Courthouse monitors wrong this morning

When I arrived at the courthouse this morning for the saga of Seipler vs. Nygren, I checked the hall monitor before proceeding to Judge Meyer's courtroom in 201. What? The monitor for 201 was blank, except for a message that informed me that cases in 201 would be heard in 204. Of course, I wondered whether Judge Meyer was sick and what was going to happen in the Seipler that has occupied so much of Judge Meyer's time for the past months.

So, being a person who believes what is posted on courthouse monitors, I went into 204 and sat down to watch Judge Caldwell's court. When no one from Zane's case came along, I left 204 and walked down to 201 to see whether that courtroom was dark. Zane was in the hallway and the courtroom was packed with attorneys. Judge Meyer had a full docket!

After the party was over, I headed over to Court Administration to inquire about the error on the monitor. One of the women acknowledged that a mistake had been made (in the hall monitor message for 201). But when she said it was "just an error", those words got under my skin. What wasn't said but what was hanging out there in the air was, "So what?"

It seemed to me that she didn't care about the importance of accuracy in the hall monitors that display room assignments for cases.

I have heard defendants in cases tell a judge that they had gone to the wrong courtroom. No, they didn't go to the wrong courtroom in those cases. They had gone to the courtroom they had been told to go to. They had been told to go to a wrong courtroom, which is why they ended up somewhere else and not where they were supposed to be. Sometimes they ended up with a warrant's being issued for non-appearance. That results in unnecessary legal fees for them and, hopefully, getting the warrant quashed before they got arrested.