Criminal Court Trip

On Monday, March 26th, my English class took a trip to the Lower Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. This was the first time that I have ever been inside of a court and thought it was very interesting.  First our class sat in the jury in what looked like the preliminary court hearings of cases that are to be sent to other courts, for example family court. Here i saw only minorities getting tried and the white males playing the role of the lawyers. The case that stood out to me in this room was one of the endangerment of a child. What I found humorous was that while trials were going on the other lawyers were on facebook and the bailiffs were throwing little paper balls at  each other. The next room we went into seemed a lot more serious because we sat in the crowd while there was a small jury in front. The man on the stand was being tried for many charges some of which were possession of heroin, assault, and fleeing from the scene of a crime. I was surprised because some of these charges took place in the middle to late nineties and he was being tired decades later. I found this room more interesting than the first one because the lawyer was trying to prosecute the offender unlike in the other room in which they were defending the offender. We left when the judge called for “lunch” or maybe in more legal terms, a recess. This was my first trip ever to a real courthouse and one I wil not soon forget.