The American Court System Behind Closed Doors America first established its judiciary system around the same time the 13 British Colonies became established as individual territories. When it came down to it, Federalist battled Anti-federalist over the writing of the Constitution of the United States. The Anti- Federalist were opposed to the idea of a one centralized government while the Federalists on the other hand were all for a centralized government. What came next was the establishing of the Judicial Branch known as Article III. The start of the first court system came along with Congress passing, The Judiciary Act of 1789. The act established the United States circuit courts which were also known to be United States federal courts and were located in each of the federal judicial districts. The act also established the United States Supreme Court and its justices. It wasn’t until 1912, that the district courts became exercised and became the new federal trial courts replacing the circuit courts as original jurisdiction. Circuit courts became known as federal court of appeals. They no longer have the right to try a case first, which is now the district courts role in the judicial system. With 13 circuit courts and 93 federal judicial districts the two courts make up most of the judicial system in our country. That’s why it is imperative that we know the differences and the similarities between each court. After observing both courts for about 5 or so hours, I really came to understanding how both worked. When you do field research such as court observation, there are so many different factors that come into play when you are observing. Some of the things that you might be observing is the overall atmosphere of the court room, the judge, other court room actors, cases or proceedings, defendants, and legal issues. What I chose to mainly observe was the judges, and there discretion towards cases and if their judgment in ruling. As an observer you may not be able to catch every little aspect of the court that is why I choose to observe judges do to the fact that they play one of the most crucial roles in our judicial system. Judges are granted considerable discretion in their decision making. Through their exercise of discretion, judges construct society's idea of crime and justice. However, there is little guidance on how these judgments should be made and how they should affect decisions. People bring their disputes to the court because they view judges as neutral, principled decision makers who make decisions based upon rules and not personal opinions, and who apply legal rules consistently across people and over cases. When I was observing the two different courts, I was looking for the judges ability to be fair and unbiased to certain cases. I asked myself some questions in order to help me determine the judge ability to be a neutral party in the case presented. One would be if the judge displayed judicial fairness and impartiality toward all parties, acted in the interests of the parties without any personal prejudice, whether he was open, and clear about how the rules of law were applied and how decisions were being made, and if he consistently tried each defendant equally. In both the circuit and the district courts from what I observed seemed to be equally as fair. Judges in the circuit might have been focused on the presented evidence in the courtroom than the district courts due to the fact that most of the cases were trial hearings that carried out a sentence of up to a year or more in prison, rather than just a small misdemeanor. The judge in both courts allowed participants to voice their arguments and demonstrated to both parties that their argument or perspective on the case had been heard. Based on procedural justice, I found an article called Procedural Fairness: A key ingredient in public satisfaction. In this article, the author states how judges are lookup upon a high authority figures and have a lot of power when it comes to making decisions. This article pretty much justifies my observation, because it is based on fairness in the procedural process. “Judges can alleviate much of the public dissatisfaction with the judicial branch by paying critical attention to the key elements of procedural fairness: voice, neutrality, respectful treatment, and engendering trust in authorities. Judges must be aware of the dissonance that exists between how they view the legal process and how the public before them views it. While judges should definitely continue to pay attention to creating fair outcomes, they should also tailor their actions, language, and responses to the public’s expectations of procedural fairness. By doing so, these judges will establish themselves as legitimate authorities; substantial research suggests that increased compliance with court orders and decreased recidivism by criminal offenders will result. Procedural fairness also will lessen the difference in how minority populations perceive and react to the court. This section of the article is important because it shows how anything you do in court can be held against you. Even if you are not being disrespectful and he feels that you are, he will be harsher on his decision making. A lot of little factors come into play when you are being sentenced or are trying to come to a plea agreement. Once I entered the courtroom I knew that if I didn’t pay attention it would be difficult for me to make good and clear observations. Once the defendant approached the bench, I would listen to what the judge had to say about a certain offense and if he is being unbiased or prejudice in his decision making. Field research is when someone enters a different environment in order to get close to what they are studying or observing. Participant observation, data collection, and survey research are examples of field research. Some advantages to doing field research are that you are up close and person and can hear and see what is exactly going on in the courtroom. Sometimes, you may hear what went on in a courtroom but you will never be certain if you don’t observe it for yourself. You are in all the action and can’t tell whether or not discretion was fair so is the whole procedure. Some disadvantages to field research would their own personal bias against something. This happens quite often in field observation, especially when humans themselves are the subject of study, steps must be devised to reduce the risk of observer bias. Relating closely to this topic of field research I found an article called