Order in the Court

I thought I might get kicked out of the courtroom in Carpentersville this morning, because I objected to the distraction, interruption and noise being made by the police officer who was summoning defendants to stand in the waiting line, while the first case was being heard before Judge Susan Clancy Boles.

Before court began, a female police officer took control of the courtroom and ordered everyone to turn off his cell phone, winding up with an admonishment that, if your phone or pager rang, it would be confiscated and taken to Elgin, where it could be retrieved after 4:00PM. That's kind of Draconian, in my opinion. Then she announced the rules of the courtroom and finished off with "No Talking!"

The judge entered and gave her opening announcements clearly, loudly and distinctly, so that all could hear and understand her. As she spoke, a man translated her announcements into Spanish. And then court got underway.

Luckily, the case I was there to observe was called first. However, as soon as it started, the female police officer began calling defendants for the cases that would follow, and she called them in a loud voice. It was impossible to hear the judge or the two attorneys at the bench for the case. After missing portions of the legal parlaying taking place, I motioned silently to the female police officer, indicating that I could not hear.

She looked directly at me and said, "I have to do my job", and she continued to call names loudly, although there were already 6-7 defendants standing in line.

She glanced at me a couple of times and, after the line of waiting defendants was long enough to suit her and create considerable waiting time for them, she went to speak with the court clerk. Several times she turned toward me, and I was clearly the subject of her conversation with the court clerk.

I fully expected to be escorted from the courtroom or detained when I left. I have great respect for the court, and I have no respect for bullies. Had I been detained, I was fully prepared to ask if I were being detained as a suspect in any crime; if not, I was prepared to walk away from her.

Incidentally, I watched this female officer go through purses of women arriving for court. I presumed she was looking only for weapons; you know, guns, knives, box cutters, hand grenades, bombs, but she was looking closely at everything in purses. She was looking in places where no weapons could possibly have been secreted, because most of the purses seemed to be tightly packed. So what was her real purpose in searching the purses so closely?

My suggestion to Judge Boles is that she observe the noise and distraction caused by this officer in her courtroom and that she ask that officer to call defendants in a lower voice and not to interfere as she did this morning.

It was nice to be able to hear in Judge Boles' courtroom (after the police officer finished her "job"). I've been in several courtrooms in McHenry County where the lawyers and judges speak in tones so low that they cannot be heard even from the front row.

© 2008 GUS PHILPOTT