Observing Superior Court was very interesting. I observed a child molestation case, which plead to a lesser offense. While the case we were supposed to observe in a trial pled out, I realized that I knew the defendant. We have read a lot in our textbook and learned a lot listening to lectures in class, but I do not think any of those prepares one for the surprise of the …show more content…
It was very interesting to learn about his experiences and why he chose to be a defense attorney. As our course book has previously stated and our classroom discussions have observed, being an attorney is a difficult and stressful job. I asked Mr. Liston if he ever had a hard time representing people who have committed crimes. He told me he does not and explained that he loved his job very much. I found it interesting that, while the book talks about attorneys who have conflicts about such issues and become very bothered by their job, neither of the individuals who worked with the defense that I spoke with had any issues with the job they were doing. Both liked their jobs very much and would not have wanted a different job.
On Wednesday, March 11th I observed State Court with Judge Jason Thompson. State Court was run much differently than the Superior Court, even though they are just down the hall from one another. State Court heard multiple cases at a faster rate. While I only observed one case being pled out in the beginning of one trial in Superior Court in the two and a half hours I was there. I saw over thirty cases pled out and taken care of in three hours. Unlike superior court the majority of the cases were: driving without a license, driving with a suspended license, a …show more content…
I did see a few African American officers and two women officers, but the proportion was definitely unequal. I saw the same issue with the make up of the courtroom. Both judges I observed in court were white males, and the staff was mostly white as well, but the issue with sex is not the same. There were many females working as the staff in positions like, stenographer and court reporter. The majority of attorneys were white and male, but there were some female attorneys and African American attorneys as