Courtroom Encounters: An Observation study of a lower criminal court. In this article the author states, “Direct observation was done in the courtroom, & a total of 417 encounters between the judge & defendant were recorded on observation forms. A number of other patterns are described as well. Attention is also given to the relation between the police & the lower court, & to the effect of courtroom patterns on deterrence.” There would have to be some kind of unfairness in your research if you are observing that many cases. Your observation wouldn’t be very precise for assessing deviant behavior, and there may be error in your judgment or thoughts. For my courtroom observation, I choose Kalamazoo County’s 8th District Court located on E. Michigan Ave. To complete all five hours I choose to observe two different judges of the district court instead of just focusing all my observational skills on one. The first judge that I had observed and studied was Hon. Paul Bridenstine in courtroom M. I chose him at first because I once had him as a professor and was curious to see his fairness put to the test. More than seventy-five percent of Judge Bridenstines proceedings were mostly pretrial. All of the cases that I had observed had been formal procedures. Even though most of his cases were pretrial there were at some cases that were plea hearings, motion hearings, bond hearings. The district courts are also known as federal courts in which the majority of cases take place. There is at least one district court in every state with a district court. District courts exercise original jurisdiction, which means they are the first court to hear a case. Criminal and civil cases may be tried in a district court, as long as they meet certain requirements. There are your basic courtroom actors like the judge, the state prosecutor and the defense attorneys present. It is your basic adversarial system with two party’s and a neutral in this case Hon. Bridenstine. Some of the proceedings I observed were Driving Under the Influence, disorderly conduct, domestic violence, dog attack, drug possession, assault, trespassing, MIP, larceny, retail fraud and a range of traffic violations. Judge Bridenstine was very fair with his decision making and made sure to reflect his decisions on defendants with similar proceedings so that one defendant, couldn’t not get a less severe punishment than the others. He displayed judicial fairness towards both parties, and listened to both sides of the argument. I also observed that he expressed how the rules of law, how they’re enforced and how much they are punishable up to in prison. The next judge I observed was Hon. Anne Blanchford. Her procedures in the courtroom were also formal. Some cases that I observed in her courtroom were very similar to the cases in Bridenstines. Some that weren’t mentioned would be fishing without a license, gambling, loud music, fighting, unregistered vehicle and expired driver’s license. The attorneys in this court room seemed to be younger than in Bridenstines courtroom. Most of these defense attorneys were in fact concerned about protecting their clients’ rights. Some defendants chose Pro Se, which means you waive your right to counsel and you represent yourself. The main ethnic group in the district court would Caucasian males, followed by African American and lastly Hispanic. The age of these defendants varied from 18 to 50 years old. Both judges did a great job with explaining legal issues and their own rulings for that matter. There was a lot of evidence of a smoothly function courtroom. Hon. Bridenstine also throughout a couple cases due to lack of other actors in the court room. He made sure that his behavior was nothing less than society expected of him. For the second part of my courtroom observation I choose to do sit in on the 9th District Court at the Kalamazoo Court House. The judge I choose to observe was Judge Pamela Lightvoet in courtroom C. The reason I chose to observe her particularly is because she has also been one of my professors in the past, which made it more interesting. I spent around 5 hours in one full day sitting in on her cases to see how he compared to the District Courts’ Paul Bridenstine. As I walked in the defendants were checking in with the clerk, and what caught my attention is that there were a significant less amount of people in circuit court, than there was in the district court. This is due to the Circuit court is more or less a court of appeals. They see cases that are carry a potential sentence of one or more years in prison. The Circuit also specializes in civil suits over $25,000 or Probate court appeals. They no long have original jurisdiction like when American was first founded on the Judiciary Act of 1789. Another thing that caught my attention was the defense attorneys looked a little bit more professional and old than in the district court. I think that it’s due to less public defenders being present in the court room. Most of the attorneys that appeared in court are private attorneys that were hired to defend them. When observing Judge Lightvoet I noticed there were a lot more sentencing trials than I had previously thought. Some of the proceedings I experienced were Bond hearings, motion hearings, plea agreements, and lastly civil settlements. As I did with the District court, I wanted to observe to the judge carefully to see if she was as fair to both party’s during the hearing and if she applied the correct rules of law in her decision making and by excluding herself from person prejudice in the ruling. Getting their paperwork together was the state prosecutor and a handful of defense attorneys, both public and private. About half of the defendants were Caucasian and about half were African American between 18-40 years of age. There were many different cases to be heard, range from a bunch of felonies to settlement hearings. Some proceedings that I observed in her courtroom where Possession of Meth and Marijuana, Aggravated Assault, Fighting, Extortion, 2nd time DUI or MIP, Tampering with evidence and grand theft auto. Most offenders had some kind of attorneys present to represent them whether a private or public offender. Some of the less serious offense the defendant just took the stand Pro Se, meaning they waived the right to counsel so they could defend themselves. I noticed offenders that had counsel were less likely to receive a harsher punishment than to those who didn’t. Their counsels job is to fight and argue their case and that’s exactly what the attorneys did. There