Approaching the appellate court building (which is not by the other court buildings?), you can already see that it is much nicer than the lower courts. When I walked into the empty courtroom, I was immediately impressed and intimidated. It was huge! And on top of its size, it was beautiful. The "best" part was that instead of the hard, uncomfortable wooden benches for the audience (mainly me) to sit in, there were benches with very soft blue velvet cushions.
An appearance in the appellate court comes about when the losing party from the lower court actions wishes to get that decision overturned. It is not a trial, but rather each side gets 20 minutes to make their argument (the plaintiff can reserve time for rebuttal) in front of three judges.
The most striking thing to me during this time was that the judges truly questioned and argued with the attorneys during their time. During the plaintiff's first argument, the judges really lay into him, making me think that they were leaning away from this argument. However, during the other side, they did the exact same. The judges truly seemed fair in questioning each side equally and not necessarily showing which side they were more in agreement with.
Comparison to TV:
First off, I do not think that I have ever seen an appellate court case on TV But, other than that, the most noticeable difference that I saw was that in TV shows the judges never have the papers and find out new information during the arguments, often asking counsel to approach and show them a copy of the paper. This is very wrong. In real life, copies of all papers and evidence being used must be submitted to the judge(s) ahead of time. Furthermore, the judge(s) reads and goes over these papers before the argument or trial.
Thanks for following along with my blog!
Sounds like you went to a very luxurious courtroom! Do you think TV shows don't portray an accurate depiction of what happens in a courtroom because it might be boring? or not capture the audience as much as the suspense or drama aspect?
ReplyDeleteThat's probably what it is. TV is looking for entertainment value and if they portrayed everything accurately, it would honestly not be nearly as entertaining as it is now to the general public.
DeleteHi Isabelle! I'm really enjoying reading your blog posts! What sorts of questions do the judges ask the attorneys during the appellate cases? Also, what determines whether or not a case gets sent to an appellate court or not?
ReplyDeleteThanks Shir! They can ask anything they want, often the questions are to clarify the argument or to propose a different view. The losing side can file for the case to go to appellate court.
DeleteIt's interesting to hear about how TV dramatizes these court cases, when in fact all of the information must be presented ahead of time. What happens to evidence/papers that have not been submitted beforehand though? Can they still be used?
ReplyDeleteNo, no evidence that was not submitted and approved ahead of time can be used.
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