Court Observations Revision

I went to the Kalamazoo court house on two separate occasions; I wasn’t able to see a good portion of a trial though. The first time that I went, I saw the very beginnings of a trial. A man, Irvin Davenport, was on trial for murder, and the part that I saw was the beginning of jury selections. There were about 50 possible jurors in the room. The judge asked the prosecutor and the defendant’s attorney to read off the list of witnesses and asked if any juror knew any of the witnesses and to say which witness they knew. The judge wrote down their names, and possibly the witness they knew. This was a very lengthy process since there were a lot of witness and a lot of jurors.
The judge then explained that this trial would last sometime into the next week, and possibly longer. She asked the jurors if any of them had anything that would prevent them from being able to make court. Several people stood up, many of whom just claimed that they had work and it would be in some way detrimental to patients, or coworkers for them to be absent. The judge wrote down everyone’s reason for not being able to attend court, and the dates that they said were not good for them. It was clear that there was no guarantee they would not be selected.
I left after this part of the process to come back to see part of the trial, but when I returned, the trial was not listed anymore. There were no other trials going on, so I went to hear arraignments. There were two driving violations; an assault a battery case where the man pleaded not guilty; a sex offender who failed to register his new address; meth possession with intent to sell. Everyone who pled guilty or not guilty was given a court date. For each person it was a very quick process of charges made against them, their plea, and a court date.