was a lot more evidence that appeared in the Circuit court than in district court. Hon. Lightvoet would carefully read through the case files and try to gather evidence in order to help her make the best decision for that particular case. She can take in discretion the defendants background, his current employment status and his previous convictions. There were about five defendants that violated their probation from failing a drug screening to getting stopped with no license. She sentenced two or three to serve some prison time for their violations and gave out a lot of community service in order to lower their punishment. Overall, I believe her courtroom functioned smoothly throughout all the proceedings. He also made great discretion choices on plea agreements in order for the offender to know he got off with a lessened charge. The offenders were respectful and listened carefully to the judge’s orders. Hon. Lightvoet might have used her direction to weave out some of the less serious charges, but made sure to drop the hammer those with more severe felonies. Overall I would say she played a role in the act of procedural sentencing and fairness. She wants to make sure that society knows she playing an active part in preventing the recidivism of crime. In Hon Lightvoet’s courtroom there was also a civil suit again the Bronson Methodist Hospital along with another civil suit against Bronsons Rehabilition Center. Two defendants along with their private attorney tried to prove that there defendant, suffered in someway because of there actions or lack of action. Due to the lack of counsel the proportion of guilty pleads were a bit higher than in the District court. Based on my courtroom observation and readings I found a couple similarities and differences between the two. A similarity is they both use plea agreements in order to lessen the sentence and help with caseloads. Another similarity, is that both judges used their own discretion to help with ruling on the case. Both courts took it easier on defendants who were currently employed and who have cleaned up there record by staying away from trouble. Some differences would be the hearings that were heard in each court. District courts had more pretrial, review and motion trials while the Circuit court delt with Sentencing, Appeals, and Civil law suits. The last difference I noticed also is that there are more public defenders in district courts, than in circuit courts. In the district court there are more people who defend themselves than get public defense due to the lack of seriousness of their defense. Besides those minute differences they still play the same role in the Criminal Justice System and that’s helping with caseload and helping with lowering the rate of recidivism. From material learned in class, to the observation of the courts there are some key concepts you should know, which can help you with future court experiences. Discretion the basically means judges have the freedom to decide what should be done in a certain case. Plea bargaining is also a very important concept to remember because what plea bargains are deals made with the prosecutor and defendant in order to come to an agreement and lower punishment. This all helps tremendously with the caseloads in these courts. Indigent defense is also something to be familiar with because we have the right to counsel in a criminal case. A public attorney can save you from ending up in the prison system. Pretrial is a proceeding held before an official trial, usually to clarify points of law and facts in the case. The last concept that is very important to the court system is original and appellate jurisdiction. This concept usually is the main reason we have a dual court system. Original jurisdiction is when the federal District Court hears a case for the first time. Appellate Jurisdiction is when it gets appealed to a higher court such as the Circuit Court to be retried. By observing cases in both the District and Circuit Courts, I gained a much better understanding of how the courts really work and what’s needed for them to run smoothly. One major conclusion I drew from the field research was that plea bargains are needed in order for the Criminal Justice System to work properly without flaws. If prosecutors and judge’s didn’t plea bargain with the defendants, then you could expect a major increase in the work load for both court systems. Plea bargains help cases close faster by having the two parties coming to terms with an appropriate sentence by pleading guilty to the charges. This helps blockage in the courts by speeding up trials that would normally take longer to resolve. Another conclusion that I drew from my observation was that, without having the District Court for most federal criminal cases and Circuit Court for appeals and more serious criminal charges the courts would be overrun and would not be able to function. The purpose of these courts is not only to hear cases but to be split into to districts so that all areas can be covered. Imagine if there was no second set of appellate courts, people would be packing into to one central courthouse instead of splitting and area up with different courthouses in federal judicial districts. It just makes the most sense to have higher court systems to overrule and help try difficult cases. The Judicial Branch has overcome major change since it was originally established. It used to be the Circuit Court would hear all federal criminal cases, instead of the District Court. Due to some changed the roles of the courts reversed and now District Courts hear all federal and criminal cases along with others and the Circuit Court is now a court of appeals which hears cases that are more high profile and reviews previous decision made by the lower court.
The roles of original and appellate jurisdiction have also switched meaning District courts are the first ones to hear the case before anybody else. Together with observation and field research I got a better sense of the courts and how they run differently from one another. I learned that a judge is more likely than not, a neutral party in the adversarial which use their discretion and knowledge of previous cases in order to make the right decision and apply the rule of law correctly. One of the most important things I learned through this field observation is that, when you are researching actively it is a lot easier to predict outcomes of certain cases and knowing exactly how the adversarial and court system really work without any personal prejudice or bias.