Cork Views: 'A day in court can be a great experience for TY students'

Anyone who has ever seen the inside of a courtroom knows they can be places where strange things can happen.

There are many examples of this, and one came in the form of a comment made by a judge one time on a case in America.

A dispute that was scheduled for trial was instead settled out of court, and in response, Justice Martin Sheehan, of Kentucky, wrote a cancellation order that caught my eye.

He noted that the news made him “happier than a tick on a fat dog because the court is otherwise busier than a one-legged cat in a sandbox and, quite frankly, I would have rather jumped naked off a 12ft stepladder into a five-gallon bucket of porcupines than have presided over a trial of the herein dispute, which no doubt, would have made the jury more confused than a hungry baby in a topless bar, and made the parties and their attorneys madder than mosquitoes in a mannequin factory”.

In another more recent case in America, before a Judge Samuel Kent, the prosecution filed a motion to transfer a case from Galveston to Houston, a distance of less than 65 kilometres. Defence attorneys objected on the grounds that the long journey would impose unnecessary driving time and expenses on the defendant.

The judge obviously thought the distance was insignificant and he responded with a great deal of sarcasm, saying: “The Court certainly does not wish to encumber any litigant with such an onerous burden.”

However, he suggested that transport had improved substantially since the 1800s.

“Defendant should be assured that he is not embarking on a three-week-long trip via covered wagons when he travels to Galveston.

“Rather, defendant will be pleased to discover that the highway is paved and lighted all the way to Galveston, and thanks to the efforts of this court’s predecessor, Judge Roy Bean, the trip should be free of rustlers, hooligans, or vicious varmints of the unsavoury kind.”

Courtrooms aren’t always as entertaining as that though. In fact, they can often be intimidating settings and the last place many want to find themselves.

Sometimes, victims even forfeit their right to justice so they can avoid testifying in open court. The thought of climbing into the witness box to give their evidence can be too much for them, and that’s easy to understand.

It’s a daunting prospect, and even after facing the challenge, there is still the possibility that things won’t go their way, even when they have right on their side.

Back in my community policing days, I organised work experience sessions for transition year students in Anglesea Street Garda Station. They usually ran for a week with 15-20 young people taking part.

They proved to be so popular that the demand for places exceeded what we could cater for, so we often ended up running more courses than we originally intended.

As part of the course, I brought the youngsters to the district court to see for themselves how justice was dispensed and to take some of the mystery out of the proceedings.

With the co-operation of the sitting judge, the students sat at the rear of the courtroom and observed the comings and goings.

It wasn’t always easy for the youngsters to understand what was going on, but they always found it interesting.

Courtrooms can be complicated places at the best of times, even for of An Garda Síochána. The law is full of technicalities, and one slip-up could be detrimental to a case.

I’m not sure what transition year students would have made of the American aforementioned Judge Roy Bean, if they could have experienced his courts in the Wild West. He didn’t have too much respect for technicalities.

According to the website, allthat’sinteresting.com, he was born around 1830 to a poor family and had a rough upbringing. Roy frequently got into fights, and after shooting a man in a bar brawl, he fled to California.

Bean got into real trouble there too when he shot and killed a Mexican officer over a woman. A mob of the officer’s enraged friends went after Bean and attempted to hang him. Luckily, the rope stretched, allowing him enough time to hold on while the woman he’d fought for cut him down, saving him.

Bean learned that new railroads were being laid out across west Texas, and that construction camps were cropping up along the tracks. Seeing a business opportunity, he headed westward in 1882 to seek his fortune.

At that time, Texas needed lawmen to help tame the Wild West, so, in August, 1882, Pecos County commissioners appointed Roy Bean justice of the peace.

He was an unusual choice, given that as well as having no law experience whatsoever, he was also a former outlaw who killed multiple men himself.

In any event, Judge Bean carried out his duties in true Wild West fashion. He held court in a saloon where he served drinks to jurors during recess and used a .41 Smith & Wesson gun as a gavel.

Throughout his long career, he became known for his bizarre verdicts, and for his penchant for pocketing the fines he charged in court.

He relied entirely on a single law book and burned all of the other books the legislature sent him. This may explain why Judge Roy Bean made so many unorthodox and at times outrageous rulings.

In one case, he threatened to hang a lawyer for using profane language after the lawyer said “habeas corpus”, and in another bizarre ruling he fined a dead man $40 for carrying a concealed weapon.

Perhaps Bean’s most outrageous moment came during a murder trial when an Irishman was accused of killing a Chinese railroad worker.

According to the local paper, Bean let the Irishman go on the grounds that “there is no law against killing a Chinaman”.