February 21, 2014

On Friday of February break I went to the Albany County Court. I prefer the location of this court. It is a 5 minute from my mom’s work, so I can walk there after I’m done. Aside from that the actual building looks nicer than the city court. I assume this is due to the county being more important than city court. The guard told me that courtroom 2 was active so I went there. Turns out that drug court was in that room. People filtered into the room until some people in suits came in. There were after 50 people in courtroom when it began. The actual drug court lasted about 10 minutes. The lawyers called up some people to be awarded for 12 month, 6 month, 3 month and 1 month badges. I’m guessing that the same group stayed together for the whole year because a lot of people seemed to know each other. Like you mentioned, the usual judge wasn’t there. The lawyers talked for a little bit about the importance of getting a job and an education. The lawyers then dismissed everyone. I talked to the guard again, and he mentioned that there was a trial going on upstairs so I went to go check that out.

When I entered the room, the lights were off and a video was playing. On the screen some body was being interrogated. He was backed up in a corner and two police officers were questioning him. The video played for about an hour. The cops were trying to get the man to admit to the crime. I had a little trouble figuring out what the crime was but from what I could make out, someone had attempted to steal an old ladies purse and she had fought him off. Witnesses had stopped the man but he had run off. They had also given a description of the man to the police. I noticed some interrogation tactics during the video which I found interesting. The officers were acting as if they knew the man had committed the crime and just needed him to admit to it. They told the man that the witnesses had given the police multiple, accurate that fit him. For the first 40 minutes or so, the man argued a lot and denied everything, whereas towards the end of the video the police officer got onto some longer talks and the man started talking less. Sometimes the video was interrupted by a blue box that cut out the video. The judge later said that those were parts taken out of the video because they were not relevant to the case. After the video there was a 10 minute break.

When the lights came on from the video, some police hand cuffed someone and led him out of the room. I recognized him as the man from the video. When the break ended the prosecuting lawyers put a police officer on the witness stand. He had responded to the call. I don’t think he was in charge of the investigation but he was responsible for collecting video footage from various cameras. One thing I noticed was how the lawyer tried to make to seem that the officer was very knowledgeable when it came to cameras. She asked him numerous questions asking how long he had been working with different computer and camera systems. The lawyer ran the officer through his entire process of collecting footage from different cameras as well as his procedure for safeguarding the footage. The defense lawyer also asked the officer some questions. She asked him if was in charge of the camera system for all the camera systems that were mentioned. I knew what she was trying to do, but it seemed kind of weak. The lawyers then played the video. Most of was weird angles and nothing was happening. A few times the officer stopped the video and pointed out the old lady and the man following her. I didn’t see the end of the video, but some people I recognized from the jury passed me on the way out so I don’t think it went too much longer. One thing I found odd was that there were 14 people on the jury. I don’t know if it’s just my impressions from Twelve Angry Men, but I thought the jury only had 12 members.

I really enjoyed the watching trial. I found it very interesting to watch a real trial. I don’t think there are trials at the county court all the time, but hopefully I will get to see more.