My first day at the States Attorney’s office was interesting...to say the least. It started out pretty normal; I arrived a little before noon and checked in with the secretary at the front desk, who then informed me that I was a whole hour early (I swear stuff like this only happens to me). Fortunately Ms. Reitz’s secretary Julie was available and I was able to get some paperwork filled out while I waited for her to finish her lunch. Julie took me on a tour of the office; specifically showing me some of the things that I was going to use. She then told me that I would be able to sit through arraignment court with the Assistant State Attorney Andrea Bergstrom. Julie introduced me to her, and then left me to go finish her work. Andrea is extremely funny and we got along really well, I was nervous when I found out I would be in court the first day and she made me feel a lot more comfortable about the situation.
While we were waiting for court Andrea went over some of the cases we would be hearing. I got to look through the files, and even saw some of the evidence! Around 1 o’clock we went down to the courtroom and I got to sit with her while she made her case. Before I knew it, it was over. I was so interested in the proceedings that two whole hours had passed and it felt like only 30 minutes.
The only thing I didn’t like about this experience was that about halfway through the hearing I noticed that I knew one of the people who were on trial. I was really shocked, and it made me sad to see one of my classmates go through something like that. That experience opened my eyes; before I had a very biased opinion on criminals, but seeing someone I knew showed me that those people have lives, and families, and could be really nice. Basically it taught me how to see criminals not just as a name, but as a person.
VOCAB:
"ic" with a circle around it = defendant in custody
DPONG = defendant pleads not guilty
D = defendant
V = victim
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