“That courtroom is the biggest kangaroo court I’ve ever seen.”
Excerpt from an interview with Nokosi, a defendant in the Hall of Justice in San Jose, CA in summer 2021.
Interviewer: And when you were at court, did you have a lawyer?
Nokosi: Did I have what?
Interviewer: Did you have a lawyer? Sorry.
Nokosi: You know what? You're supposed to have a lawyer. But guess what? That courtroom is the biggest kangaroo court I've ever seen in my life.
Interviewer: Uh huh.
Nokosi: Like, I get there. I'm there before my time; it's 9:05 --
Interviewer: Uh huh.
Nokosi: Right. I get there. There's nobody to greet me. There's no list. The list is outside of the court at the proper height of six feet, which is the federal law; it's supposed to be at that height. I get it. But when you --you go in there, there's no place to check in. There's no attorney to talk to. The only people talking are the D.A., the judge and the couple of attorneys that are representing the people that are incarcerated. And they're on to like the 8:50 cases. And I'm like, "Excuse me? I'm at the 9:05 time." So, I look at the 9:05 things, and you can walk up there --
Interviewer: Right.
Nokosi: To, like, where you would stand. And, you know, your attorneys on one side, and you're on the other. You stand in front of the podium. No, no, no. Anybody can just walk up to the podium now and just look through the paperwork on there and see where your name is and what number it is. And it was very --it wasn't organized. I don't know what San Jose is doing, but they're dropping the ball with due process badly.
Interviewer: And so, are you trying to get a lawyer?
Nokosi: Yeah. They --they told me that I needed to go do an interview, and I did an interview with the public defender's office. But I have multiple cases...
Related research:
Clair, M. (2020). Privilege and Punishment: How Race and Class Matter in Criminal Court. Princeton University Press.
Needham, T., Mackall, A. S., & Pettit, B. (2020). Making Sense of Misdemeanors: Fine Only Offenses in Convivial Court Rooms. Sociological Perspectives, 63(6), 962-977.
