Chapter 6 - Court Officers and Clerks
Defenders reflect on court officers and court clerks.
What is your perception of the court officers in your borough?
Opinions of court officers among Defenders vary widely. One common perception about court officers is that they treat attorneys differently from how they treat clients. One Defender states: “Some of them are very friendly and respectful. I will say most of them are friendly and respectful to me. There's only been a handful, maybe [two or] three, that I felt were disrespectful toward me. When it comes to our clients, I think that it's more the opposite. There is a good portion of them are very disrespectful to our clients. It's just that power dynamic: they have license to treat our clients like criminals, [as] less than human beings. So that's definitely a problem.” Another Defender describes having generally positive relationships with court officers but also notes that “they definitely treat a lot of our clients like shit. And it goes back to what I was saying before: going into that court building is just dehumanizing, and it starts from the way [civilians that aren’t attorneys go through the metal detectors upon entering the courthouse]. Court officers can be very harsh with people: ‘You can't come in here!’ ‘No, don't do that!’ There are no questions asked. I think that's a big problem with police in general: they will never ask questions; they just make assumptions…. I’ve seen it several times with some court officers, where the way they come at people is just wild.”
Another common observation is that court officers, not judges, run the physical courtrooms. One Defender explains: “Sometimes, I feel like they take pride in the fact that they have so much control because, while in theory it is the judge’s courtroom, the court officers and the clerks—more so the court officers—are the ones running the show. In Supreme Court, it’s a little better because the clerks are the ones who call the calendar. But in Criminal Court, the court officers are the ones who call the calendar.” Another Defender shares similar sentiments: “For the most part—I can’t speak for every single judge—but for the most part, with Criminal Court, the judges don't really run their courtrooms; either the clerks or the court sergeant that's assigned there runs the courtroom. So that sets a different tone, and it depends on how that sergeant is in general, and how he views our clients. For the most part, if you're okay with the clerks and the court officers, and you do what they want you to do, then you're fine in the courtroom.”
For this reason, Defenders stress the importance of building relationships with court officers. One Defender notes: “I largely got along with the court officers. I made friends with them because oftentimes that's the difference between getting your case moved up and getting called when you're in a rush.” Another Defender concurs:
I'm probably a little different than most; I really get along with them. It's always been a thing of me to not play up to the powers-that-be, but the powers that are behind the powers-that-be. In other words, it's more likely I'm going to have a relationship with a court officer than I am [with] the judge, or a corrections officer than I am with the prosecutor. The perception of power is with the judge and the prosecutor; but the person who's going to look out for my client—and that's what it's all about to me. It's always about what's going to affect my client—that's going to be the DOC guy. That's going to be the court officer. They're going to be the ones that make sure my client and my client's family are looked out for.
Look, they're cops essentially, so cops have a certain mentality and perception that your guy is guilty or whatever; but the beauty of it is they don't really care. It's not a big deal with them. They don't really care what your guy allegedly did if your guy's a civil, nice, decent guy. If [the client is] not busting their chops, then they're going to treat him right, especially if I have a relationship with them. “Oh, that's [My Name]’s guy. Let me make sure that [this client] gets that telephone call that he's been begging for. He doesn't have a quarter for [the phone].” “A dollar bail needs to be posted for him. Hey, I'll post the dollar for him.” They will actually do that because they know me, and I and they are friends; and we play ball together, or we shoot the shit together or whatever.
So that's my feeling on that group of people: I get along with them. I like them; they’re fine. Some people don't; some people have a problem with them. And they probably should have a problem with them, because they can certainly go off to the other side.
Adds another Defender:
I've been doing this for a long time now. When I go to the courthouse, most of the court officers know who I am. We've worked together for a number of years. They know what kind of person I am, what kind of lawyer I am, and we get along. But I've had to cultivate those relationships, because I find that when you get along court officers—you want to talk about who wields power; they can wield a lot of power—they can get your case called early: “Hey, listen, I’ve got a client that is not feeling well,” or “My client has a real childcare problem. Can you hook me up, get this case called, and let me get them out of here?” That's important, to be able to get that. I've cultivated those relationships; over the years when I was a line attorney, and I would go into a court part, I would say, “Hey, you need anything from [my office], I'm here. I can cover cases.” Then the court staff is like, “Oh yeah, [My Name]'s here. Yeah, let's knock these out and get them done.” I always try to make an effort to do that, because I know it would pay dividends later on.
