Reflection on a Night Court Experience

Reflection on A Night Court Experience

In a cold Sunday evening, I visited the famous Night Court in the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. Although it is rated by Trip Advisor as one of the top tourist attractions in New York City, there were only a few people that evening, and most of them left in an hour. If you did not come for someone, the hard narrow wooden bench certainly was not an ideal place to spend a weekend night.

This was my first time to visit a court in both U.S. or in China. Before I came, I expected the court to be as venerable and dignified as I saw on televisions. However, the atmosphere in the courtroom was kind of informal: behind the partition in the middle of room, court clerks walked around handling stacks of paperwork, and police officers escorted defendants in and out. People had small talks from time to time in very low voices, or stopped working to have a sip of coffee. Unlike the courtroom on televisions where was filled with confrontations, everyone here was relatively relaxed.

Although the atmosphere might seem informal, the justice system itself was highly efficient. Most of the cases were settled within 10 minutes following a standard procedure: the judge got the case file, then the prosecutor read the indictment, followed by credentials argument by the lawyer, and finally the judge gave her opinion. Meanwhile, clerks were quietly busy with all the paperwork and police officers would prepare for the next defendant. The courtroom was just like an assembly line with a dozen of highly skilled workers. Every case was conveyed through so quickly and routinely that I gave up taking notes soon since I had been writing the same lines on each case.

Actually, the cases themselves were homogeneous, too. The majority of them were drug possession or drug sells. It was surprising to see how prevailing the drug problem was in New York even under strict law enforcement. And it was also a bit surprising not to see any white defendant during nearly four hours. It was hard to say that this ethnic disproportion in defendants was due to discrimination or other personal/social factors, but the court decision could potentially exacerbate the disproportion further. Without other felony records, the persecutor usually asked for a bail more than ten thousands. Even though the judge would normally cut it to $3000 to $5000, the bail was still too high to pay. A black woman accused for cocaine possession was unable to pay her bail, so she plead guilty in the court and would be jailed for 3 days. She might lose her job and income sources due to the sentence, and her worsen economic condition would likely push her back to drug transactions.

The only one who paid the bail was a black young man. He was smoking marijuana when a police officer approached him. He stubbed out the butt and threw it away. But the police officer found several