Court Observation Paper

It was 7:30 a.m. on Monday, November 7, 2016. I woke up, took a cold shower, put on my formal attire, and then left with my father to go to the judicial center at the McDonough Square. By 8:00 a.m., my father introduced me to the sheriff deputies that had scanned me into the building. Officer Thomas Palmer, also called “Tiny,” acted as my tour

My understanding of the court system has changed almost weekly from the beginning of my semester. I do understand things that I never thought I would’ve have known or even cared about in the least. The book Courtroom 302 has brought an even different side of thinking into this. The book goes into detail about the criminal court in Chicago. He watches all of the actions and different trials that come and go in the courtroom 302. He presents many different cases throughout the book which gives more insight then just a single case.

As I entered the court, the trial has already commenced so I did not really know how a real trial started. I sat in the back where the public sits, facing the judge bench. The courtroom was cold and quiet. Especially it was very small, much smaller and less impressive than I expected.. Everyone was in formal dressing code. There were just a few number of spectators and family members in the court room. There was a clerk who was typing everything what was happening during the court time. Judge Krocker appeared to have things under control and had the proceedings moving forward smoothly. She was a very friendly lady with short blonde hair. She was listening attentively. She spoke clearly and distinctly so that everyone in the courtroom could hear. Samuel Gallegos is a white man about 5 '8 tall. He looked quite nervous while some police officers were standing behind him. From what I understood, this case was really happening back in 2014 and the suspect has criminal history relating to assault of child and another related case to this case. On my left hand side were the bailiffs while some others stood observed

As Inmate Hall made this statement he swung with his right hand towards Detention Officer Edward’s face. I struck Inmate Hall once with a closed right handed fist in the face. Inmate hall stumbled backwards and put both of his hands up towards his face in a fighting manner and swung towards me and other Detention Officers, I struck Inmate Hall three to four times with closed fists in the face with both my right and left hands. Inmate Hall fell on his back in the dayroom near the bunks. I and other Detention Officers went to restrain Inmate Hall and gave him orders to lie face down on the ground. Inmate hall continued to resist, he placed his hand up to stop myself and other Detention Officers from restraining him. Detention Officers Edward, Detention Officer J. Abbott (EIN 130264) and Detention Officer C. Long (EIN 130942) were on top of Inmate Hall trying to place him in handcuffs but Inmate Hall continued to resist. I attempted to secure Inmate Hall’s hand to place the handcuffs on him but Inmate Hall pulled away from me, I placed my right knee in the small of Inmate Hall’s back to gain control of

On 06/29/16 at 8:41pm, I was dispatched to 2706 Synder Court on a possible dangerous or vicious dog, owner known. I arrived at the location and spoke to Logan Liming and a female individual who was the victim’s Aunt. Mr. Liming and the female individual stated that the dog at 2704 Snyder Court was outside with a male minor on a leash. The dog got away from the minor and was running around the victim’s front yard. As the male minor was trying to capture the dog, the dog came towards victim Matthew Liming. Matthew Liming tried to back away from the dog, but was unable to get away and was bite/starch on his left forearm. Mr. Liming and the female individual held down the dog until the dog owner came out and got the dog. Mr. Liming wrote

I decided to attend a night traffic court session at the Ventura Courthouse. The cases ranged from seat belt violations to reckless driving. Most of the defendants appeared before the court to request more time to pay the fines associated with the tickets. I was surprised to see that very few of the people in the courthouse were pleading not guilty. Only one person showed up to defend a case with legal help from an attorney of some sort.

On October 21, 2014 I went to a court to listen in on some proceedings. It was pretty difficult to find one that was open to the public in this court. Many courtrooms were private or some hearings were irrelevant with what I was looking for. The bailiffs were really nice they helped guide us to the big courtroom that allowed proceedings to be heard by the public. There were some trials that we couldn’t attend because it was a more serious crime or there were juveniles involved and since they are under age we couldn’t be there for it. The courtroom I was in had a professional atmosphere to it but kind of unorganized because there were a bunch of papers all over the place and some of the inmates didn’t show up so the judge would put them to the side. Majority of the inmates being held for drugs, driving under the influence, or physical violence.

