Judge and court

COURT VISIT (REACTION PAPER) CRIMINAL CASE I. Court Setting I choose to enter the Regional/ Municipal Trial Court, 7th Judicial Region, Branch 9 at the Municipality of Cebu City. The Branch 9 trial court is air conditioned and inside the court has 6 accused people sitting at the right corner from the judge place. Witnesses who expresses there are sitting at the judge left side. Facing the judge are the families, friends and relatives of the accused and victims and also the lawyers of both side. There are 2 Policemen and 1 armed S. W. A. T. an and some students that were acquired to observe the court hearing. II. Court Producing The case that we attended was criminal cases. It was about killing the friend of the witness somewhere in V Rama. Bimbo was the name of the accused and he was shackled together with the 5 accused men. The witness was there but he didn’t saw Bimbo killing the victim but his brother saw what happened and was not able to be there and be the witness because he can’t talk for that time. Bimbo’s lawyer was not that good at presenting and it was so obvious that Bimbo is really guilty.

III. ObservationWe arrive there at around 12 pm and there were no court hearings at that time cause its lunch time and the regular time of court hearing is 2 pm. As we stroll around the Capitol we saw many court rooms and some are not air- conditioned, some are also non- trial court. There are different cases in every court; some are drug, criminal cases and many more. As I observed, everyone inside the court are required to turn off their phones and stay quite while the hearing is going on. The judge is in charge of the courtroom.

It is the judge’s job to listen to everything that everyone says in court. When in court, people call the judge ” Your Honor” when they talk to him. Another part of the judge’s job is to know the law and to decide if there is enough evidence to prove the law was broken. As the hearing started it was first led by a prayer. The case that we attended was about Criminal Cases. Bimbo which is the accused was said to break the law of killing. I can see the guilt of Bimbo’s face there and I think his conscience killed him for that moment.

I don’t know his intentions in doing such crime but I can say that his sorry for what he did. If Bimbo doesn’t want to be in jail, then he could have chosen a professional lawyer for him to be proven not guilty. But obviously he was guilty and the evidences presented of the victim’s witness and lawyer was really convincing. IV. Suggestion There were some mistakes that the translator did, to have a clear understanding between the witnessed and the lawyer, she must have slowly but surely translated what both sides says for everyone to know and understand what really happened.

For me, the 2 policemen and the S. W. A. T man should be sitting near the accused people because everyone inside the court doesn’t really know what their capable off. What if, one of the accused can’t control his temper and got really angry at that time? Anyone could have got hurt if that happen. To avoid such incident they should be notified of some bases of unnecessary doings. Sarah May N. Valiente BFA- AA 2 (MWF 7: 30- 8: 30 am)