Night Court at 9:30 in the morning....
Jun. 10th, 2013 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogI do very little work in criminal courts. Yeah, I'll handle a traffic ticket here and there, and maybe the most meanor of misdemeanors, but it's a different, dirty, dangerous world, consisting mostly of Kabuki theatre between prosecutors and public defenders.
Yet the courthouses I visit are full of these cases. Most federal and state courts have had to devote overwhelming percentages of their court time to handling criminal matters. Some courts, despite having jurisdiction, don't handle civil cases at all or only the most necessary ones (such as appeals from lower courts that have no other place to go). In others, such as the upstate city courts, typically only one judge out of close to a dozen will be assigned to the civil "part" at a time, covering civil motions, evictions and sometimes trials. In Rochester, these are generally held in the horrid, but familiar, surroundings of the Hall of Justice's ground floor. The courtrooms are utilitarian but have at least been renovated this century, and the attorneys and clients assigned there generally have the judge to themselves for at least that morning.
I had a case in that Hall of Justice civil part last month, and it got adjourned until today. The judge at the time chose, as is his prerogative, to "keep the case" when he rotated back into a criminal part, and so I wound up, for I think the first time ever, in the far different world of one of the two City Court parts located in the adjacent Public Safety Building.
It's the closest I've ever come to the world of Harry T. Stone's "fifty dollars and time served" bailiwick on the old Night Court show, only it was far less funny. The courtroom serves as a major point of criminal case intake and outgo, probably because it's the one closest to the actual jail cells where the local prisoners, at least, will spend their days if not bailed out and then serve their time if measured in days, not years. The courtroom architecture borders on Stalinist; unlike the crisp Unified Court System logos of the more civil digs next door, a giant brutalist eagle overlooks the entire room, daring you to become his prey.
Signs are everywhere to choreograph the chaos. CELL PHONES OFF. NO TALKING. Defendants to the left, DA's and witnesses to the right, and ONLY LAWYERS MAY GO PAST THIS POINT. Saddest of all was seeing a plexiglas folder on the wall just past that literal bar for members of the Bar. That's where you drop off and pick up your Order of Protection when someone is trying to beat, maim, rape or kill your client. It looked to be quite full, and the comings and goings from it almost routine.
I wouldn't last a week in there- but I did survive the half hour. The judge, a genuinely good guy if a bit on the hippy-dippy side, had "kept" a bunch of his civil cases from last month and he promised to get to us after a couple of quick sentencings and an adjournment or two. A former partner of mine was there, defending his daughter from an evil landlord; he was called first, but had last-minute papers served on him and his case was held. (Knowing him, he's probably still there arguing;) Next after him was the strangest sight I got all day: a self-represented defendant, seeking to vacate a civil judgment taken against her, opposed by a lawyer for the bank, who presented herself to the court wearing a little black dress; teetering on a pair of peep-toe pumps that evoked the letters CFM; and, worst of all, carrying a purse with the word "PRINCESS" embroidered on it.
The judgment got vacated, but I doubt it was because of her fashion statement. Rather, the judge was familiar with the name of the guy who served the process on the defendant; his name is well known around the courthouses of this state because the Attorney General, with access to all 62 counties and the 62 cities within the state, managed to figure out that this process server had sworn to personally serving defendants, at the exact same moment of the same day, in Yonkers, Watertown and Lackawanna. That'd be a heavy lift even for Superman (or Superwoman, he added, going out of his way to avoid the sexism).
My opponent didn't show. Service wasn't an issue; he'd called the court to request the adjournment to today in the first place, so he clearly got my papers, and besides I served him myself back in April. (No clones of me had come forward to allege serving other people hundreds of miles away at the same time.) The judge reserved decision, making me wonder if they're going to find some other technicality to hang me with, but I was just happy as hell to get out of there before the real criminals showed up.
