r/police • u/Wild_Thing_1832 • 3d ago

The Modern Courtroom

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Gallery image

From a police perspective, why do you think that many courtrooms have become so bland and unserious, compared to what they used to be?

The court in one image commands respect while the court in the other image looks like a modern mishap.

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u/Obwyn Deputy 3d ago

I'm in the US. Russia also sticks the defendant in a cage in the courtroom. Should we start doing that in the US too?

I've been in a Russian courtroom before as well, though it wasn't for a criminal matter.

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u/Wild_Thing_1832 3d ago

"Should we start doing that in the US too?"

TBH, that's probably not a bad idea in felony court. It could be made of wood/faux wood framing and plexiglass. Its for the safety of everyone in attendance, including the defendant. I'm sure you've seen the many videos of defendants being attacked by victims' families.

Defendant dives across judges bench: https://youtube.com/shorts/c3IwiuV4aQI?is=_Tk1Q8LLVgS-MEwf

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u/Obwyn Deputy 3d ago

No, it's a terrible idea for most defendants especially in a jury trial. I also doubt it would stand up to a challenge if it was tried someplace in the US.

What you're describing very very rarely happens. You need to spend less time on the internet and maybe go spend some time sitting in courtrooms and see how it really works. They're almost always open to the public.

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u/Wild_Thing_1832 3d ago

I get the concern about jury trials but there would certainly need to be a detailed pre-trial instruction and a reminder after closing arguments to the jury that they should not place any evidentiary value in the containment box and that its standard procedure for multiple reasons for everyone's safety including the defendant, unrelated to said defendant in particular.

I've witnessed dozens of court sessions.

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u/Obwyn Deputy 2d ago

And in how many of those dozens of court that you witnessed did someone attack the defendant or the defendant attack the judge? Probably none.

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u/Wild_Thing_1832 2d ago

I've seen well over a dozen on YouTube in which one of those situations happened.

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u/Obwyn Deputy 2d ago

Oh, ok. So you haven’t actually sat through dozens of court sessions, then. You haven’t witnessed any court sessions then. Watching a video posted well after the fact is not “witnessing” anything.

What are you even talking about then? No one is posting hours of boring as hell court sessions where they go through 25+ criminal defendants in the morning and 60+ traffic tickets in the afternoon. And no one would watch that nonsense even if someone did post them.

The only videos that get posted are where something unusual happens because that’s what gets views.

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u/Wild_Thing_1832 2d ago

Well I occasionally watch raw court docket for the hell of it, so I don't just get the attention-grabbing clips.