Defenders in the Bronx tend to have more positive views of court officers. One Defender states: “Same thing as always: you’re not going to like everybody. But I would say that 85-95% are very decent and friendly. They can be helpful. They were people that I would hang out with and would really look out for. I had such a great experience with the court officers in the Bronx.” Another states: “I mostly had really great interactions with court officers, with [one] exception. But there was a power thing; we're in this constant negotiation with everybody who seems to have more power than we do….” Other Defenders add caveats. One Defender remarks: “I find a lot of them to be really nice and well-intentioned; but then I also find a lot of them to be on a power trip, and that’s usually expressed by either disrespecting attorneys or, even more often, disrespecting defendants and their families.” Another Defender adds: “I think I will say that most of the court officers that I interact with are very kind to me, and I don't personally have a lot of issues with them, generally speaking. But we also have some seriously racist court officers, and some of them have been exposed publicly; some of them, not so much.” One Defender gives an example of a court officer worthy of respect:
There is a pretty diverse group in the Bronx courthouse. One of my favorite court officers, which is one of the court officers that was in the part that I tracked to1 when I first started, is the epitome of what a court officer should be and like the way they should conduct themselves at all times. [His name is Jerry.2] They need to clone him. He’s amazing, he's thoughtful, he's helpful, he’s even keeled, he's always looking to make sure that court runs smoothly for everyone, especially our clients. When they have mental health issues, he's patient, he's calm, and he calls in the right people…. I think he just does a really good job at that; and anytime that new court officers or different court officers are moved into his section, people are forced to adjust to this nice, client-centered and pleasant way of serving our community. He just exemplifies everything that a court officer should be. And it's not that he's not forceful when he needs to be, and it’s not that he’s not a person that I think people respect. But I think that he takes the time to treat people as people; and that's something that a lot of the officers don't do.
A lot of court officers think that if they're generally polite [to attorneys], that’s all that matters. That doesn't sit right with me. What's funny is some of the other officers actually hate Jerry and think that he doesn't act like an officer. And I think that we see that evidenced by the fact that he hasn't moved up, that he's still just a court officer. Jerry's not even a sergeant. He's just a regular court officer. I don't know if he's had the opportunities, but I think that he knows that he wouldn't get the same respect [and that] people wouldn't treat him the way that they should if he took the position, because they don't respect the way that he moves, which is the right way….
Of course, not all Defenders view Bronx court officers favorably. One Defender offers this response and anecdote:
They're part of the same system. I think their priority is upholding the system itself. So many court officers are just nasty to our clients, just yelling at them, pushing them around, escalating instead of deescalating situations. I’ve seen court officers do very, very horrible things. Like I saw a court officer—oh gosh, I don't even know what happened with this, because it was definitely reported up the chain—but they were taking someone out from the jail transport area into the courtroom, someone who is still in handcuffs. There's a doorway to the right of the defense table where people who are incarcerated come out. The officer pulled a gun on the person while they were handcuffed. Then the door closed before I could see more of what was happening.
Court officers in Staten Island are generally viewed negatively. One Defender remarks: “In Staten Island it’s funny, because they're all ‘bros’ and they think they're all prosecutors and lawyers and judges. I don't know why, but I guess because they're in the courtroom all the time and they heard all the cases, they feel like they're the lawyers. They advise the clients in Staten Island; they would literally tell the client how it's looking, because clients talk to them. Clients talk to court officers because they’re scared and don’t know what’s going on.” Another Defender is quite succinct: “They’re racist, they're sexist, and they’re pro-prosecution.” Another Defender states: “They were, by their own admission, almost all white, very conservative, very much ‘blue lives matter,’ all Republican. [There were] three Black court officers, and that's in both Criminal and Supreme Court. There was one Asian court officer. One of the Black court officers I was very friendly with, and she had an extremely difficult time that she talked about quite openly…. I think it was not a welcoming place for court officers who were not white and Italian or Irish.” One Defender, however, offers this interesting take:
I have to say, although I found the politics of Staten Island court officers to be the most dissimilar [to mine] and the most right-wing, I found Staten Island's officers in general to be the most professional. I did not find that they escalated as much as how much officers in other places can completely escalate situations. I found them to be, out of all the [places] I’ve practiced in, the least escalating and more laid back about some things. Not that nothing ever happened, but relatively speaking, the difference was noticeable to me.
There was a guy one time who owed some fines, and the judge was going to execute sentence.3 The client said, “But I have it. I have a card right here. If I can just go to the clerk's office to pay it.” And the judge replied, “No, you have to have someone who’s out do it. Nope. You’ve been given chances.” So the court officers took him into custody, and one of the court officers got his credit card for him and went and took his card to the clerk's office, swiped it, and paid his fine for him. He took the client's card and walked it over there…. And the guy was then released from jail. When you're motivated enough, there's so much you could do that can make a big difference. Some folks are like, “Oh, I can't do that. I can't touch a card. I can't do this and all that.” And then there's some people who are like, “Yeah, I'm going to do it. It's the right thing to do.” You can make a difference as a court officer; there's a lot that you can do to really impact how equitable the system is, how fair it is, and how people are treated, if you choose to.
