SALINE CO.—A seriously scary thing happened to one of our readers, this in Saline County this morning.
Our reader advised that her daughter had court this morning over some traffic infractions—one of the most minor things a person can be in court over, and therefore a very busy situation, as there’s a “move em in/move em out” mentality toward it—and the daughter called our reader, asking her to come to the courtroom to help her with something.
Our reader arrived at the courthouse and told the guard at the metal detector that she was “there to help her daughter.”
However, the guard informed our reader that the daughter “was in traffic court so you can just have a seat and wait for her to come out.”
Our reader did so but advised us that she was thinking, “Why am I sitting here when court is open to the public?” With this thought in mind, she got up and approached the other security guard standing outside the courtroom where her daughter was, asking him if she could go inside.
He informed her that she could not.
Our reader, ordinarily a quiet woman, spoke up and informed that court is supposed to be open to the public.
“Well, I’m sorry, mam, but the judge doesn’t allow anyone in his court room,” he told her.
“That’s bullshit. It’s a public court,” she replied.
Not wishing to make too big of a scene, she just told him she’d wait for her daughter outside, but, she reports, she was NOT happy.
And our poor reader ended up messaging us and asking if she was right.
She was.
Court is open to the public. Granted, there are times when a judge can keep distractions down to a minimum during a high-profile jury trial by telling people that if they leave the courtroom during proceedings, they need to stay out until there is a break in the proceedings. This does help the jury concentrate on testimony, especially detailed testimony being given by expert witnesses that isn’t easy to understand, such as accident reconstruction or medical testimony.
But traffic court? No.
People are coming and going in traffic court. Unless there’s something publicly stated outside the courtroom—and even then, this would be highly questionable—people who are scheduled every half-hour to appear in a traffic court setting won’t go at the start of the session (8 a.m.) and sit for four hours (noon) until their case is called…if they’re scheduled to appear at 10 a.m., they show up at 9:45 and go into the courtroom and wait to be called. Everybody who was scheduled at 9:30 and are still in there just kinda endure it. Including the judge.
We’ve had other attempts at keeping the public out of courtrooms. Over in Clay County, they’ve tried to keep the media out of juvenile proceedings. Juvenile proceedings, while NOT open to the public, are open to the media. Too many media fall for this. Then they lead the way in the public perception that “people can’t just go into the courtroom when court’s going on,” because people just don’t pay attention…they equate a juvenile proceeding with TRAFFIC.
Traffic?? Come on. Something’s going on here. And until people start paying attention, like our reader did, and pressing the issue and getting the information out, it’s just going to get worse. You have the RIGHT to go into a court hearing—ANY court hearing in the state of Illinois, in ANY courtroom, except for juvenile—and you should exercise it. Before it’s lost. You pay for it, every day. Don’t let the public officials keep you from it…and if they try, do what our reader did an LET US KNOW ABOUT IT.