to try to look and act like everyone else so that I could get valuable notes. Being noticed as a student would just hinder my experience and destroy the whole purpose of the assignment. Even though I knew the people in the courthouse were aware that I was a student, I still continued to make mental notes of these very moments.
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  After walking throughthe security, I then went up to the second floor to the information desk to see if I could find out what types of cases were being conducted that morning. I asked the man at the front desk if there were any trials occurring, but he could not even tell me that. So, I asked an elderly woman who seemed to be a part of security, if she knew of any trials. She was very nice and kind to me and actually wrote down a list of cases and trials that were about to begin. It was a huge relief to have someone help me in such a way that it brought my anxiety down a little lower. After that, I marched into a trial to begin the start my notes. My main purpose at the courthouse was to gather ethnographic notes on the courthouse and the dynamics of a courtroom workgroup. This is a court watching assessment of common pleas, which I was evaluating it based on the four National Center for State Court Standards. The first standard is supposed to help display proper trust and confidence to public proceedings. This standard will assure that all court proceedings are able to accommodate to all participants needs such as people that are hard of hearing or handicap individuals. The second standard is used to make sure are all facilities in the courthouse are safe, accessible, and convenient for all participants. This helps to make sure that all individuals are in a safe environment and it is accessible for all people. The third standard must allow for effective participation for all who appear before the court. The third standard will accommodate all individuals during their proceedings, like allowing for interpreters and translators or special arrangements for the impaired. The finals standard states that all court personnel must be courteous, responsive, and respectful to all participants (Van Cleve, lecture, Oct. 31, 2016).
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  II. Section 2:Evaluation of Code Principles. A. Safety, Accessibility, and Convenience In terms of accessibility in getting to the actual courthouse, I had a tough time trying to get to the building. Upon my arrival to center city, I went around asking people if they knew where the courthouse was until one man pointed me in the right direction. The building was tucked away behind two other large buildings right beside city hall. This made me wonder how other people were able to find the courthouse if I had trouble as well. The accessibility of the inside of the courthouse was rather adequate with no major violations to be pointed out. When arriving in the actual courtroom, I noticed that both attorneys were standing behind their respective desks conversing with each other and the clerks in position behind their desks as well. Almost immediately as I sat down in the middle of the gallery, the bailiff walked up to me and asked why I was here. This was a little intimidating but I calmly replied, “I’m just here to observe”. He slowly crept back to the position he was previously in. After being under such scrutiny so early, it made me worried about how this would play out. Both attorneys were directly in front of me and I could hear almost every word they were discussing. One of the attorneys, who was the defense attorney, spit out obscenity after obscenity to the other attorney as if he were in a room by himself. I was quite surprised at his behavior and made sure to make note of his foul language. As I was waiting for the trial to begin, the judge abruptly opened the door from the chamber and took a seat in her chair. She seemed like a very intimidating
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  person and lookedas if she would not be a nice person as well. The defense attorney kindly asked the judge if he could go out of the room to speak to one of the witnesses but she very harshly scolded him and claimed that he has already wasted enough of her time. Shortly after that little confrontation, a family entered the gallery who I assumed were part of the defendant’s family. The judge politely asked everyone to turn their phones off upon entering the room. One of older gentleman reached in his pocket for his phone to turn it off, but was almost directly thrown out by order of the judge. She threatened him and said that he could be tried of contempt of court, which I thought to be very harsh and mean. So, the man very nicely apologized and showed himself out of the room. Throughout the whole trial, the judge seemed to display a very assertive demeanor, which made the experience very uncomfortable. B. Effective Participation When it came to the time of the actual trial to start, I was extremely confused as to what each attorney was discussing with each other. I knew the basics of how a courtroom should work, but all of the legal terminology that was being spewed out during the trial made it a lot more difficult to understand what was happening. If someone like a student studying this material was confused, I could not imagine how the defendant felt about the situation since he was the one awaiting trial. I was not exactly sure what was happening at the moment, but the judge was questioning the defendant. When she began to question him, I could not help but to feel bad for the defendant because of how nerve racking that must have been. It kind of made me wonder that if he were to make a mistake, could it be possible that he
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  could incriminate himself?Although these thoughts ran through my head, I was relieved when I saw the defendant was able to converse with his attorney if he was not sure about a question that was asked. This gave me a little more hope and a little more piece of mind for the quality of this courtroom. C. Courtesy, Responsiveness, and Respect In terms of respect during my courtroom experience, I found that this was one trait that seemed to be lacking. Not only was the judge very disrespectful to the family in the gallery, but even the attorneys were very harsh with each other at moments. The prosecutor seemed to very outwardly enjoy every mistake that the defense attorney had made. This made me worried because if the defendant could see that his attorney was making mistakes, he knew he could possibly lose his case and be locked up. The main goal of a court should be to minimize the amount of intimidation in the courtroom. I almost found it impossible to not feel a little bit intimidated the whole time in the courthouse. There was just some electrical presence in the building that made it feel as if no one else in the courthouse mattered besides the people that were behind the law. I could not imagine how a family or a defendant would feel upon entering this courthouse, especially since they were the ones that had to deal with everyone in it on a more personal level that I had experienced. Even though I did feel intimidated, during the trial I felt as if the people in the courtroom displayed a very promising display of responsiveness and courteousness. The defendant was able to get quick answers from his attorney and judge and the judge, I could tell, tried to make sure the defendant knew what exactly was happening.
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  III. Section 3:Policy Intervention. Changing the dynamics of a courthouse seems almost nearly impossible, but I also believe that there should be some basic adjustments that can help improve the quality of the courthouse. There are some moral and ethical obligations that every establishment should meet and a lot of these seemed to be missing when I went to observe. I would first try to help eliminate the factor of intimidation from the courtroom. Not only do I think that it is very unfair to the people like the defendant’s family and the defendant, but this is someone’s life that is at stake. The whole purpose of a case is not based off an individual; it should be based off the quality of justice that is supposed to be displayed in an establishment that controls a major part of our nation. It is in our constitution that every citizen deserves the right of due process, which I felt was also lacking. We need to focus on restoring our natural rights, especially in a place whose sole purpose is to ensure the citizens rights are protected.