Preparing Court Observation - Essay Example

? Court Observation In order to prepare a formal report on court proceedings, I decided to visit the District Court. On 25th Mar 2013, I attempted for the first time to visit the court. As I entered through the main entrance, I came to know that since the docket for the day was not possessed by the judge. A docket is the awaiting cases calendar. The original jurisdiction of the District Court includes cases such as Ordinance and Traffic violations, civil lawsuits (up to $25000 amount), all sorts of criminal misdemeanors, small claims, preliminary examination on offenses and all types of tenancy contractual disputes. The Courts are arranged in order to settle local disputes and keep the society in an ordered form. This is an enduring process which was initiated around more than six hundred years ago. Before attending the court, I contacted each court to get known to the cases and times that can be attended since in some cases youth are not allowed to attend. I reattempted to visit the court on 1st April’ 2013. As I reached the District Court, many people were waiting and there were signs posted on the doors of court rooms notifying the instructions for entrance in the court. The opening of the building was magnificent. Though I was known to the fact that the public is allowed to enter the court room, in order to avoid being intrusive, I decided to wait patiently in the Cashier line with hope that I’ll be provided assistance by someone. Soon, my hopes were fulfilled and I was escorted by an individual into the court room. The arrangement of the courtroom was plain. The court room didn’t have any police present as well as didn’t have any defendant's box. The judge was a white, middle-class, middle-aged male. The public was allowed to sit on the backside of the court room. I immediately looked around and attempted to get known with the surrounding. I found a few number of people waiting either by themselves or along with their attorneys on the bench-seats while few were seated in the jury box in jail uniforms. I got seated and adjusted my ears and eyes to initiate notes taking. The case hearings attended by me were about a car incidence. The case was comprised of claims from two parties countering one another. As usual the claim was made by the plaintiff who was unable to view the defendant car arriving and attempt to evade. To counter this claim, the defendant whose leg and lower back got injured due to the collision with the plaintiff’s car. I observed that within the court room, the judge examined both claims simultaneously for saving time and ensuring quick processing. Although the legal way of examining such claims is that each is examined separately but this procedure was not followed by the judge for saving time. As I got into the court room, I got a seat on the backside reserved for public, in front of the judge bench located at the other side of the court room. On my right side, the claimant along with her lawyer was seated and in front of the claimant, the Barrister was seated on a layer. On my left side, the defendant was seated along with his Barrister seated in front of him. Initially the claimant was moved to the witness stand so that both partied can examine him. The claimant told that she parked her car to the road’s left side and then went to a nearby shop to purchase her daily groceries. Later on when she finished her shopping, she came back to her car and attempted to get it back on the main road. However, while trying to get to the road’s right side, she was unable to notice the car of defendant on time, and consequently she was unable to stay away from them as she didn’t had enough time and the two cars as a consequence smashed. After her little comprehensive description of the accident, she was cross examined by both barristers who asked numerous questions in order to dig out the facts. When the plaintiff’s examination was done, the defendant came to the witness stand. He then started explaining his side of the story. He told that as he was driving his car across the road, all of a sudden, without any warning, the claimant's car started to enter the same side of the road. Since he had only a few seconds to decide, he couldn’t manage and the collision resulted. At that point, it was insisted by the claimant's attorney that the defendant passed his car from the Pelican crossing illegally only slightly far from the place of incident. This claim was denied by the defendant. Another important and crucial argument made by the defendant on the witness statement was that his leg was fractured but late on it was validated by the doctor that his lower back also suffered from injuries due to the accident. After the examination of the defendant, his father in law was asked to record witness statement as he was seated along with the driver, at the time, this accident occurred. The plaintiff’s advocate and the judge attempted to sort out if both the defendant and his accompanying father in law had any conversation regarding the incident or its evidence. Although the man denied all such questions but was seemed to have got confused with this cross questioning. The trial proceedings ended that day and then the judge provided the summary of all the facts and evidence from the beginning and provided his final decision that the costs of the incident costs will be equally divided among both parties and each had to bear fifty percent of the total costs while the costs of trial were to be compensated by the defendant. As I observed the court proceedings, I thought that many parties may have avoided claiming their issues in the court due to the extensive cross-examination and questioning that are included in the afterwards proceedings. Cases in the District Court can become very comprehendible to normal people. Although all the attorneys provided a proper response when they were asked and even they also re-phrased their questions when they were seemed to be incomprehensible. Something that astonished me was the fact that until the case reaches the District Court, no matter of law or statutory interpretation was done. As evident from the case, the incident was simply a question of fact instead of being based to the juridical precedent. All lawyers demonstrated the legal skills required to carry-out court trial. Here the term ‘legal skills’ is used to refer to efficient communication, research as well as organization skills. Both parties demonstrated their preparation. Another essential observation was the functioning of the solicitors and barristers. The barrister performed the role of presenting the case to the audience within the court room while the solicitor’s job was to perform the main course of work. Though solicitors are allowed to speak within the court room, the barrister refer to them only in few instances to ascertain if all the essential points have been addressed or any other relevant left to be discussed. However the factor that astounded me the most from this visit of the actual court room was the minimum utilization of precedent. To conclude, the case I observed was easy to be followed with simple facts and was easy to understand by layman and was quite different from my personal expectations. The unmanageable part was that the panel trials are usually quite lengthy. It occurs due to the fact that all the facts are required to be described by the judge to the ears of a normal layman by the judge. The simplicity of the case’s facts astonished me but the most astonishing was the minimum reference to the precedent as only the relevant statute’s section was stated. This affirms the notion that the function of the courts is to discourse, inquire and come to a decision on facts (Council for Court Excellence). Works Cited Council for Court Excellence (Washington, D.C.). The Court Observation Handbook: A Step-by-step Guide to Establishing a Court Observation Project. Council for Court Excellence, (n.d.). Print. Read More