Hey, Where Am I?

Me with my friend, Benjamin, and President Ramsey

There’s less than a month now before classes start at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law.  I was in Louisville yesterday for a few hours.  I drove past the law school and wondered how much things will be different once things finally do get going.  I’ve spoken with several rising 2L students from different schools (University of Kentucky, University of Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky University, and Indiana University, just to name a a few), and they’ve all told me how much time they put into everything this year.  It sounds daunting, but I tell myself that I worked hard in undergrad, so I’m no stranger to hard work.  I just have to find a way to keep up a momentum once I get comfortable with how things work.

Even though everything is creeping ever closer with each morning that I choose to sleep in and savor, I’m still in this strange transitional stage.  I don’t quite belong in the undergraduate world anymore.  That much became clear to me on the night that I helped with a freshman orientation event a few weeks ago.  But at the same time, I don’t quite fit with the law students either.

I don’t have anything more to say about it after merely noting the phenomenon.  So, there you have it.

But orientation starts in three weeks.  Hopefully I’ll feel more like I belong once that starts.

Jail Visits

Last week the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office set up a jail tour for a few of us interns (or, as I learned, we are more properly referred to as externs).  I had no idea what a jail might look like, so it was cool to get the opportunity to see one.  The facility itself is, of course, interesting for those of us not forced to stay there, but it was almost awkward to be there with all the inmates just watching what we were doing, and us watching them.  It was kind of de-humanizing for them – like they were in cages and we were just there to observe.  There was no doubt that we were outsiders.  We were also visiting with some of the more unpopular people in a jail: two Commonwealth attorneys.  Many of the people are in the jail because of their office.

Today was different though.  Since the judge is still out of town, we are with the D.P.A. (Department of Public Advocacy – also known as Public Defenders).  We got to have a more personal interaction with a few of the inmates.  At our first visit last week, inmates were made to sit on their bunks and remain quiet while we were in the dorms.  Today though, they were up and moving around.  You know . . . acting like people.

It was very cool to get to see how the attorney interacted with his clients.  He tries to get to know them and relate to them so that he can do his job to provide the best possible defense to his client.  But he is also incredibly honest with them.  One guy said today that he was worried the attorney had a lot of cases, maybe too many.  The attorney didn’t play it down, but said, “I know, I do have a lot of cases and it is a lot of work.  It worries me too.”  Some people have said the public defenders are some of the most overworked people in the justice system, if not the state.

I feel very lucky to get this opportunity to see the different sides of the justice system.  People keep telling me that it will provide a great context for when I actually start school.

Picture For You

There was nothing really going on at the office today, so I drew a picture for you of the courtroom.

Visit to the Crime Lab

Just a short update.

We visited the crime lab in Covington today and it was very un-NCIS. Honestly our hour and a half tour could have been much shorter, but our tour-guide liked to talk. She told us about several interesting cases that have come through in the past few years and learning how the evidence gets from the streets, to the lab, and then to the courtroom was the most valuable lesson of the day.

Not much to say here. Off to the jail tomorrow afternoon!

Medical Malpractice Trial

I realized I probably should have put something up this week about the civil trial we had going on in our courtroom this week. Most of the time what we see are criminal cases (arraignments, sentencing, hearings, etc.).

This week though we had a medical malpractice trial and I watched most of it from the day one through the deliverance of the verdict. I have to admit that it was interesting to watch all the proceedings. The opening arguments helped me to understand what the attorneys would be arguing, the witnesses helped to establish those arguments, and the closing arguments tied everything together. The judge, the other interns, and I all thought that the jury could be in deliberation for hours.

It was possible that the jury could find for the defendant (the doctor – but not this doctor), in which case they wouldn’t have to work out the damages owed to the plaintiffs.  But even deciding on that could take a while.

We left the courtroom, settled down into the office, ready to sit there for several hours while the jury deliberated.  We were shocked when only about five minutes later the verdict came back.  The jury found for the defendant.  Clearly they didn’t think the case was as complex as the rest of us, but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes.

