The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Jack H. during the 2008-2009 League.
Mission: Observe - Local Trial
Walking into the 54th judicial court on Thursday reminded me of walking onto the set of a daytime trial show like "Judge Judy." The crime was armed robbery. The witnesses repeated phrases like, "give me the money!" and "he’s got a gun!" Policeman talked about high speed chases on snowy roads, and the lawyers questioned the witnesses repeatedly on the minute details of the events that took place during the early morning of January 29.
The first witness we heard was from the victim. He was woken up at his home on Balfour Street in Lansing by someone knocking on the door early in the morning. When he opened it, someone forced his way in and demanded, "Give me the money!" A struggle ensued across the living room and up the stairs as the resident tried to fight off the intruder. Meanwhile the girlfriend called the police from the bathroom. The scuffle came to a quick end when the trespasser pulled a gun (the presence of a gun was never proven). The burglar went upstairs, took an undisclosed amount of money from the dresser in the bathroom and fled.The story seemed a little sketchy in places, and the conflicting information about the details of the break-in made his testimony less than rock solid. The police officers who testified afterward offered much more convincing reports.
The officers who arrived on the scene knew an armed robbery was in progress and proceeded with caution. They approached the residence on foot, armed with flashlights and rifles. They witnessed a man in a dark jacket leaving the apartment and attempting to flee in a pickup truck. They yelled, "Police!" and shined their flashlights on themselves in order to identify themselves as officers of the law. They did not stop the vehicle though. The vehicle accelerated towards them, forcing them to jump out of the way to avoid being struck. One officer called in the vehicle make and plates while the other returned to his patrol car to pursue the fleeing vehicle. The chase on the icy roads reached the speed of sixty miles an hour before the fleeing man was stopped by police officials. He was taken into custody and served twenty one days in jail before coming to the pre-trial hearing on Thursday.
The charges that the defendant faced were quite serious. They included armed robbery, fleeing police officers and resisting arrest. The defendant shook his head in disbelief through the entire hearing. The defending lawyer tried hard to question from different angles to minimize the damage done to his client, but the evidence against him was very strong, including police testimony that identified the defendant as the man who tried to ram them with his vehicle. The judge in charge of the trial Frank DeLusa, decided in the end to agree with five out of the six charges. They set a bail of $500,000 and established that a jury will consider and pronounce the final judgment at a future date.
The entire experience reminded me of a debate tournament wrapped up with government regulations and higher stakes. The skills used by the lawyers were skills the people use every day: speech, rhetoric, logic, and reasoning. There were people on both sides of the argument in the audience, and both sides argued their points as well as they could, but the testimonies and evidence provided by police officers gave the prosecutor the upper hand and forced this case to continue through the judicial system to the jury trial.
