Court Visit Report
Assignment for Paper on Court Visit
- I. FORMAT
Your paper must be in essay form, 3-5 pages long, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12 point font, black, standard Word margins. Use APA format except as otherwise provided in these instructions, re font issues (if you are not familiar with that format check with the campus librarians); the Abstract for the APA format will not be counted as one of your page limits, nor will the cover page (which is described below), or the Daily Calendar, but you must still include all of them in your final paper. The paper is due in hard copy form in class on the date indicated in your Syllabus. No email attachments will be accepted. No late papers accepted. Put your name and page numbers on all pages; staple the pages together.
Attach to it a copy of the Daily Calendar (or whatever the name is for the daily court calendar for the court you attend) for the day you attend, indicating which session/case you attended; as stated above, this will not be included in the page paper limit. Please also create the below listed form indicated in Part 1 as your cover page; as stated above, this also will not be included in the page paper limit.
- A. Court Visit
Attend a morning or afternoon court session/trial, or motion hearing, at the King County Superior Court or the Superior Court of another county in Washington. Any other type of court (e.g., District or Municipal Court) will not suffice. What distinguishes a trial from a hearing or motion session is that the former have witnesses who testify and are subject to direct and cross examination, or the attorneys will be making opening statements or closing arguments; at a motion hearing the attorney(s) will be arguing a point(s) of law to the judge. A COURT APPEARANCE WHERE A DEFENDANT MERELY PLEADS GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY TO A CHARGE IS NOT A TRIAL SESSION. This is true even if the guilty pleas are followed by sentencing. Nor will a family court proceeding suffice for this assignment, or a jury selection alone.
Morning sessions generally start around 9:00 a.m. and afternoon sessions usually start around 1:30 p.m. It is up to each individual judge to determine when he or she wants to start their court sessions. There are two King County Superior courthouses. One is located on 516 3rd Avenue in Seattle and the second courthouse is located at 401 4th Avenue North in Kent. For more information on the King County Superior Court, visit the home page at http://www(dot)kingcounty(dot)gov/courts. You can obtain a copy of the Daily Calendar (or its equivalent) from the website the day after the hearing you attend; otherwise the Daily Calendar is generally not printed until 10 a.m. the day of any hearings. Thus, if you attend an afternoon session you will be able to get a copy of the Daily Calendar that afternoon; you can obtain it from the Court Clerk’s Office in the courthouse. If you attend a morning session you will not be able to get a copy until after 10 a.m.; you can obtain a copy of it from the Court Clerk’s Office in the courthouse. Ask the Clerk or persons at the Information desk to guide you on which hearing would fit this assignment; they are very helpful.
You will have to go through a metal detector and security check much like that in airports before being allowed into the courthouse. Plan accordingly, re metal objects, etc.
Please note that often the plaintiff/state and defendant will resolve the case on the day of the trial or the day before and the trial will be canceled. If you are interested in seeing a particular case, I encourage you to call the Court Clerk in the morning to verify that the case you want to see will be in session that day. There is always something to observe in the court and you should not fail to attend simply because a case you may have wanted to see will not be in session.
Court Visit Report
Name
Institution
Abstract
Normally, court sessions concerning both criminal and civil cases go through various processes during trial. In these processes or stages, different issues are addressed in an attempt to provide a clear understanding of the case, to ensure justice prevails. This paper seeks to analyze a court proceeding in a case I attended, as a fulfillment of my class assignment. In this report, I will focus on discussing the various issues I observed during my court visit.
Court Visit Report
Part 1
What courthouse did you attend?
King County Superior Court
Date(s) attended?
Judge’s name?
Allred, Chad
What type of proceeding was it?
Criminal case
What was the subject of the case?
Case: State v. Bentley (Assault / Possession of Stolen Vehicle)
What stage of the proceeding did you observe?
Direct testimony
Part 2
Cases moves through various stages in a court of law. The various stages involved in a court trial include the opening statement, the submission of evidence, direct examination, cross-examination, different motions, judgment, and sentencing. In one instance, at the time I attended the court proceeding, the case was at the stage of hearing direct testimonies. All the witnesses for the day were present, providing their testimonies one-by-one.
During the court session, different witnesses to the case were brought in by the state attorney to testify what they knew about the case. This included the plaintiff, who came to clarify on various issues that related to the case. During the examination, the witnesses could clarify on some evidences collected concerning the case. For instance, a cop involved in the case, came in, and asked to identify and verify some photos collected as evidence, during the arrest of the defendant. What I noticed during the examination is that, besides testifying to matters of fact, the witnesses were allowed to provide their opinions pertaining to the incident that led to the case. However, personal opinions were only limited to the experts, for example, the cop who was involved in arresting the defendant. Other witnesses such as the plaintiff’s neighbor was only asked to testify what he saw and understood about the case involved. At one time, the lawyer representing the defendant could raise objection to some testimonies, protesting that such testimonies were weak to implicate the defendant. Throughout the testimonies, those testifying were required to speak loudly, but slowly. This allowed the court clerk to record all the court proceedings for future references. At some points, the judge could also write some few notes, which I believe were some of the most important points that could be used during the judgment time.
Unlike in many court scenes on television, the court proceeding I attended seemed a little bit weird. In many court scenes on television, the court prosecutor and not the judge, normally conduct the task of interrogating the witnesses. In this case, the judge was responsible of asking the witnesses most of the questions, while the court prosecutor was sitting there. Although the court prosecutor was also involved in questioning the witnesses at some point, the idea that the judge asked almost all the questions, to me, seemed unusual. However, the court proceeding was the same, in other aspects, as those broad...