I thought it was very obscure that you would have the criminals accomplice and own cousin as a witness for the trial. I find this weird because both of these men are criminals due to their criminal history and prior convictions. I thought it was extremely dragged out in the way that the prosecutor asked the simplest and littlest questions to Fate in order to generate the responses she wanted to hear. It seemed that every time she did not receive an answer that she agreed with or liked 100 percent she would pause for 15 seconds and then send out another question that would regenerate an answer that she wanted to hear. As this process proceeded the only thing the defendants attorney did was back his client up and made sure that none of the questions or responses were misleading. The judge seemed to be silent and just rolling his eyes throughout the whole questioning process, while he acted just as a mediator and listened to everyone talk without any input at all. I was not able to see anymore of this case so I do not not what the final decision will end up being. My guess would be that Mr. Perry gets a minimum of 10 years and a maximum of 28 years in prison or life. HIs cousin, the accomplice, should also see just as much time for being involved but I do not see him serving more than is cousin but possibly just as much. This case has dragged out for sometime now an it is due to Fate being accused of

The first thing that we had to do at the juvenile detention center was to go through the metal detector and have our belongings scanned. The securities did not confiscate our cellphones, which was surprising to me because cellphones are always banned in the courtroom. After getting our name badges/passes, we walked into a courtroom. The courtroom was a lot smaller than I thought. There were only one row of seating; therefore, approximately only 10 individuals can sit in to listen to the cases. When the judge came into the courtroom, everyone stand up as a gesture of obedience to the state’s orders. After the judge sat down, the lawyers, the parties, and the witnesses went up to the judge and introduced who they are. The witnesses gave a testimony

I attended the Maricopa County Superior Court located at 222 E Javelina Ave, Mesa, AZ 85210. I went on Wednesday December 6, 2017 from 1pm to 5pm. I attended both the criminal court in room 202 and family court in room 301. In the criminal court, I observed 9 different cases and in the family court only 1 case. In the criminal courtroom, the Judge was Judge Barth and the state prosecutor was James Blair for all the cases. The public defenders (PD) were different for most all the cases except some cases had the same PD in which none of them had more that 2 offenders assigned to them at that day. The PD included, Resario Spaccaferro, Josephine Hallum, Kurt Harris, Asario Backafera, Robert Duffy, and Brian Gardner. In the family court only the petitioner (the mom) had an attorney Charles Brown, and the respondent (the dad) represented himself. All attorneys and PD were dressed in suits and the judges of course were in their black robes. The state prosecutor was also in a suit but had khaki pants and a dark navy blazer.

During the times I sat through court I felt as the information given to the judge in the family court went by quickly. It was

This week at court was very interesting. I performed my usual duties which are observing the court, viewing documents submitted into evidence and assisting the court staff with anything that they needed. Though nothing interesting really happened on Tuesday, it was Thursday that brought forth the most action. On Thursday, Judge Deleon and I were assigned to the domestic violence courtroom. What stood out to me this day was the women who sat next to me. We sat in front of the courtroom but on the side of the judge behind a desk. Prior to today, I would always see a woman escort the witnesses in and out of the courtroom and to hand them subpoenas letting them know the date for their next trial. I never knew that they were called Court Advocates and that they helped witnesses. In this particular court room the Court Advocate was from a unit that fought against domestic violence. She explained to me that she spoke with witnesses

When visiting the criminal court, I hit some rough patches. I had never been to any court before so I did not know what to expect. I printed off a list of what I thought was happening when I was going, but it wasn't useful as it had the wrong information on it. As soon as I entered, I went up to the front desk and asked for more information. The guy at the front desk gave me a piece of paper of what was happening that day and I gave myself enough time to try to make it into a hearing, but by the time I made it to the court that I wanted, it had already started and no entry was allowed. I then went back down to the front desk and asked if there were any other hearings later in the day. He told me that the piece of paper he gave me was what was

We stayed around for a while waiting on litigants to come until 9:30 am, no one had shown up, so the attorney told us we could go down to the courts and sit in on hearing from previvous cases. If any litigants came to the DASH center and needed

On Tuesday in court, I started doing my usual routine, I shadowed one of the town clerk, while she was setting up for court. But this time, I became more hands on because I remember the routine for court. I remember feeling let down because always get miss up with who’s the trooper or state police in the traffic ticket. However, overall I still felt pretty good because I try my best. It was a long day that court date because there was a hearing and a public defender. Whenever you see a public defender in the courtroom, you know it’s going to be a long day because the public defender has to sit and talk to offender about their case. Once that is over, the public defender and the prosecutor speak to the judges about the charges that were given