Court Visit: students' observations of Old City Hall Court, 2008

A.W., a student living in the Dufferin Grove neighbourhood

As part of a grade 10 civics project and partly out of curiosity, I visited Toronto’s courthouse at Old City Hall with my two brothers (thirteen and ten years old) and our guide, Michael, on Wednesday, November fifth, 2008. While on the outing, we observed several court cases, which took place in various rooms around the building.

In the first courtroom, overseen by a Justice of the Peace, prisoners in the Don jail appeared on a screen to discuss how and when to deal with their individual cases. Sometimes the charges against the defendants were stated, though it was often hard to hear, as there was a large glass box in front of the people questioning the prisoners on the screens. It struck me as odd that we, as Canadian citizens, are allowed to sit in these courtrooms, as part of our democratic but we cannot hear a lot of the information being presented. When they were stated, the charges appeared to be mostly drug-related. The people on the screens were all men and most of them looked quite young (early to mid twenties). The defendants usually asked whether or not their disclosure was ready, which it usually wasn’t. Afterwards, the Justice of the Peace would set a more formal date for the defendants to come into the courthouse in order to either plead guilty, have a formal trial, or have a bail hearing (all of the above would be in front of a judge, and in the case of trial, a jury as well). This courtroom showed me how many cases go on in old city hall on a daily basis. It really is staggering that in just one room, over the period of about 45 minutes, eight different prisoners had to set a date just to come into the courthouse. For me, it really put into perspective how constantly clogged the court system must be.

After about three quarters of an hour, we proceeded to another courtroom. A judge who made decisions for prisoners pleading guilty directed this courtroom. This room was smaller and had better sound, so it was easier to tell what was going on. Three prisoners were brought into a small box in the corner of the room. Each stood up in turn and had their situations explained to the judge. Then, the judge would make a decision, provided the defendants pleaded guilty. The first defendant to stand up was a 47-year-old black man. He lives in the suburbs with his girlfriend and three children, and is battling a crack-cocaine addiction. He was illiterate and in the past had gone for addiction counselling. He was charged with stealing $23 worth of groceries from a Metro store. The defendant pleaded guilty. He claimed he stole the merchandise because he could not afford to buy it. The judge sentenced him to a probation, which stated that the man was not to go into a Metro for one year and that he must return to drug counselling.

The second man pleaded guilty to a charge of failure to comply with a previous probation. The defendant had been ordered not to purchase, carry or consume alcohol or other intoxicating substances. This was ordered because of a death threat the defendant had made against a stranger while intoxicated. Then, the man was spotted and arrested by police after he was seen exhibiting strange behaviour. They later concluded that it had been a result of intoxication. The man had been an alcoholic for 13 years. Besides his alcoholism, the defendant seemed to lead a relatively normal life. He 29 years of age, lives with his parents and is studying philosophy at U of T. It struck me as sad that this man had his whole life ahead of him, but was in trouble with the law because of a drug addiction.

The third man, who looked about 60 years old, did not have his charges stated, and simply asked for a bail hearing. Then, all three men left the courtroom, escorted by two security guards. We moved to a different courtroom.

The last room we visited was a pre-trial involving 1 defendant who was there in person, his lawyer, a judge and a police officer. The defendant had been arrested carrying 8.1 grams of cocaine, a charge that obviously could not be denied. However the reason the defendant was there for this pre-trial was to figure out whether he could also be charged with the trafficking of the drug. To help make this decision, the judge had called in the police officer and had deemed him a ‘drug expert’. This meant that because the cop had had many years of experience working with drug addicts and drugs in general, he now could be given the authority to make an informed opinion about whether or not the defendant in this trial was trafficking the cocaine or simply using it for himself. In the end, the policemen thought that an amount of cocaine as large as 8.1 grams would most likely be used for trafficking, so after brief questioning from the defending lawyer, the judge said that the case would proceed in a formal trial at a later date.

P.W.'s report

On Wednesday, November the ninth I visited old city hall with my brother, sister and Michael, our guide for the day. We first visited a room where the court showed a live video stream from the Don jail. The point of this exercise was to check the criminal’s disclosure and schedule a court visit in person or even a trial. In my opinion, the procedure went well and went quite quickly. The second room we went to was where people made their guilty pleas. There were three convicts pleading guilty in the court, a judge, two Justices of the Peace and three assistants. The first convict who stepped up was a man who had stolen various food items from a grocery store. He was sent on probation, which seemed fair to me because it was just a simple case of shoplifting. The second convict was there because he broke his probation. I did not understand what the third man was there for. One of the Justices of the Peace got up, and spoke with him and he left. After that we preceded to courtroom M2 on the third floor, where there was a preliminary hearing going on. We entered the courtroom just as a lawyer was defending his client by trying to convince the judge that the certified “expert” (in this case the expert was a cop who has been working with drugs and crack-cocaine all his career) was not experienced enough to give his opinion on the matter. The defendant was found with 8.1 grams of crack-cocaine (an amount worth 2500$) on his person and was accused of not only possession of crack-cocaine but also trafficking of the drug. At first Davey (my brother) and I did not get what was going on but the judge saw this and explained it to us (I didn’t expect that!). The judge seemed very bored (so bored he was playing around on his office chair!) and that’s not very good if you’re the defendant because the judge did not seem to have much interest. After about half an hour of discussion the prosecutor had enough evidence and the judge decided there should be a trial. I thought that the judge should have been more attentive, but did a good job overall. In conclusion I think our court system works pretty well but not the best it could be.

D.W.'s report

Michael took my sister, my brother and me all on a tour around the courthouse. The first room we went to was people on TV screens arranging other appointments in person and occasionally asking for disclosure. I didn’t like the first room. The second and third rooms were really interesting. In the second room, people were pleading guilty. In one of the cases, a man stole various items from a grocery store while a different man had an addiction to alcohol. I found every story very interesting. In the third room there was a preliminary round for someone carrying 8.1 grams of crack cocaine. The judge called in a cop that is an expert on drugs. The judge was really bored so he took time to explain to us about what was going on. All together I thought that the court is run well.