Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a court case in Fulton County. The case I attended was in juvenile court. The reason I attended a juvenile case is that I witnessed a juvenile commit a crime. The crime itself was quite small, but what happened during the case shows us why to tell the truth when appearing in court.
The court I attended was juvenile court in Fulton County. The presiding Judge was Charles Hodges. The juvenile had legal representation. The attorneys name was Julia Desmond. I am not sure who actually represented the state in this matter. There were several different people who spoke on behalf of the state or county. The charges were read, the witnesses testified and then the juvenile was given a chance to refute the allegations. The juvenile was not cross-examined heavily. Only a few questions were asked of her until she denied all involvement in the matter.
At the beginning of the case, which took only about an hour, the case was announced and the charges were read. Someone from the State or County explained the incident and the first witness was called. The judge seemed to be reading a lot and he took a lot of notes. He didn’t make much eye contact with anyone. He seemed
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I believe that the courts need to take their jobs seriously and they need to do the best job possible. The juvenile was charged with failure to yield when she, on a bicycle, failed to signal for a turn and the swerved into oncoming traffic and was subsequently hit, by a car. I was shocked that, at first, the proceedings seemed to be somewhat relaxed. He tried to rationalize to her, and help her see what actually could happen if she decided to lie. She only seemed to be upsetting the judge due to his body language and sighing. In many cases that I have witnessed I have seen a more professional presentation by the prosecution, and even in class we discussed this to some level. The only real charge that stemmed from the incident was failure to signal. The juveniles’ attorney tried to ask the witnesses questions for clarification purposes. Instead she tried to lie and probably received a much stiffer penalty than she would have, if she had only told the truth. However, the similarities between the cases stop there.
This was my first visit to a juvenile court. The Judge seemed to care about the juvenile’s emotional state and he did not want to see her go through anything that she did not deserve. To me, it says that we are just too comfortable in our everyday life and we need to be more focused on our jobs. I am not sure if it would be a different case at a different time or what.
Approximate Word count =
1110
Approximate Pages =
4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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