Manhattan Criminal Courts Visit

I was really excited about visiting the Manhattan Court House.  I thought it was really cool how Professor Moriah incorporated visiting the court house into the semester with the theme of our course being race and justice.  The first thing I noticed about the court house was how big it was!  And the area it was in looked like there were several different court houses all right there.  They may have been city hall or other government buildings.  I thought it was interesting and somewhat surprising they allow people off the streets to just come in and sit in the court rooms while trials or cases are being discussed.  I would think it would go against privacy rights, but I guess once you’ve been convicted as a “criminal” your rights go out the window.   The first part of being in the court room was pretty boring to me.  It was interesting maybe for the first two people who were being convicted, but once I realized it was going to be petty crimes being addressed I lost more interest.  I don’t know how the court room works so I found it interesting at first, but then it just seemed repetitive for all the criminals.  The convictions for most these cases were minor, and most of the people were just getting continuances.  I was trying mostly to just observe the people who have been convicted and the people who were working in the room.  It made me sad to see how many young people were there.  I also noticed the lawyers a lot.  They seemed like court appointed lawyers, and to me very few of them seemed passionate about their jobs or cared about their clients.  I also noticed how distracting this court room was.  People were constantly coming in and out, and I thought it seemed somewhat unprofessional.   On the other hand, once we went up stairs and sat in on the trial being held, I found that to be much more interesting.  Possibly because it was a story.  Something happened, and there was a cause and effect and the court is trying to find out exactly what that was to give justice to the situation.  This court room had a much more serious tone, then the first.  I wish we could have sat in on it longer, but I got the idea.  I’ve always known about jury duty, but seeing all those super average people sitting there trying a case was very interesting to me.  However the government decided to incorporate everyday Americans into the legal system like that, is kind of a cool thought.   After visiting the courthouse, it made me a little more interested in the law.  I was curious of all the roles people were playing in the room, and would like to learn more.  Maybe this trip inspired me to be a lawyer or a judge one day?  Who knows.  In the mean time I really enjoyed it, and found it to be abeneficial learning experience especially relating it to the theme of this class.