Race and Justice: Writing II, Spring 2010

Sandra Levkovich

I have always wanted to go sit in on a real case where it involves a jury, defendent, prosecuters and so on. I wanted to always experience of how our legal system actually works instead of just reading about it. On Monday, April 26th, I got to finally experience that.

At first, we went into small court. It was a little hard to hear and things were moving slow. There were cases about child wellcare, robbery etc… It was mostly a judge and from what interpreted a lawyer that they give you, not your own. As I was trying to really listen to what was going on, I had notice that people behind the computers were on facebook, they were chatting, some even were making jokes. I was sort of dissappointed in that it was not a real case with a jury and all. After this, I thought we were moving onto another small court room, but it was an actual trial.

When we had gotten to the trial, someone was testifying. There was a jury, judge, lawyers, and many more officials. The lawyer kept asking him questions and it was as if he was the one that did wrong. I was shocked when I heard of all the crime he had commited such as dealing heroin. I had thought he was the one that was going to go to jail until he told the story about what had happened the night he went to a club and then pointed at the man who was sitting in the room, the murderer. It was complete shock that my whole class was in a room with a suspected killer. We did not get to finish the trial, however it was really interesting to see what would have been the verdict.

This whole experience was something I did not expect going to the Lower Manhattan Criminal Court. You read about such trial in the papers like the one we got to sit in on, but I got to actually witness some of it.

Madhavi Rampersaud

Monday’s trip to the Manhattan Criminal Court was my first trip to a courthouse. I was definitely excited to visit and learn something new. When I went inside the building for the first few cases, I was honestly disappointed. I didn’t expect the cases to be so boring and disorganized. I was observing everyone in the room and they seemed to be all over the place. For example, I noticed that a lot of secretaries (I am assuming they were secretaries) had a lot of paperwork to look over and process. There were times when the judge or lawyer ( I think) weren’t sure where certain documents were. There were unexpected breaks during the evaluation and a lot of people were distracted. I literally saw a man on Facebook which I just thought was sad since he was supposed to be working.

When we moved on to the bigger case in the bigger court room, I was more excited. The courtroom resembled the way I expected an actual courtroom to look like. The jury was set against the wall and everything was basically in place the way it should be. The case that we were observing was definitely interesting. I was focused on it throughout the entire time were there. The defendant was being interrogated by this woman who continued to ask him questions about what he did during the night of so and so. It was definitely interesting. I don’t think it’s necessary to discuss the details of this case since it is private but it was insightful and I learned a few things from watching it. Eventually the judge called a recess and we left. Overall this experience was a very good one. I definitely recommend it to other future english classes that focus on race/ justice.

“In God We Trust”, when I enter the first room we went in criminal court, I saw this words. In the room, it was a little bit different from my imagination of the criminal court. There are many people, and it looked a little bit messy. I thought the court was more strict and serious. In the first room, the criminal of the weight of guilt was supposed to be light (not murder or some heavy accident), however, the process of judgement was so casual for me. Some police ate snacks and some officer had a small talk and talked on the phone in amusement. It took under five minuts to talk about per accident, and It looked very automatically for me. I felt the gap between the mood in the room and the word “In God We Trust”. A person of interest and a agent seemed that they did not talk to each other enough in some case. In whole, all process looked just a assembly-line operation like a office functions. In one of the case that a woman who seemed a homeless left her children, I was a little bit shocked that she was in handcuffs. However, all crime suspects looked that they had no voice, and their agent, prosecutor and polices spoke about the event.
In the second room, it was a exactly court I thought. There are judge, jury, witness, lawyer,,,however there were no word “In God We Trust”. I guess this mean that jury( citizen, people) should have justice by themselves and judge the event? Anyway, the criminal lawsuit in this room was more serious than the first room’s one. The mood of this room was filled with a feeling of tension. When we entered into the room, the lawyer was examining the witness, and every body looked very nervous and tried to concentrate the process of it. In Japan, we started to have jury system from last year, 2009, so the jury system did not hit me in my mind. The lawyer was asking to the witness on detail of time, date, action and these discrimination.
This criminal court tour was very good experience for me, and this is the first time to go to court in my life even if I studied law in Japan. However, I felt scary that people judge people even if they are professional or citizen as jury.

The Baruch neighborhood is a place I became part of as I entered intro freshmen year as a student at Baruch College. I never really thought about this community , until as a whole group my English professor took us on a tour of the neighborhood. Walking along the sidewalks of this community I noticed that it was much more louder compared to that of my own neighborhood. Further along , there seems to be lots of residential buildings and coffee shops.

Some students just like me go to Baruch and get to class and go home afterwards, they never seem to explore what this community can bring to them. Some don’t seem to realize that they belong to this community as well, and can help make it better in ways which can benefit everyone including themselves.

As walking along the side walks, I noticed a school playground with Little kids playing different types of sports and enjoying time with their friends. It seemed very diversed, all different cultures bonding together and not caring about it. Just enjoying and having  alot of fun. This shows that the Baruch community is diversed and can be a place everyone can enjoy exploring from the parks to the coffee shops to Madison ave. The neighborhood is truly a place that seems safe and sound for everyone.

The trip to criminal court today was certainly an interesting experience. It was my first time being in a court room and witnessing a case. During the first couple of cases I felt that the court wasn’t that organized and lacked certain qualities. There were people all around the judge. Some were talking to each other, others were on the phone, and some people were on computers. The cases were rather small. A lot of resolution was based on community service, ACD, or coming back to court at another date. In comparison to the second courtroom we went too, I felt that the first courtroom was very crowded. The second courtroom is more of what I imagined going to witness a case would be. There were juror’s lined up and a witness stand. During the questioning of the witness I felt like I was watching an episode of Law and Order. The witness was quite a character and had some track record, which made the case rather interesting to listen too. Although we were interrupted by everyone going on lunch, I felt that the second courtroom would have been a much better experience if we were there the whole time. Despite the weather, this trip was a fun experience and it was nice to do something different.

During the walk to around Gramercy Park I noticed many new things. I found it interesting that a white homeless man was eating out of the garbage bin and asking for money and something to eat in a white higher class neighborhood. I also realized that there were many project buildings that were by supermarkets and corner stores (delis). I noticed many of the project buildings were secluded from the higher class buildings and the shading on those blocks were much darker than the main streets. I did not find the neighborhood to be as diverse as mine. There was a lot of White and Asian people, but not too many black or Hispanic. Unlike my neighborhood the streets were maintained, the flowers from gardens flourished, and nobody J-walked including Professor Moriah. I felt that for as long as I walked around Gramercy I had a civil duty to be orderly and not be as outgoing as I usually am. I felt I had to maintain a greater level of professionalism than what I am usually accustomed to. It’s a bit funny because I noticed that in my neighborhood I greet the employees inside of the delis like this: “Hola compadre, or primo di me”. Around Baruch I say: “Hi how are you”. The area is much cleaner and civilized than my normal environment, I felt no true connection to the neighborhood but I did admire the way in which everyone seemed to be so respectful and casual, it was something different for me. It almost seems as if where there is less diversity there is more peace and comfort.