Though it was all very interesting, I’ll be glad to get back to the regular schedule of criminal cases.  Tomorrow though, Heather and I will be heading to the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office for the week.  I believe we have a crime lab scheduled for Wednesday and a jail tour for Thursday.  Should be pretty interesting.

So There’s This Constitutional Law Thing…

The week and a half I have spent at the Kenton County Courthouse has been more enlightening than I think I would have anticipated.  When I arrived, I thought I would be wandering the courthouse, watching different judges’ dockets throughout the day, and having the majority of what was being said go over my head due to my relative lack of legal background.  But it was foolish for me not to realize that I’d absorb something just through observation.  I’ve started getting an introduction to legal jargon, courtroom etiquette (it’s really not like this anymore, but I wish, all attorneys were as awesome at Atticus Finch), the role of the clerks, etc.  I can’t tell yet just how much I am taking in, and maybe I won’t fully appreciate how much I am learning until I actually get to law school, but people keep telling me that this experience will be invaluable.

The judge that I am working with deals primarily with criminal cases (a lot of drug-related cases), but handles a few civil cases as well (we listened to two attorneys argue motions yesterday for a case that is now four years old).  It is certainly all interesting, but I don’t feel yet like it fits my interests.  What are my interests in law?  Well, we’re still trying to figure that out, but I may be closer to finding what that is based this morning’s discussion with the judge’s staff attorney (also my mother), who told me and my fellow intern about a United States Supreme Court case decided on May 16, 2011: Kentucky v. King (2011).

In this case, the Supreme Court decided that police did not violate the Fourth Amendment by entering a residence without a warrant.  The holdings read, “warrantless entry to prevent the destruction of evidence is allowed where police do not create the exigency through actual or threatened Fourth Amendment violation.”  This was an 8-1 decision, with Justice Ginsburg dissenting.

I am just barely a law student, let alone a legal scholar of any kind, so I don’t want to assert my own final judgement here (and I’m sure that most of  my current readers would not be interested in an extended analysis from me).  However, my first impression is that I agree with Justice Ginsberg’s dissent.  But it’s hard to reach a final conclusion without reading through the entire decision.  It’s fascinating how everything fits together to create these circumstances, and how those circumstances fit the rules and interpretations of the justices.  There are many ways to interpret what is going on here, which is why law is not static, but always changing.  Law is this huge, living body of interpretation that keeps society functioning and it is always evolving.  (It’s alive!!!)

This stuff, to me, is much more interesting than some of the stuff that I’ve seen thus far in my internship.  Perhaps I should concentrate in Constitutional law.  Granted, I realize this specific case is a criminal case, but it’s the Constitutional issue that is really interesting here.

It’s a slow day at the courthouse

Looks like everyone must be getting ready for the long weekend.  We didn’t have anything on the docket for our courtroom today, so Heather and I wandered the building looking for interesting things to watch in other courtrooms.  Thank to watching these things, I’m just starting to get a grasp on how the system works.

We started out on the first floor this morning watching arraignments again.  As I said before, this is the first court appearance people make.  If a person pleads not guilty to their offense, as a few did this morning, they will be given a pretrial date.  That’s where we were this afternoon.  At the pretrials, the prosecutor brings forth evidence to establish probable cause that the defendant did commit the crime.  If the judge finds that there is probable cause, which she often did today, the case will be sent to the grand jury.

That’s just the basic understanding I’ve gained thus far.  Obviously there is still a great deal more after the grand jury indictment, but I am not completely clear on what happens then.  I’m still confused by a lot of the system and can absolutely see why navigating this successfully is incredibly difficult for some people.  We talked a bit about access to the judicial system in my legal anthropology classes, so seeing some principles from those classes come into play here is really interesting.

Now I’m sitting in the office trying to find something to do.  I’ve read through a lot of what the judge gave us today and still have more than an hour until the Women’s Lawyers event tonight.  You know what I’d love to do?  Take a nap on that really nice couch we have in here.  But I doubt the judge would much appreciate that.