Judge: Judge Best-Staton Courtroom: 8370 Date: 5/27/10
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The cases listed on the docket posted outside the courtroom were dated April 10.
· Seven CMCW volunteers entered the courtroom at 1:25 and were told by the Bailiff that Juvenile cases were closed and only open to people directly involved in the case. A CMPD Sgt. told us that Juvenile cases had been open for many years. We waited outside for 30 minutes while the Sgt. asked the Bailiff to ask the judge if we could enter and observe. At 1:55 we were allowed to enter and were told to sit on the back row on the left side. The Bailiff said we could take notes but could not write down the name of the defendant and “the name better not get out of the courtroom through any of us and better not appear on TV or anything.” We were not aware at that time of the name of the defendant we were there to observe.
· The ADAs were Nathan Brooks and Cheryl Willis (?) not positive of last name.
· The offender was a 15 yr old male. His list of charges was so long we were not able to write them all down but we do know the state attorney read charges of Assault with a Deadly Weapon with Intent to Kill (he shot someone in the leg and Officer Scheppergrell told us out in the hall afterward that the defendant also shot someone in the face in another crime), several charges of Robbery with a Dangerous Weapon, Robbery with the Use of Force and Drug charges. The charges were being read so fast that we can’t say for sure if the State’s attorney said they were “charges” or “convictions”, however when the Defense Attorney stood up she acknowledged the “charges were serious”.
· After reading the “charges” against the defendant the State’s attorney asked that the defendant remain detained since he now has another new robbery charge for which he will be in court on June 4.
· The defense attorney told the court that the defendant has family support, that his Mother and Father were present in court and she said the defendant wants to be released to go home with his family. She said he is currently in detention and has been since March 8. She said the defendant was willing to do whatever the court asked of him as far as an ankle bracelet or home monitoring and she asked the court to take into account the amount of time the defendant has already served.
· The Father stood and told the court that the family has moved away from the neighborhood where his son got into trouble at the suggestion of the defense attorney.
· The State’s attorney told the court that at the defendant’s last hearing Judge Brown told the attorney to scout out the location of the parent’s new address to see if there is currently gang activity but she was not given the address so they were unable to scout out the area.
· The Father said he now had the full address and he had given it to the attorney last night. He said he had put money on the apartment waiting for his son to come home. The judge asked if they had already moved into the new address and the Father said they had.
· The ruling was that the judge said she was adopting the solution for this from the State. She told the State attorney to scout out the location for the new address and neighborhood. The judge said since the defendant will be back before her on June 4, she would take up the discussion of release at that time. That is when the judge saw from his records a new robbery charge for November 28 at 10:50 PM. She said it didn’t look like the defendant was supervised during the previous robberies, reading out loud that some occurred during the day and some at night. She said he would not be released today.
· We were told that this defendant is being brought before the Court about every ten days and they ask for his release and each time it has been denied. He said the best that could have happened today was for the defendant to remain in custody and that he had a long criminal history. We left the courtroom at approximately 2:20 PM.