Defender views of court officers in Brooklyn tend to be more mixed. One Defender states: “I think that they take their power to their head. I think that is probably clear that when they leave that building there…. I don't know what it is that they're missing, but they feel as if when they get into court, they just gotta be the tough ones. They gotta be the big and bad ones. There's a handful that are genuinely nice. They're actually there to help people and to answer questions and things. But a lot of them just don't want to be bothered. The client will get up to approach, to try to ask a question; and they’ll just yell at the client to sit down. And I’m like, you don't treat people like that. For some people, this is their first time here. They don't know what's going on….” Another Defender reports having good relationships with court officers but also notes how she has heard “anti-immigrant comments coming from [some] court officers.” On the other end, one Defender observes: “Court officers in Brooklyn, they’re not perfect. They're definitely not perfect. I feel like they're definitely very conservative, which I find kind of funny because you don't necessarily expect that from Black and Brown court officers….” One Defender offers this story:
I had one incident with a court officer which still makes me really angry. I was with one of our social workers, a Hispanic man. I asked him to come down because our client was saying all these things that made me think he was suicidal, and we were trying to make a decision as to whether or not to ask for him to be on suicide watch. It’s [a big ask], because if they're not suicidal, they're going to hate you forever for asking them to be on suicide watch. So he came into the courtroom, and he was wearing his coat. I think he had his [law firm] ID; I'm not honestly sure. But I'm like, “Oh yeah, you're here. Good.” And I start walking into the back, expecting him to follow; and I get back into the pens and I don't see him. And I'm like, where the hell is he?
I turn around, and one of the court officers is giving him a hard time: “What are you doing? You can't just walk in here. Where are you from? Where's your ID? What's this?” And I'm like, “He's a social worker. He's been here forever. You see him coming with me. I told you in advance that I'm going to have someone come with me. What's the issue?” And I think if it was a white man, they wouldn't have said anything. If it was a white female, they wouldn’t have said anything….
Defender views of court officers in Queens are also mixed. One Defender states that “my perception is that for the most part, generally court officers tend to be pretty cool. The ones that I interact with on a day-to-day basis that are in the court parts that I always track to, they're pretty decent. But I also know that some of them can be assholes just because they woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Another Defender adds: “I think they're pretty great. I feel like sometimes they have a cushy job. I remember there were a couple with bad attitudes and it was like, how are you upset? Why are you upset? Sometimes it seems like they're waiting for action. If something pops off in a courtroom, 50 of them come running and they just waiting for something exciting to happen.” Another Defender states: “It's a mixed bag. I usually look to see how they treat our clients, and that's how I personally rate them. Because to me, I don't care how you treat me. I'm a lawyer, [so] you're more than likely going to treat me well, even if you don't want to. So I usually look to see how they treat our clients, and that usually forms my idea of the type of person they are….”
Finally, Defender views of Manhattan court officers are also a mixed bag. One Defender describes court officers as “an unhealthy fraternity.” Another Defender is relatively indifferent: “They're just working. They're not in it like we're in it. They are just more about court efficiency, which I get. But that doesn’t always mean it’s helpful to our clients. They have a job to do.” Another Defender has more positive views: “Most of the court officers in Manhattan are people of color. A lot of them I find to be very easy to get along with. I find them to be different from Corrections and different from NYPD. There are some assholes as well; and I think the culture of treating our clients as the ‘other’ is consistent. I mean, even the best judges do that; our clients are viewed in a certain light. But with that being said, I find out of all of the law enforcement people I have to encounter, the court officers tend to be the better ones….”
Other responses:
Defender I've also dealt with sergeants in Supreme Court. These are the white shirt folks who have been around the block and who you would think have better temperament and understanding. Some of them are just incredibly rude. They'll skip you; I try and find out what's going on with the order of cases, why I'm sitting there, why this private attorney is being called in front of me and my client. And they bristle at you. I remember there was a sergeant that was screaming, throwing the sign-in sheet across from his desk to the corner.
Some of them, they make sarcastic comments; and this is not just limited to white sergeants. I've had Black sergeants who were particularly nasty. I don't know if they feel like, because they're Black, they have to show how tough they are. Same thing with judges who are Black. I don't know if they feel like, I can't be caught being lenient just because of the color of my skin. I have to up the ante a bit. For whatever reason, I would experience that. And it’s not just me; others of my colleagues have mentioned the same things and echoed what I've said about some Black sergeants, unfortunately.
There are a lot of good court officers, don't get me wrong…. This is not an indictment against all of the court officers at all. But some of them, you wonder with their temperament how they're a sergeant, because it's like that all the time. I remember the sergeant who tossed the sign-in pad and was screaming and saying, “No one's gonna sign in!” The judges are limited; they won’t really do anything because the [court officers] don't work for the judge and can make the judge’s life difficult. I remember one day I was sitting there and the sergeant was behaving this way, and I'm like, this man has a gun at his hip! With that temper and how he's just responding to folks, it makes you uncomfortable. People snap. There's no magical “I'm not gonna snap because I'm a law enforcement officer” mode. Quite the contrary, I think we've seen repeatedly that it's these folks who are most likely to have a bad day and have a meltdown; and when they do it, someone loses their life or ends up paralyzed. Of course, I’m speaking about police-involved shootings, but you understand my point.
