On Thursday morning, I was back in room 2A with Judge Davidian. The first order of business was talking care of a return of weapons case. Because lawyers had worked out the negotiations beforehand, this case was over in a matter of five minutes because all that was left was the paperwork. One of the same lawyers from Tuesday was there, and I wondered how often the same lawyers appeared in one courtroom. Turns out that many of them had become a familiar face, whether the Judge liked it or not. After that, Judge Davidian called up a couple that was scheduled on the docket, and asked their lawyers how long they expected the trial to take. He asked this from the rest of the lawyers present, and told many of the people waiting to be back at a certain time based on their answers. It was clear he didn’t want those people to stay in that room if they didn’t have to. That was rare. Most Judges make them wait in the room and suffer through trial upon trial while waiting for their decision.
Halfway through our cases, we encountered two people without lawyers. Because nobody will go to jail if they lose in this courtroom, no public defenders were awarded, so people who cannot afford a lawyer go pro se. Going pro se means that they testify as a witness and represent themselves in a court of law. Judge Davidian would ask questions to all of the pro se people while they were testifying because they did not have a lawyer to guide them and often left important information out of their testimony. Their opponent is allowed to cross-examine the witness another time after the judge questions them, to make it fair to the opposing side.
One of our cases involved negotiating a visitation schedule for a child. In this case, both of the parents were on opposing sides, and distrust clearly ran deep through the relationship. Neither client trusted each other, and even though it was clear from testimony that they were both credible, that credibility was constantly attacked. One woman began throwing allegations around, even starting one of her sentences with “…This ain’t no Lifetime movie, but…” and then proceeding to spin outlandish tales. From there on, I learned that pro se cross-examination is mostly just yelling at the opposing party and trying to prove crazy claims.
In the afternoon, I was back in the Justice Center in room 303 with a new judge, Judge Eagles. She was new to me, because this was the first time we had met, but it turned out that she was not at all new to the court system. Her dad had served on the N.C. Court of Appeals, and she followed in his footsteps. Room 303 on a Thursday afternoon was Criminal Domestic Violence. I was sitting at the clerk’s desk, and I noticed many of the files had green sticky notes on them. When I asked, the clerk told me that a green sticky note meant they had to be brought from the jailhouse to testify because they hadn’t been able to bail out. Once those cases were done, we dealt with video first appearances, where Judge Eagles literally video called people in the prison to notify them of their bond soon after they had committed the crime. I realized that showed the extent that our court system valued people’s right to a speedy trial, even when court is lots of waiting for other people.
Image of all the law books in chambers. SO MANY RULES AND STATUTES!
