Judge Kennedy: Crj 370
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Daniel Galeano
Midterm Paper
Judge Kennedy: CRJ 370
03/11/2015
Midterm Paper
The Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center consists of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania which is composed of two courts which make up the Philadelphia County Court System: the Court of common Pleas and the Municipal Court. The Court of Common Pleas are “Pennsylvania’s courts of general trial jurisdiction,” where the Philadelphia Municipal Court “is a court of limited jurisdiction with 25 law-trained Judges, and as such is responsible for trying criminal offenses carrying maximum sentences of five years or less, civil cases where the amount in controversy is $12,000 or less for small claims; unlimited dollar amounts in landlord and tenant cases; and $15,000 in real estate and school cases. I was able to observe the Philadelphia Criminal justice Center in two different aspects; as a visitor and also an offender. I was caught with an open container, during an Eagles tailgate. I was giving a citation, and in order to have that citation expunged from my record, I needed to attend a class one Saturday morning, at the Criminal Justice Center.
On the Saturday morning of my class, I walked into a huge building surrounded by police officers, Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center; my guess for the over staffing was to maintain social order in and around the building. Lucky for me, I was on time and only had to wait in a small line. Once I got through the metal detectors and gave my money order to the front desk, I took a sit in a fairly large room and waited for the class to start. As I waited patiently, the room began to become crowded and any empty seats in the room became filled with people. I was shocked at the amount of people that attended the class, there had to be over 200 people. In my opinion, the class seemed like a way for Philadelphia to raise money, but also deter people from crime in the future. The class was run by a man who worked for the courts as a public defender, and who has been working for the Philadelphia Courts for over 20 years. He went through a lecture that lasted no more than an hour, and at the end of it I was able to leave with a better understanding on how the criminal justice system works. Although not everyone leaves with the same insight as others, I think the main goal is to try and steer people from committing the same or larger offense.
A week later I returned to the Criminal Justice Center, this time as a visitor. The first difference that I spotted was the amount of traffic going in and out of the building, this showed me how much busier the Criminal Justice Center was on weekdays opposed to weekends. The people going in and out of the building were either part of the criminal justice system or someone convicted of a citation, misdemeanor, or felony. As before I had to make my way through security check which consisted of x-ray baggage scanners, metal detectors, and a police officer holding a handheld bomb/metal detector. The security check seemed to go one of two ways, you cooperate with the officers, or you made a fuss about something they wanted you to do, which seemed to be the problem with a couple of people ahead of me. The chaos did not end at the security check, it only begun. The place was crowded with jury members, attorneys, district attorneys, employees, and etc., each trying to get to their destination. I walked around to get a feel for the environment; the vibe that I got from people all seemed negative. Courtrooms had people waiting nervously outside of them, while this room in the basement seemed hostile, with people waiting impatiently to get called up to the front desk to post bail for their friend/family members. After I took a tour of the building, I raced over to room 601 to witness a live courtroom.
Once I got up to room 601, I was escorted to a courtroom packed with people with either a citation, misdemeanor, or felony. These people would wait for their names to be called and when they got up to the stand they were read their offense. After their offense was read, they had three options: plead guilty, not guilty, or take the summary