Again, there are some officers who [I’m] delighted to be working with, and I’m glad to see those court officers making sergeants. But there are others, man, where you have to wonder.
Defender There are a lot of nice guys that I'm very friendly with, but there are some despicable, despicable court officers. One of them is a Black guy that I can't stomach; and it's very disappointing for me, because there are so many older Black guys that are really cool and calm and collected. They don't get flustered. But there's one Black guy—he's not young, but he is younger, I guess—who just always wants to get in people's faces and antagonize clients. And my thing is, court is a very stressful situation for everyone, especially someone whose freedom is on the line. Especially someone who maybe has ADHD and can't sit in a courtroom waiting for hours for their case to be called without being agitated; and you don't allow them to read or play on their phone or whatever, so it's problematic. But he's one that always gets in the client's face, always wants to get physical or taunt someone so they want to, like, shove him, so then that's an excuse for him to whoop their ass. And I've said to the reasonable court officers, “He's endangering all of you, because he starts physical altercations and then you guys have to be his backup when he started it.” So it's like a safety concern for them. So it's interesting that for me, one of the most egregious court officers is a Black man.
Defender I would say with court officers and court clerks, my perception has changed over time. When I first started, I was just like, they're police, and I hate police and so I hate them. On a personal level, I try to be nice to people in general. Like if I'm in the grocery store and I'm buying something, I talk to the clerk; maybe the clerk doesn't want to talk to me, but I’ll talk to the clerk. I’ll say, “Hi, hello. How are you? Blah blah blah.” I don't do that with police officers, ever. Like, I don't like them.
So, it was weird for me when I first started and there's police everywhere. So I was not friendly at all. But I came to realize that many of them are just human beings. I don't need to be mean to them every day. It also takes a lot of energy to be mean, and I don't have that kind of energy every day. And then a lot of them were very nice to me; just kind, nice people, you know? So I sort of quickly realized, okay, they're not like cops. There are a few that were demented and weird and likely on drugs or something, and they were just wanting to scream at everybody every day. But the [court] part that I was assigned to, they were all really nice. They learned my name quickly and [respected me as an attorney instead of] just mistaking me for a probation official or something else….
Defender For the most part, they're decent people. The ones I've gotten to know, I like. The ones that I just see from a distance, they have a job to do, and they do it. [Court officers] have a tendency—in the past, I don't know so much now—to act like the gestapo police when it comes to people entering the courtroom and having a hat on. The amount of zest in telling the person to take the hat off is just over the top….
At one point years ago, [the courthouse] definitely was a very uncomfortable place to walk into because of how they would bellow at the clients. [I mean], give somebody a moment to catch their breath before you start yelling at them; or just say, “Could you please take your hat off?” before you start screaming as if they've not listened to you the first 10 times you said it…. Most of those officers are not there anymore; they've retired. So for the crop that we have here, some are old school and some are coming from other boroughs; so they have a different mindset than the ones who start here. Here is a very different place; to practice law, to walk into this courtroom, to deal with these people, it’s just very different than the other boroughs.
So you've got a bunch of young folks who want to flex; and then you have some of them who are just very genuine, kind people. So it's a very diverse mix in terms of personality and the way they treat people. Some treat people very respectfully no matter what; others will give you a step or two, and then they’re up your ass.
FN 1: Certain public defender offices are organized in a way where the attorneys consistently handle cases in particular AP parts. This is what it means to “track to” a particular part. For example, one section of the office tracks to AP1, which means that generally, attorneys in that section have their misdemeanor cases adjourned to AP1. A second section of the office tracks to AP2, which means that the attorneys in that second section have their misdemeanor cases adjourned to AP1.
FN 2: Pseudonym.
FN 3: When a client takes a plea with a sentence that requires them to perform delineated tasks, like paying a fine, the tasks usually come with a jail alternative; if the client fails to perform the task within the specified time frame, they can be sent to jail for a certain period of time. When a judge “executes” sentence, the judge is imposing the jail alternative because the client failed to fulfill his/her appointed task.
What is your perception of the clerks in your borough?
Defenders’ views on court clerks are varied as well, although the most common answer is that court clerks are a mix; some are cool, and some are not. One Defender states: “It really just depends. I think some of the Supreme Court clerks can be on power trips, and some of them are really helpful and genuine and sweet. So it just depends. It's actually really hard to put them as a monolith.” Another Defender concurs: “Some can be nasty, but I think it's just because they're just nasty people. And some can be helpful.” Another Defender notes: “I think that it's a mixed breed of people. I haven't really had that many bad experiences with clerks, not as much as I've had with court officers. I think that many of them are respectful, but many are not. And I don't know what it is. I don’t know if [their attitude is], they are not firing me from this good state job. I don’t know if they hate the lawyers or if they hate the defendants. I really can’t gauge. I can get why court officers might hate everybody, but the clerks are kind of far; they're not as accessible as the court officers are to the public and to the lawyers. So I don't really know why they are so salty sometimes.” Another Defender adds: “You have some clerks that are very nice. You have some clerks that are very organized and conscientious. And then you have some clerks that are just cantankerous to another level….”
