On the highway stands the pinnacle of the county’s judicial prowess, the Judicial Circuit Courthouse. From the street the character of the building seems evident without any further investigation. The façade is adorned with polished granite inlays which are complimented by roughly chiseled, artistically styled granite slabs inscribed with quotations from notable philosophers and politicians. At the mouth of the building is a vaulting archway given the distinct responsibility to hold the institution and everything it stands for upright. Beneath the center of the arch lies the “Great Seal of The State” cast in bronze and set into the floor, and roped off in an effort to protect it from the masses of people who would otherwise destroy it by carelessly walking atop of it. All of the external features of the building play homage to the importance and duty of the rooms on the eleventh floor that overlook a splendid view of the intercostal, and play host to the judges and juries that make up one of the most sacred of all American freedoms. There is however, more to the picture than what meets the eye, and as a volunteer working for the Chief Deputy Court Administrator I have seen some of this bigger picture.
Four floors above the hustle and bustle of the masses of people entering and leaving, asking for directions at the service desk, and getting into altercations with the security personal screening for weapons with metal detectors, but six floors below the duty, prestige, and honor of the courtrooms, is the quiet fifth floor. Rarely pushed, the “5” buttons in the elevators lay dormant unless bumped by accident or a person wishes to ascend or descend back to their small office. Quiet and hidden from view of the public, the fifth floor ...
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...ent sent out of the courthouse, and is sometimes the only number, making the line ring like Grand Central Station with concerns unrelated to its purpose. To change the way the number is displayed on the outgoing documents is nearly an impossible task, requiring consent and numerous signatures and possibly even a vote. Instead the line continues to ring and is required to be answered by a live person at a cost of valuable time and tax payer dollars.
The Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Courthouse prevails as a honorable institution, upholding our constitutional rights with true distinction, at least it appearing so to the common person. Behind the scenes of the courtrooms there is a timeless process of bureaucracy and operating procedures. The back bone of the courthouse rests in the fifth floor, quietly and unappealingly, the administrative offices push the paper work.
final level of appeal in the federal system. There are 13 circuit courts, 94 district courts, and only one Supreme Court throughout the country. First federal court that I will write about is district courts, they are the general trial courts of the U.S. federal court system. They deal with most of court cases being criminal and civil cases. It is the lowest level of the U.S. federal court, it operates within a federal judicial district within a state, where some matters that relate
State and Federal Authority in Screws v. United States Outside the courthouse in Newton, Georgia, in the early hours of January 30, 1943, Robert “Bobby” Hall was beaten unconscious by M. Claude Screws, Frank Edward Jones, and Jim Bob Kelley[1] while in their custody for the alleged theft of a tire;[2] Screws, Jones and Kelley were, respectively, Baker county sheriff, night policeman, and a civilian deputized specifically for the arrest.[3] Without ever recovering consciousness, Hall died as