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Criminal Court Case Analysis

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On September 15th, 2015, I attended the General District Court of Williamsburg and observed an hour of the Court’s proceedings. The only background knowledge I have, of what Court proceedings may look like, all comes from watching hours of Law and Order: SVU. While sitting and observing the Court interactions, I focused on the criminal procedures being discussed during each case and the overall “culture” of the Court in regards to the judge and the two attorneys present for each case. In total I saw seven court cases presented before Judge Killilea. In television shows criminal procedures are long and rigorous. There is a lot that takes place between the arrest of the criminal and the court debates that last for hours or even days to determine …show more content…
Most of the Court debate happened between the defense attorney and the judge. There was a case where a young man was being charged for underage drinking and the defense attorney was trying to get the charge reduced from a second offender to first, even though the defendant was already on probation because of a drug charge. The defense attorney’s reasoning was that the drug charge was different from the underage alcohol charge. Judge Killilea did not accept this defense. She said she was going to keep to a strict reading of statute and stated “Substance abuse is substance abuse.” In another case, the defense attorney explained the young man wrote a letter to the Court saying how regretful he was of his actions; and he presented the evidence that the defendant had been completely honest with the police officer when he was caught. The defense attorney kept using the phrase “second chance.” In the end, the young man was still charged with a drug offense and given the sentence according to his charge. The case which stood out the most in terms of court proceedings was a case where a young woman was questioned by her defense …show more content…
One of the biggest differences was the role of the Prosecutor. I originally thought Prosecutors debated the entire time, trying to get the judge to agree with them about the guilt of the crime. That, unfortunately, was not the case. The Prosecutor read the police report for every case and then the defense attorney spoke for a couple of minutes stating the case why their client deserves a lower sentence. It seems as if the idea of “innocent until proven guilty” was completely lost. The Prosecution knows the defendant is guilty so there is no need for real debate to go on. They have all the paperwork and the Court’s favor. There were many times when the defense attorney asked the Prosecutor to see the additional paperwork about the defendant, paperwork about their criminal record. The defendants, many of the times, did not know whether they needed to stand or sit while the judge and their defense attorney talked about the case. There was a court case where a defendant told the judge that the reason he did not have representation was because the prosecution told him he did not really need it. The man was being charged with assault and battery, and he had witnesses to go along with his case. He was completely clueless on the protocols on how to question witnesses. Court proceedings seemed chaotic from the side of the defense compared to the Prosecutor,

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