Criminal Court House Synopsis

On Monday April 5th, 2010, I went to the Criminal Courthouse located on 13th Ave N.W 14th Street for an assigment of my American Federal Government class. I went to one of the court room in the fourth floor with the Judge Beatriz Butchko. I heard to more than 10 cases. Most of them had to do with the possession of arms, street fights and robbery.
The courthouse looked very typical, like the one that comes out in movies. The judge wore a black robe and loose hair. In the court there was, a female judge, there were like three women dressed in black. These women would read a case and the judge sometimes will ask questions to one of them. There was also a security person that was in charged of maintaining the order. If someone was talking loud he would tell that person to be quite. A few lawyers were in the courtroom as well as public defenders. There was a woman that was typing everything said in the court. Sometime one of the women dressed in black would speak low and the judge would be- “Man I need you to speak loud, so she could write it down”. To the right side of the courtroom there were two vertical rows were the prisoner were to seat. There were ten prisoners more or less; they were all dressed in orange. Something that I noticed was that all the others that were accused, not the prisoner, were dressed very formal; with suit.
At 9 am when everything started the courtroom was not that crowed. By 9:30am it was a little bit more crowed, but not as the courtroom that was in front of it. The courtroom in front of the one where I was was completely full. That was the one that I wanted to go but I couldn’t because it was over crowed.
The cases were not that long it was only ten minutes more or less. I don’t know if the person received a fair trial. I could barely understand when the women dressed in black speak; they didn’t have a microphone, like the judge did. That day, one of the prisoners was set free. Most of the prisoners were set for another trial in June.
One of the prisoner was and old man. When the judge was handling his case, she told him that he didn’t have to stand up. I assumed that he had a problem in his legs. Then when I left the courtroom a female officer was taking him to another place and suddenly I heard a crack. When I look, the old man fall and hit his head. The old man was bleeding and the floor was full of blood. The female officer called for help on a radio and a lot of officers and security officers came. A woman who was in the hallway started to shout-“Let him free, it was the officer the one who let him fall”.
Another prisoner was for six years in jail. After the judge said that a woman ran out the courtroom crying. I felt pity for her apparently that was her son.
Something that called my attention about the judge was that in one case the judge asked one of the woman dressed in black to remember her about the case they were just handling. I have never been to a court before, so I don’t know if that’s something normal. Also when the judge was handling one of the prisoner cases, the judge told the prisoner that he was a gift to her from another judge, and that she hoped that he would behave well with her.