The Fulton School
Yesterday I went to the Federal Courthouse – Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse. EJ’s wife works in an office at the courthouse where she reviews cases and determines if they should continue forward or not. She has also held multiple clerkships for judges in the courthouse. Yesterday, we went to what was originally supposed to be a Motion Hearing but what turned into a change of plea. The defendant was a 64 year old African American man that held 32 counts, some of which were robbery charges, others including death threats and concealing and firing a weapon (held by a criminal) furthering a criminal act. His first name is James, his education stopped in fourth grade, he takes medication for PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and he has held various labor jobs throughout his life. The Motion Hearing was going to be arguing whether the use of DNA found at the site of one of the robberies was valid to use as evidence at the upcoming trial. But, I guess the defendant’s lawyers spoke to him about the likelihood of the trial going their way, and decided to change his not guilty plea to guilty. The judge went over all of the rights the defendant was giving up by pleading guilty, made sure nobody persuaded him into changin his plea, repeated the testimony against him, and ultimately accepted his guilty plea to 12 of the 32 counts. His sentencing will be held in July after the judge looks more into the information regarding his case, as well as the standard for prison-time his crimes hold. The judge did however say that he will face at least 10 years for 2 counts each, consecutively. And because he’s already in his sixties, that alone is essentially a life sentence. The main thing that intrigued me was how kind the judge was to him even though he is a criminal facing very bad crimes.
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It’s really cool that you get to watch this stuff as a highschool student, Ruthie and I feel like it will very good to have on your college stuff and future job applications to set you apart from other applicants! I think it’s interesting that you note the judge’s kindness. My question would be what have you seen working in the justice system where people have been really kind, really rude, or things that you didn’t know, surprised you, were weird or that you found interesting? I feel like the media and a lot of activists / advocates often talk about how messed up our justice system is, so I feel like it would be pretty uplifting to see a judge treating a potential criminal with empathy and compassion. I think we often times neglect to mention the good things or good people within the justice system, which to me seems to involve a lot of good people trying to work and do good within an overall screwed up system.