Some Defenders have more positive relationships with clerks than others. One Defender recalls: “I've had very positive experiences with the clerks. I think they can make things happen. I think they have massive amounts of knowledge nobody else seems to have around what to do and who to call to figure out where your client is in the courthouse. I very much appreciate that.” Another Defender expresses similar sentiments: “For the most part, I've had no problem with clerks. When I've been with my client while interacting with the clerk, they've been good to my client. They've been respectful. I haven't really had any real bad issues, except for maybe one time, it was something stupid and minor. That’s the outlier.” Adds another: “The times that I came in contact with the clerks, they were helpful. They were helpful to me. They were sitting in the back room, and the only time I went back there is when I was having some kind of issue. I needed their help, and they were helpful.”
Other Defenders have far more negative interactions with clerks. One Defender remarks: “Clerks are the worst. I think court officers at least have to try to be courteous to our clients because they have to deal with them. They're very close to them. When I say close, [I’m talking] physical proximity; most people realize that they have to respect people or else things could get hairy or physical…. But I think clerks, because they're so removed—they're usually in the well, away from our clients—they tend to have more of an air about them. I think they are very discourteous [and] stuck up.” Another Defender states: “The clerks are pretty bad too. They can be worse than the court officers…. They have a lot of control of what happens in the courtroom and how people are treated. They can call your case last. They can be disrespectful to your clients. Because they work so closely with the judge, they can influence the court. In our borough, I just think they’re pretty conservative and can be very disrespectful to lawyers and to the clients.”
However the perception, Defenders recognize how important—and by extension powerful—clerks are to their practice. One Defender states: “The clerks are nasty. They can be very, very nasty. But the thing with clerks is,] you gotta be nice to them. If you need a case advanced, [or] if you need them to look up something, [or] if you need any kind of a favor, technically the clerk has the say so. So I'm nice to all the clerks, because I'd be needing favors.” Another Defender shares similar thoughts: “Clerks are different: I may need some paperwork, or I may need to add a case to the calendar. So for them, I do a little bit more schmoozing and will ignore certain slights, because they actually have a lot of power in terms of not even just me, but in terms of clients. What happens if they mess up the paperwork? It affects my client in getting their license of something else.” One Defender explains the importance of building relationships with clerks:
It's so important to have a clerk respect and like you; and I get along with all the clerks. I like the clerks because the clerks run everything…. Going back and forth from court is just a pain. You [have a lot of cases, and] you want to get your stuff done and get out. That's what the clerk can do. I mean it: for the most part I can walk into most parts in Criminal or Supreme Court; and if I know the clerk, I can give the clerk a look and the clerk will bump my case up and not make me sit there all day. Whereas if there's somebody that they don't like, they'll sit there through lunch.
I never want to be that kind of person who’s a douche; and I don't think it takes much or costs much to be friendly with them. It's not like I'm saying that you need to take him out to lunch and spend money on him. Just acknowledge him: “Hey [man], how you doing? How's your kid? Still playing ball?” Or they'll come up and say, “There's a fund we're doing for one of the court officers. He's got cancer, and they're trying to take care of his family. [Can you help]?” Yes! Open your wallet up and donate to that. It's a good cause, and it gives you goodwill with the people that you're working with; and any goodwill to you is goodwill to your client.
I'm telling you, that's really what it comes down to. It's not really that they're friendly to me or this or that; it's that if they like me, they're going to take care of my client. And that is so necessary sometimes. “Uh, [My Name], you need to go back there and talk to your client; he's getting a little crazy and this judge, you know how he is.” I'll get the heads up [on things]: “[My Name], before you bring your client down, if I were you, I talk to him and tell him X, Y, and Z, because that's what's happening.” You can't beat that; you can't beat that. So it's a relationship that I think should be fostered; and the clerks do have a great deal of behind-the-scenes power in cases getting called and the things that go along with it.