Yet the courthouses I visit are full of these cases. Most federal and state courts have had to devote overwhelming percentages of their court time to handling criminal matters. Some courts, despite having jurisdiction, don't handle civil cases at all or only the most necessary ones (such as appeals from lower courts that have no other place to go). In others, such as the upstate city courts, typically only one judge out of close to a dozen will be assigned to the civil "part" at a time, covering civil motions, evictions and sometimes trials. In Rochester, these are generally held in the horrid, but familiar, surroundings of the Hall of Justice's ground floor. The courtrooms are utilitarian but have at least been renovated this century, and the attorneys and clients assigned there generally have the judge to themselves for at least that morning.
I had a case in that Hall of Justice civil part last month, and it got adjourned until today. The judge at the time chose, as is his prerogative, to "keep the case" when he rotated back into a criminal part, and so I wound up, for I think the first time ever, in the far different world of one of the two City Court parts located in the adjacent Public Safety Building.
It's the closest I've ever come to the world of Harry T. Stone's "fifty dollars and time served" bailiwick on the old Night Court show, only it was far less funny. The courtroom serves as a major point of criminal case intake and outgo, probably because it's the one closest to the actual jail cells where the local prisoners, at least, will spend their days if not bailed out and then serve their time if measured in days, not years. The courtroom architecture borders on Stalinist; unlike the crisp Unified Court System logos of the more civil digs next door, a giant brutalist eagle overlooks the entire room, daring you to become his prey.
Signs are everywhere to choreograph the chaos. CELL PHONES OFF. NO TALKING. Defendants to the left, DA's and witnesses to the right, and ONLY LAWYERS MAY GO PAST THIS POINT. Saddest of all was seeing a plexiglas folder on the wall just past that literal bar for members of the Bar. That's where you drop off and pick up your Order of Protection when someone is trying to beat, maim, rape or kill your client. It looked to be quite full, and the comings and goings from it almost routine.
I wouldn't last a week in there- but I did survive the half hour. The judge, a genuinely good guy if a bit on the hippy-dippy side, had "kept" a bunch of his civil cases from last month and he promised to get to us after a couple of quick sentencings and an adjournment or two. A former partner of mine was there, defending his daughter from an evil landlord; he was called first, but had last-minute papers served on him and his case was held. (Knowing him, he's probably still there arguing;) Next after him was the strangest sight I got all day: a self-represented defendant, seeking to vacate a civil judgment taken against her, opposed by a lawyer for the bank, who presented herself to the court wearing a little black dress; teetering on a pair of peep-toe pumps that evoked the letters CFM; and, worst of all, carrying a purse with the word "PRINCESS" embroidered on it.
The judgment got vacated, but I doubt it was because of her fashion statement. Rather, the judge was familiar with the name of the guy who served the process on the defendant; his name is well known around the courthouses of this state because the Attorney General, with access to all 62 counties and the 62 cities within the state, managed to figure out that this process server had sworn to personally serving defendants, at the exact same moment of the same day, in Yonkers, Watertown and Lackawanna. That'd be a heavy lift even for Superman (or Superwoman, he added, going out of his way to avoid the sexism).
My opponent didn't show. Service wasn't an issue; he'd called the court to request the adjournment to today in the first place, so he clearly got my papers, and besides I served him myself back in April. (No clones of me had come forward to allege serving other people hundreds of miles away at the same time.) The judge reserved decision, making me wonder if they're going to find some other technicality to hang me with, but I was just happy as hell to get out of there before the real criminals showed up.
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no subject
Date: 2013-06-11 06:40 am (UTC)*chuckle*
It is a very different world, the night court. It really is.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-11 12:13 pm (UTC)I was tempted to visit the courts when I would visit Sara in the US but never did, probably because most trips were a vacation to me and court = work, after all. I'd be curious to compare it with what we have up here, I think, since criminal/family are mainly what I do. :)
no subject
Date: 2013-06-11 12:18 pm (UTC)We had the London office of a Canadian firm in our building. It was a combined firm, but at the time they still referred to themselves as "Solicitors and Barristers." I just checked the firm's website (a bigass one, to have had international offices) and the word "solicitor" appears nowhere I can see. Do you know when that changed?
no subject
Date: 2013-06-11 12:32 pm (UTC)