65
the attorney] who had only had the case for a week [but] objected to every question to
and answer by a witness for the prosecuting attorney.
Wappingers Falls Village
• Justice Raymond Case could be stern but with such concern for the defendant. I
heard him encourage younger defendants to do better things with their lives.
• This court was run very efficiently. One of the employees also acts as an interpreter.
They have court volunteers. All one very polite and helpful to whoever walks in.
• The court staff seemed to work well together, and the case folders seemed to be in the
order the defendants arrived.
• The court had three court clerks – one who was bilingual which helped during the
proceedings.
• There were 36 defendants [who appeared] and 36 no shows. Several of the no shows
were in jail.
Wappinger Town
• 20 of the 65 cases were assigned to 1 public defender. Difficult work load. Some
cases, it seemed liked she was meeting the defendants for the first time. This caused
her to conduct conferences with clients and family members in the courtroom prior to
going to the bench.
• It was very noisy in the court. Doors to the court were not closed and numerous
people remained outside the courtroom in the adjacent hall. This included one five
year old girl who I could hear from inside the court in the first row. When her
family’s case was called the child ran around the courtroom. A teenager sat 2 seats
away from me in the front row [and] continued to talk to his friend for 1 ½ hours
without ever shutting up. He was never asked to stop talking by anyone. Late in the
session the judge yelled for quiet in the courtroom but all the court officers just
seemed to process folders [and hand the] to the judge and never controlled the noise
in the courtroom.
• The courtroom was very noisy as no one tried to quiet all the chatter. Private
attorneys should not conduct meetings with clients inside the courtroom such as [one]
who discussed an aggravated DWI with the teenager’s parents directly behind me.
• This is a very busy court that she [Judge Heather Kitchen] moved things along.
• [During jury selection], the judge [Carl Wolfson] explained thoroughly the
responsibility to the potential jurors. He then questioned each juror, followed by the
ADA and the defendant’s lawyer. Then they met outside of the courtroom to
[determine] which jurors to accept. Some were chosen, more were then questioned
and in just under 2 hours, 6 jurors and 1 alternate juror were chosen. There was a
recess while jurors made phone calls. Everyone returned 15 minutes later (except the
jurors) and the defendants plead guilty. The juries returned and were informed of the
guilty plea so they were excused.
Washington Town
• This was a very quiet night, only 8 cases on the calendar, and 2 defendants did not
appear.
• I had the feeling that this was as informal as courts could get. The judge [Bruce
Aubin] did not call cases. He asked people in the courtroom what they were there for
and then invited them up to the bench.