While Defenders recognize clerks to have power, they also observe that some clerks act like they have judicial power and take on some attitude and hubris. One Defender explains: “Clerks think they have the power of the judge. They want to be seen and acknowledged, but I think they thought their role was a little bit more important than it was. Like, it is important to keep track of what's happening in the court and all of that, but they sort of wanted that same deference that a judge demanded. It was very exhausting to have to go through that whole song and dance for them when it really is just their job. I think everybody should just be acknowledged as the person who's doing the job, but it also just sometimes felt exhausting to try to get them to put the right entry in; and if they got it wrong, come back and try to get them to do it right….” One Defender tells this story:
There is one clerk that I got on her bad side, I hope to never have to go into that damn courtroom again. So an ADA and I had a plea worked out. We worked out a deal for a program that the ADA brought to my attention. It was a one-day program in the domestic violence part. My client was charged with criminal mischief. [On the court date, I approached] the ADA at the rail, who was obviously not the assigned ADA, and I asked him just to confirm that it was the program the assigned ADA and I discussed. He’s like “Oh, I don’t know.” I tried asking for information about the program, and he’s like, “Oh, I don’t know, you have to ask the clerk.” So I was like, oh, ok, let me just go back here and find out.
It was the worst fucking decision ever, because I went back there to talk to the clerk and she said, “Well, you can’t have any pleas with programs in court without it going through me.” I replied, “Oh, I didn’t know that. Ok, well here’s the plea. Do you want to speak with the ADA? I mean, I can probably tell him to call you.” So I ask the ADA in the courtroom to call the assigned ADA and tell him to call this lady here so that she can work it out. [So I sit], and I’m waiting now, because I don’t want to call the case until I hear approval. When I go back to check on it—because she said, “I’m not going to be rushed, not for you ma’am”—she then says, “We don’t approve of this.” I asked why, and she said, “All programs have to be over X amount of weeks and this, that and the third.” I was just like, “But the ADA was the one that brought it to my attention, and this is not a classic domestic violence case; this was criminal mischief.” I’m trying to plead my case with her, and she didn’t want to hear me. She was so dismissive, and the more I kept asking her why, she just was like, “This is just what it is.” I was floored! I was just asking her why, and she was so nasty.
[When the case was called], I brought it up on the record. I said, “Well, you know, judge, we had a whole disposition worked out, but the clerk says that because she doesn’t approve of the plea, we cannot take it.” The judge quietly made a who-the-fuck-is-she? face. They brought her out, and she said why she would not take it. I said, “Judge, I pointed out that this program is this many days long, it comes with a full one-year order of protection, and [all these other requirements]. The judge said, “Yeah, I’m gonna take the plea.” And [the clerk] looked at me like she wanted to kill me with her eyes. Like, how dare I come into her little kingdom and question her authority. She was the fucking worst.
So yeah, clerks can be either a gift or a curse.
Some Defenders complain of lazy clerks. One Defender notes: “Sometimes I feel like some of them don't want to work; but I try to be very nice, polite, cordial, and do what I need to do to get the objective that I need for purposes of advocating for my client's interests.” Another Defender states: “For me, the issues that I have with the clerks, especially during this pandemic, but throughout my career, has been that I don't feel like they really want to work. And I'm a very friendly person and I don't have beef with people, so I can really get people to do what I need them to do; but I shouldn't have to go on favors for you to do your job. But that's what it ultimately boils down to a lot; if you like me, then you'll do what I need you to do….” Another Defender adds: “If we ask them to do one thing more than they planned on doing that day, it's as though we've just destroyed their world. I feel like so many of them don't want to do anything extra; and they certainly don't want to do anything extra that benefits our client.”
Other responses:
Defender The Supreme Court clerks are much nicer. They're way nicer and way more accommodating. The clerks in Criminal Court, it's like they don't want us to come up to them to ask them a question or ask them something. They act as if you're bothering them, like a how-dare-you-speak-to-me type situation. And it’s like, you all don’t have to do a calendar the way the clerks in Supreme Court do. You could answer one question. It's not that serious.
Defender Court clerks are usually people that were court officers that went up the ladder and became court clerks. Sometimes, some of them carry the same attitude that some of the worse court officers had about the people that they have to deal with on a daily basis. And that's not a good thing for our clients or for us, or for anyone. Sometimes though, they treat people like humans.
Most clerks take their cues from the judges. So if you have a judge that actually controls his or her courtroom and sets the tone for that courtroom and is the type of judge that treats everyone there (most importantly our clients) as human beings that have not been proven guilty of any crime, then usually the staff and the clerks will kind of take on some of that, in terms of how they treat clients.
Defender In my encounters with them, I would say most of them are helpful. I've had one or two who have been [rude]. I've only had one incident where I got into it with the clerk…. I was in a courtroom. [Things were] very slow…. The court officers would always yell at the audience to be quiet. The court officers tell the clients to [be quiet], but they don't usually say that to the attorneys. They may tell the attorneys to keep it down, but they don't try to prevent us from talking…. So I was sitting, waiting for my case to be called, and I was talking to a colleague of mine. One of the clerks called me up to the rail and said, “Why is it that every time I say be quiet, you roll your eyes and keep talking?!”
