A Day In Court
Deonte Hill
CJ 101 Intro To CJ
Professor Brian D. Heffner
7 December 2012
A Day in Criminal Court
This week I had the opportunity to sit in on criminal court proceedings. I chose to visit the Oakland County Court House for the day and noticed quite a few things through out the whole experience. I have been to a few courts in the past, criminal, traffic, and family, but never in the Oakland County building. There were many details of the proceedings, the image, and even the conditions of everything from the building itself to the people involved that I found particularly interesting.
The first thing I thought when I entered the building was that it was not crowded. In previous visits to troy courts the place was packed, let alone confusing. This courthouse was different. The hallways were very modern and clean and it felt fresh to me, not dark and dismal like it could have been. (I guess I have to also consider that I didn’ t have any charges against me so I wasn?t entering the building expecting to hate being there) I was surprised by the security measures. It seemed as if it was too easy to get through. I expected to have three or four metal detectors lined up for a big crowd, but there was only one. Right away I got the sense that the size of the building was not reflective of the amount of cases per day it accommodates. After speaking with one of the guards I was referred to the criminal court room rather than the family court, due to what he called a more interesting day.? . The courtroom itself I thought was way too small. There were only two and a half rows for people to sit and watch, forcing many people to have to wait outside. That I thought was not a well thought out design. There is tons of extra hallway space that they could have stretched the room out to make it bigger so you wouldn’t run into those kinds of problems. The room also had extravagant fixtures hanging from the ceiling. I don’t really understand the purpose of them, they may even
CJ 101 Intro To CJ
Professor Brian D. Heffner
7 December 2012
A Day in Criminal Court
This week I had the opportunity to sit in on criminal court proceedings. I chose to visit the Oakland County Court House for the day and noticed quite a few things through out the whole experience. I have been to a few courts in the past, criminal, traffic, and family, but never in the Oakland County building. There were many details of the proceedings, the image, and even the conditions of everything from the building itself to the people involved that I found particularly interesting.
The first thing I thought when I entered the building was that it was not crowded. In previous visits to troy courts the place was packed, let alone confusing. This courthouse was different. The hallways were very modern and clean and it felt fresh to me, not dark and dismal like it could have been. (I guess I have to also consider that I didn’ t have any charges against me so I wasn?t entering the building expecting to hate being there) I was surprised by the security measures. It seemed as if it was too easy to get through. I expected to have three or four metal detectors lined up for a big crowd, but there was only one. Right away I got the sense that the size of the building was not reflective of the amount of cases per day it accommodates. After speaking with one of the guards I was referred to the criminal court room rather than the family court, due to what he called a more interesting day.? . The courtroom itself I thought was way too small. There were only two and a half rows for people to sit and watch, forcing many people to have to wait outside. That I thought was not a well thought out design. There is tons of extra hallway space that they could have stretched the room out to make it bigger so you wouldn’t run into those kinds of problems. The room also had extravagant fixtures hanging from the ceiling. I don’t really understand the purpose of them, they may even