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The goal is to report, to inform, and to remain objective

By Alex Segell 

Attorneys arrive in bland and expressionless suits, so passé you wouldn’t be able to remember details even if you tried. They smile at one another candidly, shaking hands or even embracing for a hug. Offering quips here and there, they make small talk and humor each other with light laughter.

In the audience sits a family, and while it’s been years since they lost their loved one, they still wait with solemn faces. They lean forward in moments of a potential breakthrough and dismiss themselves when the evidence becomes too daunting.  When the counsel continuously objects, further delaying long-awaited closure, those who knew the victim roll their eyes, scowl, or even go so far as to throw their hands in the air out of impatience. Some grab the hand of the person sitting next to them, maybe to channel their frustration less obviously or simply out of the need for comfort.

Nobody acknowledges my presence, as I sit in the back row quietly scribbling and slowly shifting in my seat every so often. I am a new set of eyes, an inexperienced observer, and I listen to the intimate details of someone’s last moments on this earth.  I sit near the families, unnoticed, and wait for the same details. The goal is to report, to inform, and to remain objective.  With only a few hearings and a trial under my belt, it has proven difficult to remain objective at times. A mother giving a testimony about the love she had for her daughter, or a father who sits in the audience and wears a jersey bearing the name of his son can easily provoke emotion. I am a fly on the wall while others endure a tragedy that cannot be fixed with a conviction.  

D.C. alone has experienced 49 homicides this year, and counting. That’s 49 families whose entire lives have been flipped on their head in a matter of seconds.  More importantly, that’s 49 deaths that the general public will never know about nor care about. I sit and I scribble for the sake of the family, and for the off chance someone is interested in a death that occurred in a Southeast neighborhood of D.C. I listen to the details so that there is a legible and sincere record of someone’s life and their demise – so that people might pay attention.  But my presence does not change the fate of the victim, or the sorrow of the family, or the process of the trial. I am a third-party outsider, with no connection to anyone who sits in the room, but I involve myself deeply in a way that only I am aware of.  

While it may seem like I am too emotionally unsound to sit through a homicide trial and appreciate it for everything that it is, I mean to say the opposite. It is a surreal experience, to say the least, to listen to such intimate details, to be exposed to lives that I knew nothing of before, and to be there when questions are finally answered.  A family in a murder trial will not notice me, nor will the attorneys, the judge, or law interns who sit more confidently in the front. I am not a significant actor in the eyes of those who are so personally affected by this case, and at times I feel guilty for being there. But the work that is being done by the notes that I take, and by sitting unobserved, holds the possibility of affecting those so personally tied to the case in a way that gets them closer to closure.  

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Life as a DC Student in WMI

By Merdie Nzanga

It was April 4, 2014 – the day I received my acceptance letter to American University. Oh yay me! I’m going to Washington, DC! Here I was leaving my home in Seattle, WA and going all the way across the nation’s capital. Although I later left AU, I transferred to Howard University (also in DC) because I still loved living in DC.

Living in Washington, DC is so special to me because it is our country’s capital. It is so historically and culturally rich, and there are so many sights to see – from museums to national monuments, to restaurants!

While I’ve lived here, I’ve also had the chance to visit the Newseum several times.  The Newseum is a large, interactive museum that focuses on journalism and the media in our understanding of historical events, located right in the middle of the city. Every time I visit this museum it gets me excited about journalism.  My favorite place at the Newseum is the Vietnam War coverage presentation – the first televised war. It is amazing to me how much of an influence  Americans had on the war just by watching it on their television screens.

Because I could have a new experience and stay in DC for the semester, I decided to attend the Washington Media Institute. My experience at the Washington Media Institute has made my experience in DC even better. This semester I am interning at DC Witness where we track homicides in DC and write about them. I go to court everyday, and then I come back to our office and get to write . I like this internship because it has been helping my writing. During class, Amos, the director, and Jon, the associate director, give individual feedback to each student on their work. I’m being pushed more professionally than I ever have and it’s all thanks to WMI!

If you haven’t had a chance to visit DC, please come!

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The nitty gritty of everyday court life

By Thamar Bailey

Going to court is not what TNT movies make it out to be. There’s not a mass crowd in the room, there’s no gavel calling for attention or crowd outbursts. As an intern for a homicide tracking blog, I’ve had the honor of going to court almost everyday and let me tell you there is definitely a break between reality and fiction.

For starters the judge is almost always late.

On a good day I leave my apartment in the morning around 8:45 and end up settling into a seat at the courthouse around 9:20 for a 9:30 case – only for the judge to stroll in anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes late.

And in that time delay I sit patiently watching lawyers walk in and out and court marshals talk about their night and catch up on how each other’s morning is going.

Also, in that time there has not been a case that goes by that I haven’t learned something I really didn’t need to know about a court clerk.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but there’s a seat to the left of the judges chair where the court clerk sits. The clerk essentially orchestrates the entire production. He/she tells the marshals when to get the inmate from holding, coordinates with the judge and takes in whether or not a lawyer or witness is missing.

One day a clerk got into an argument with the court marshals before the judge got in. This was after she had an over 20 minute conversation with her sister about how she wants to be a real estate broker because the commision is “crazy,” – her words, not mine.

According to this clerk, she runs the court, and even the court typist (the person who creates a transcript of every case) weighed into the argument, and agreed as she applied a full face of make-up.

The typist literally sat down, whipped out a makeup pouch the size of an elementary school pencil case, and pulled out so many different utensils you would think her pouch had some magical connection to the nearest Sephora.

By the time the judge finally appeared, the typist had miraculously put everything away and looked as if like she’d undergone a complete makeover.

So maybe I’m just too attentive and you’ve never really thought much about what happens in a courtroom prior to a case, but ever thought about what happens during the case?

From Law and Order I assumed that there was a serious amount of court jargon and strict formalities.

After a month of consensus I’d say that there’s a firm yes to the jargon and big no to the formalities.

I’ve witnessed a lawyer outright complain to the judge that her schedule was too busy to accommodate a speedy trial.

The day before I saw an inmate escorted into the room and declare to the room he was no longer angry with the judge – I didn’t know he was angry with the judge in the first place.

As for the lawyers, some of them are super nice and strike up conversation. Others will give you the side eye until you remove yourself from the front two rows of the pew. And if you stick it out and sit in “their space” (they only have rights to the first row) then you’ve just made an enemy – or at least that’s what it feels like.

Overall, the next time you head into the D.C. courthouse make sure you sit away from the lawyers and bring a notepad (electronics are prohibited in courtrooms) because the amount of things you hear will be priceless stories for the future.

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