I didn't appreciate her tone. I'm a lawyer; and it doesn't even matter if I am a client. The way that she was speaking to me was so disrespectful. First of all, she's a clerk; she's not a court officer. Court officers are the ones who are charged with keeping the courtroom in order. Second, even if that is what you're charged with doing, there's a certain way that you should talk to people regardless of their status. Me being an attorney, I felt as though, while she shouldn't be talking to anybody like that, she certainly shouldn't be talking to me like that.
So I responded by asking her, “Who [are you] talking to? Why [are you] talking to me like I'm a child?” I don't recall what her response was, but she basically asked me why I was talking. I said, “I'm an attorney. This system is oppressive to our clients and anybody who represents them. I've been sitting in this courtroom for an hour. The court is slow. The ADAs are slow and I'm talking to my colleague. You don't know what I'm talking about.” I don't recall what she said immediately [in response], but she [eventually] asked me if I was going to be quiet. I responded, “Well, my colleague is gone, so I don't have anyone else to talk to.” And then I went back and sat down.
[Later] she went up and she reported the incident to the judge. The judge said nothing. My case got called a few cases later, [and] he didn't say anything to me. But the takeaway really was that she just was disrespectful and dismissive. What I received from her was the energy that our clients receive all of the time….
Defender Because they're the clerk of that courtroom, and because of the power structures that exist within each individual courtroom, and [because] they hold themselves to have power, they basically control things just under the judge; and at times, they control things for the judge. So they view themselves [as having] a very high role in those individual courtrooms; and if you don't play by their rules, they will make you pay a price. They will make you sit. They will make you wait, or they will make your client wait. If a court officer tells a client to pull up their pants and they have to speak to him twice, the clerk is going to say—these clerks, especially the ones that walk around with guns—“You know what? He's going to wait till the end of the day.” And they have the power to do this. The judges won't tell them anything. So it's a very different dynamic.
A good clerk can make your stay in a part great; a bad clerk can really, really ruin your day. It can really ruin your client’s day.
How are the Black court officers in your borough? How about the Black clerks? Why do you think they are as you described?
Black Court Officers Defenders have varied views of Black court officers specifically, although Defenders generally view them more positively than negatively. One Defender states: “I've developed a relationship with a lot of the Black court officers; so I like a lot of the Black court officers. But the white ones? Ooh, they’re the devil.” Another Defender states: “Some of them are really good.” One Defender notes: “Like everything else, some are cool; some are assholes. Some don't speak; some wake up on the wrong side of the bed very often. But I have a few where I've built a good relationship with, so that I can get some perks. I get my case called early, or I’ll have one client come at 10 and another client come at 11:15, and they'll just call them both together when really the 11:15 client should be called after lunch. So some of them are nice. If I was comparing how Black court officers are versus white court officers, I would say that the Black court officers in general tend to be a little better than the white court officers.” Another Defender provides this answer:
It's either neutral towards our client or extremely helpful. I have not had a negative interaction with a court officer of color. They have usually bent over backwards to make sure that my clients know their next court date, and to direct clients to courtrooms when they change. For whatever reason, they have really bent over backwards to be of assistance, or they're neutral and they just treat them like any member of the audience. But generally, they are much more respectful than their colleagues.
In Queens, the bridge officer is the one who writes down the next court date for your client. And I had one bridge officer actually tell the judge, “I remember this guy. I wrote the date down wrong.” And that's the only reason a bench warrant wasn't issued. He was just really open and honest, and he was the only reason my client didn't go to Rikers.
Some Defenders have more mixed perceptions. One Defender observes: “Some of them are good. Some are good folks, where I've seen them stop to help people. I've seen them take care of folks; I’ve seen them go out their way to do things. Some of them are utter trash. Some of them treat me and our Black clients as if they can bark at us. There is just a lot of deep self-hate with some of them.” Another Defender states: “The Black court officers tend to be cool. A lot of times the supervisors tend to be very rude to our clients. A regular court officer who is not a supervisor tends to be courteous to our clients. A lot of times they'll go out of their way to explain things to clients. But supervisors tend to be extremely rude to our clients.” In reference to an earlier story, one Defender notes: “When the judge told me and my Black female colleague that I had to get up and leave the courtroom, despite the fact that I was doing nothing wrong, I had two court officers—two Black court officers—who seemed more than happy to try to physically remove me from the courtroom.” One Defender—a woman—offers this jarring anecdote:
I have mixed reviews on that. Some of the best interactions I had were with Black court officers. One [terrible] interaction to this day that I'll never forget was with a Black sergeant; and to this day, I am so disturbed by [it]…. I was in Supreme Court [attending the trial of a white colleague; the colleague was trying the case]. She had me assisting her; I was there for moral support. For the majority of the trial, the courtroom was closed because there were undercover police officers involved. For the duration of the trial, it was myself, one or two other attorneys from our office, and the client's family with us. We were there almost every day. The prosecutor was a white woman, and she was pregnant.
