If not for the differently numbered doors on the left or ride sides, the court house would be the same on every floor. Exiting the quick moving and extravagant elevators with lawyers traveling up or down one floor the casual visitor will find the same wooden benches and the same number of spectators on almost every floor.
At roughly 10 AM, on the fourth floor, called by a regular at the courthouse to be a "madhouse" at times, Judge Fabricant was presiding over the case of F Garcia, who was arrested for trafficking cocaine. Other than a seemingly anxious to leave jury (who immediately scuttled out as soon as the session was adjourned) the judge, lawyers and defendant were the only ones present for the hearing. The defendant never spoke.
After a brief presentation by the prosecutor the judge agreed that the case had to go to trial on a larger scale and scheduled a trial for mid June 2009. Once the judge casually smiled and walked away, everyone rose in honor of her exit and followed suit. The defendant and the lawyer seemed to speak for a moment as papers were packed up. The prosecutor went off int the other direction after the judge.
Despite being a court house, the atmosphere was fairly informal and the judge seemed to be jovial despite the severity of the subject matter. There were no other members of the general public sitting in on the case trying to overhear or observe and the jury did not seem particularly interested. It was hard to gauge the reactions of the defendant.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A cocaine case. You actually had the same judge as Ben T and Ben B. (Read their cases under the same judge.) Good chronology of sequence of events. In your opening sentence, it should be "right" side and not "ride." It sounds like you were able to sit in on a good case.
ReplyDelete