The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Joshua F. during the 2009-2010 League.
Mission: Observe a Judicial Trial
On June 22, 2010 I had the opportunity to observe trials that took place at Appellate Court. During the days proceedings I learned that the workings of the Appellate Court are quite different from that of a lower court.
First, and most surprising (as well as the most important piece of information to note) is that there are three judges instead of one. Which makes a lot of sense. You see, the Appellate Court is a court of appeals. When somebody goes to a lower court, and the judge's ruling doesn't satisfy them, they can (for a cost) appeal to the Appellate Court. According to the dictionary, "Appellate" is from the French word "appellant", literally meaning "appealing". So if somebody is going to go through all the trouble of appealing to a higher court, they're probably more likely to accept the ruling if more than one judge determines it.
Another interesting thing about the Appellate Court is that cases can go by a lot faster than in lower courts. In fact, one case took less than one minute! Cases go by at such a fast rate due to the fact that the case has already been tried before. Because the case is only being re-tried, lawyers don't have to present any new evidence or re-make their arguments. The panel of judges can simply read the minutes from the case, and read the briefs provided by the lawyers prior to the hearing. That way when it comes time for the trial to take place, the judges can ask a few questions, have the lawyers restate their main arguments or simply skip the above and just give they're ruling. Simple right? Not necessarily.
Prior to their three days of sitting on the bench, the judges have to do tons of reading to prepare themselves. Not only do they have to read through all of their upcoming cases and briefs, they also have to read up on all of the former trials related to the upcoming case, so that rulings will be consistent.
Ten minutes are granted to the Appellee side and 15 to the Appellant side (though it didn't appear they were keeping track of time correctly). Also a lawyer can choose to reserve some of their time for a rebuttal (the time when a person can try to disprove their opponents arguments). Lastly, in the case of two lawyers on one side, time has to be divided between them.
In the hour that I observed the Courts proceedings I watched four to six cases go by, all of which were hard to follow, having not read briefs and minutes on the cases beforehand as the judges had. The cases dealt with insurance coverage, patent dispute, and a few other topics, and everything that I understood in my limited knowledge was quite interesting.
Some things stayed the same as district courts though. All still rise as the judges enter, and the judges still wear black robes. I don't recall seeing a gavel, I was quite busy trying to jot down bits and pieces of the cases that went by, but I am quite sure one was used.
After observing our judicial branch of government in action, I can honestly say that I'm proud of how our great nation's justice system was set up.
