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My experience with the criminal law and the justice
system has been mostly through two dimensional mediums. I had taken
an English course that concentrated on the privatization of prisons
and the judicial system; we had learned through reading myriad first
person narratives of correctional officers, and watched many
interviews of prisoners on death-row. My other experience with
criminal litigation is through watching the serial TV drama Suits.
The melodramatic and intense tableau of what courtroom conduct looks
like depicted by these narratives I was presented with was
completely shattered when I was brought into Lorain Municipal
Courts.
As Mr. Graves, my mentor, asked Grace, a fellow intern, and I to
slide into the jury box to watch the pretrial proceedings commence,
my expectations were completely subverted. Due to COVID-19, alleged
perpetrators who were detained in the county jail were “brought” to
the arraignment hearings via Zoom calls. As the judge spoke, the
courtroom bustled with defense attorneys and prosecutors; I couldn’t
have imagined something more different - my mind had painted a
picture of a solemn proceeding in which everyone was aloof and
silent. As the judge asked the first man on the stand whether or not
he would plead guilty so that his next court date could be arranged,
he began to appeal to the judge, “I can’t make it on that date, I
have a doctors appointment… I was stabbed 13 times, my eye sockets
are bruised, the stab penetrated my lung so my lung collapsed, my T1
and T5 vertebrae …” As he recounted his injuries, I sucked in a
breath. This man was being charged with domestic abuse, and had been
charged with physically assaulting his wife twice prior to this
conviction, yet as he pleaded about his injuries, I felt sorry for
him. And it finally hit me, simply reading and learning about the
prison and court systems is completely different from actually
experiencing it. This internship had bridged my disconnect from my
sheltered world to cruel reality; the internship also forced me to
grapple with the complexities of the decision-making in the real
world.
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As I attended more court hearings, listened to the charges of
each person, as well as the police report on what occurred on the
day of the crime, I slowly began to come to the realization that the
world isn’t black or white, nor can someone’s actions and the
consequences they “deserve” be summed up in a single sentence or
conviction. A woman came into the courtroom to get her domestic
violence misdemeanor record expunged because she would not have been
able to get into nursing school and provide for her child if the
record wasn’t hidden. So in that moment, the judge and the state, in
this case, Mr. Graves, the prosecutor that’s representing the state,
will have to make a decision as to whether the need for punishment
for the woman’s sins in the past outweighs her need to carve a
brighter future for herself and her child. In that moment, I froze
as I imagined myself in Mr. Graves’ position, if I had to completely
change a person’s life with one sentence - one recommendation to the
judge - what would I do? The moral dilemma left me scratching my
head as we left the courtroom.
Each day at the internship and the courthouse, we were
presented with many similar dilemmas. The internship was constantly
exciting and kept me on my toes as I had to confront many ethical
challenges and wrestle with conflicting narratives that arise from
my own interpretations of a case and my mentor’s line of
argumentation for that case. This experience was really rewarding in
that it gave me new perspectives on things that I previously had
only learned about in class and compelled me to shift my paradigm. I
am so grateful for APAPA for providing me with this opportunity to
connect and engage with my community, helping me understand the
impact of a single action, as well as the importance of nuanced
thinking and representation within the justice system and American
society as a whole.
相關活動:(該活動已經于8月23日舉辦)
俄州亞太聯盟公共事務實習生畢業典禮
歡迎參加我們在網上舉行的2020年靑年公共事務實習生項目的畢業典禮活動,慶祝來自哥倫布、辛辛那提和克利夫蘭20多位靑年在疫情下努力工作取得的成績!
特邀嘉賓:
Tina Maharah,
州參議員,SD-3,俄州第一位亞裔女參議員
Beth Liston,
州衆議員,HD-21,OSU臨床醫學敎授
活動免費向所有人開放。
時間:美東時間8月23日下午4:00-5:15
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