Allen wrote:
Then you should send documentation of this to
I'll tell you a quick story from my own past experience, albeit this _was_ in Chicago, with 'Chicago-style' judges, prosecutors and police. It dates back to the early/middle 1960's. A friend of mine had gotten caught up in a 'raid' on a gay bar in Chicago. A 'raid' was one of those things police would do when the local-area bigshot politician had not received his regular payoff from the tavern owner, or the police had not received their regular payoff. In those days, the raids were always very nasty affairs; police would go huffing and puffing into a bar, or theatre or other business which was expected to make payoffs, announce it was a raid, line up all the patrons and the employees, etc. Tipped off in advance, the Chicago Tribune would always have a reporter and photographer there as well. After the Tribune had gotten everyone's name, address, and place of employment for the next day's paper, police usually allowed all the patrons to leave, but one or two would be used as 'examples' and arrested, taken off to the police station in a wagon, etc. The ones who wound up getting arrested were usually those who had sassed the police, i.e. insisted on their legal rights, etc. In this instance, my friend had been hauled off to the police station; I went down and put up the fifty-dollar fine the police wanted to let him out.
For morale support, I went along with him when he had to appear in court a month or so later; the charges were 'lewd and disorderly behavior'. Court started at 9:00 AM on the day in particular, when we got there the courtroom was quite full; these were folks who had been caught up in various raids (but made bail) and there for their 'court appearance'. In the back of the courtroom was a 'bullpen' -- a holding tank full of the most scraggy women I had ever seen. Most were black ladies, a few, maybe three or four of the several hundred in the holding area were white ladies. All had been picked up the sometime the night before on prostitution charges. Quite a few of the ladies were, umm, 'unkempt' or just plain dirty. The judge was a sort of disinterested older guy, apparently anxious to get out for his coffee and cigarette break. The prosecutor and his two 'witnesses' -- police officers -- stood in the front next to the judge's bench the entire time. When the judge told the bullpen guard to bring the prisoners forward, the women all got in a line and processed forward in a line in front of the judge, who afforded them each a ten second trial, banging his gavel rythmetically and saying 'not guilty; case dismissed' to each lady as she walked past and gave her name. The entire process of emptying out the bullpen took about 15 minutes, whereupon the judge decided to call a recess and go for his coffee and cigarette break. The prosecutor and police 'witnesses' went out, and came back in about 15 minutes when the judge reappeared. While they were all gone, some lady working for the court went up and sat at the judge's bench and rooted around through the judge's files, taking some files away and leaving a few new ones. When the judge returned, now it was time to get down to real business.
The cases were called one at a time (each defendant got anywhere from one to three minutes as needed). Same police officer 'witnesses' stood there the entire time. Always the same story: "me and my partner were on purely (I want you to know!) patrol when citizen defendant did whatever very offensive thing. Me and my partner were so offended by seeing this, we knew he had to be arrested. The day I went with my friend, there were perhaps thirty instances of this, same officers were always the complaining witnesses. How the same two police officers could be offended that often in a day's time is hard to believe. After about an hour, my friend's name was called and he went up to the bench. I would say in about half the cases that day, the judge found the defendant innocent, in others the defendant was guilty. No matter to the two police officers standing there the whole day as the complaining witnesses. They just stood there with a straight face no matter what verdict the judge gave in the little two or three minute trials. The ones who were found guilty received as their punishment 'time served'; and 'one month court supervision' which was a way of saying nothing more happened.
Even if the payoff (or lack of payoff which caused the raid to start with) had not been made in a timely way, there still could be hope for the ones who were there. There was a fellow walking around the courtroom in sort of an officious manner, who identified himself as an attorney 'for anyone who needs a lawyer' and if you wished, you could walk out in the hall to his 'office' and make the needed arrangements. After you gave him money, then he would walk up to the judge when your name was called and tell the judge that you were represented by 'counsel'. And the judge then moved your case back to end of his calendar for that day following another coffee/cigarette break and a chance to have a conference with this 'attorney' fellow. As the final order of business in this part of the court day, this attorney would approach the bench and 'remind' the judge that they would need to have a conference in chambers regards (the various defendants he named).
Now the second coffee/cigarette break of the session, with the judge and this 'attorney' and the prosecutor and the police in the judge's chambers, where I presume they divided up the loot the bag-man lawyer had collected for them. Then after awhile, court would resume for the third time that day. These final cases were a bit more elaborate: Prosecutor would ask the police exactly _how_ they were offended, "me and my partner witnessed the defendant doing thus and so"; the bag-man lawyer would mumble a few things after having pleaded you innocent, as often as not, the lawyer's complaint was the police had failed to ID themselves, or whatever. And the judge would mumble a few things and raise some hell with the defendant but invariably find him not guilty and release him (or occassionally find him guilty with 'time served'.) I do not know if the findings of innocence or guilt were based on factual circumstances or if it was because of the 'expert witness' for the defense of 'Mr. Green' (as they liked to refer to money.) Your guess on that would be as good as mine. I know that the lawyer did ask the judge for a continuance telling the judge he had 'not yet been able to meet with Mr. Green' in one of the cases that day. "It will be a week before Mr. Green is able to come to my office." PAT]