Word: courtrooms
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...fluorescent gloom pervades the courtroom for Criminal Business of the Third District Court of east Middlesex Country. The ceiling lights have the grayish-white color of dirty institutional bed linen, and colors are sapped, dulled in this civil service twilight. The chalkboard looks olive drab, the cheap wall veneer blends into the dusty browns of the portraits. Even the well-tanned private lawyers look wan and pasty...
...courtroom is a study in waiting. This is not high drama. This is high not high drama. This is high tedium, even for the consumers. In the benches in the rear, a few manage to read a newspaper, but no one can concentrate enough to read a book. There is, of course, no talking, as the bailiff is quick to remind anyone who happens to forget. One ends up simply watching, and waiting...
...defendant always understands, of course. He has a limited set of options. He can demand to continue with the case, and take more days off from work, and pay more court fees, and spend more days waiting in the dimly lit back of the courtroom. Or he can pay the fines, do the community service, enroll in the treatment programs, meet the probation officer to lean what a suspended jail term means, and end the case. The unknown is less comfortable than the known, and most defendants choose the latter...
...park outside, a courtroom guard smokes. His girth betrays a career of inactivity; his eyes, nose, and mouth are adrift in an ocean of flesh. He says, "In that building, there are no secrets. If some judge is balling the secretary, everyone knows...
...Given the power relations in our society we have a long way to go before a woman can come into a courtroom and get a fair trial," Ogletree said...