Examples Of Court Observation

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The courtroom that I chose to attend for my observation was the Toronto Courthouse located on 2201 Finch Ave. West. Since this was not my first experience at the courthouse I chose to observe plea bargains which addressed traffic and other bylaw matters. The reason for my decision to observe this form of courtroom proceeding was because I was curious what made people accept a plea bargain? The first thing I observed when I arrived at the court room was the structure of the space. The justice at peace in the front of the room followed by the court clerk the defendant on the left side in front of the sitting area and on the right side is the peace officers and behind is the public sitting area. Also there was no defendant's box and no presence of lawyers. The important roles present in the courtroom were the judge, clerk, defendant who the charges are against and the peace officer who brought the charges. Once the court was in session each case was displayed in the same routine, the clerk would read the charge to the defendant, and the defendant would say either they plead guilty or innocent. After the defendant pleads guilty they must accept …show more content…
Most of all of the cases I heard the person pleaded guilty and chose to pay the fine instead of going to trial. I was surprised that none of the people I observed pleaded innocent all of them chose to accept the charges. The defendant if pleaded guilty was required to pay the fines or their charges were lessened by the discretion of the judge. Another, observation that I made was there were no lawyers present the defendant was required to explain their own case to the judge. The reason behind this form of proceeding is because the matters are regarding minor traffic offences or other minor bylaw issues and do not need the presence of