So when the case ended and the jury came out with a verdict of guilty, myself and the colleague [on trial] were about to leave the courtroom; and mind you, like I said, it's a closed courtroom. There's nobody in there. There had been a lot of undercover witnesses, so they weren't letting people come in and out freely. So if you were in the courtroom, you either were a defense attorney or family of the defendant. I think it was a drug case, so it wasn't like any complaining witness was involved.
As we're trying to leave the courtroom, the Black court officer stops me from leaving and is shielding the prosecutor as he's escorting her out the [well area and] down the aisle. Like he literally has his hands out as if he's shielding her from some angry, dangerous crowd. And I'm like, “I'm an attorney; are you serious? I have the same license that she has.” So now we're out in the hallway, and he approached me—funny enough, [my white colleague] was also there to witness this]—and was trying to justify his actions, I guess because he felt embarrassed by all the comments I was making about him shielding this poor white pregnant prosecutor down the aisle. He approaches me and says, “You don't understand; with these kinds of cases, I would do the same thing as if it was just a group of gangsters.” I said, “So you're comparing me to a group of thugs and gangsters? Like, what are you talking about here? I'm a lawyer. I have a law degree. What are you doing?” And then he just kept on getting worse, finally to the point where [my colleague] said, “You should stop.” And I told him also; I said, “You should just stop right there. Just stop. You don’t need to explain it. Just go about your business.”
I'll never forget that experience. I looked at him, too; I was like Black man, Black man. And he was thoroughly embarrassed. I was so disappointed. I was so blown away, because [the way he was acting,] you would've thought there was an angry mob of people that he was escorting her through. It was an EMPTY AUDIENCE. I second sat a murder case [before that incident], and no one got escorted out of that courtroom as a prosecutor. Here, it was an empty courtroom, and he had to escort this poor, fragile pregnant ADA down the aisle. And when he got called out on it, his justification was that he would've done the same thing as if there were a group of gangsters in the courtroom. I'm like, “Oh, so now I'm a gangster; I'm a thug. Got it.”
[That] Black man still works there; and every time he sees me, he puts his head down, because I stare him down. I make sure to look at him eye to eye.
A few other responses:
Defender There are not many. The ones that I can think of, they’re cool…I'm trying to think of the six of them….
Defender I’ve never seen Black court officers in Staten Island.
Defender There are court officers of color who have a different attitude [about matters related to criminal justice]. They won’t always express it out loud; it depends on who they're working with on a particular day because they're all from the same union; they're all in the same club. So they don't want to be ostracized.
Black Clerks Defenders in Staten Island note that Black clerks are nonexistent. “There aren’t any in Staten Island,” one Defender states. Another concurs: “We don’t have any Black clerks in Staten Island.” In the other boroughs, Defenders generally have more positive things to say about the Black clerks. One Defender remarks: “They could be helpful. Black clerks sometimes will call you and say, ‘You can come up, the judge is ready,’ or will help you out, try to help you understand how to navigate something because every court does it differently; every courtroom is like its own little kingdom.” Another states: “I have a cordial relationship with them.” Adds another Defender: “I think they're fine. They just seem a little overworked sometimes, so I don't really hold that against them too much; but I will say that sometimes [the clerks that are in trial parts will] make comments on about the case inappropriately in front of the attorneys.”
Not all Defender impressions are positive. One Defender answers: “I think they're stuck up. Anytime it's time for a clerk to explain anything to a client, they're generally very rude and disrespectful.” Another Defender offers this anecdote:
It's interesting because there is one clerk in Criminal Court who is a Black woman…. Oh my God, she's just an evil human being. Oh my God…. She would be the kind of person where you would go there, you would ask for something simple, something run of the mill, like part of her job description, no issue with it. She would just give you a hard time and wouldn't do it. You would have to go to a [judge]. I would go to [the administrative judge], and he'd ask, “What are you talking about? Of course, you can get [what I’m asking for]. Who's telling you that you can't get them?” [I’d explain the situation, and] he would then say, “No, no, no. You go back down and say that I said that you can get it.” So I go back down and said, “No, [the administrative judge] said I can get them,” and she's like, “I don't think the judge would say that.” Like that sort of crap….
And she was a Black woman. The power got to her head. I think that would be the simplest way to phrase it. And once the judge came and spoke to her in person, she’s like, “Oh yes, of course. Anything you say, Judge. Of course. Why would you think I wouldn't do that, Judge?”
What role if any does your gender play in how court officers and/or clerks treat you?
The men amongst the Defenders generally acknowledge that, like with judges and prosecutors, their gender advantages them when it comes to dealing with court officers. One Defender note: “I think that men are recorded a certain legitimacy. Men are accorded this idea of legitimacy in a way that women aren't.” Other Defenders express having camaraderie with Black male court officers. One Defender explains: “The court officers in [my borough] are overwhelmingly male; and I think if they're male and Black, there's a certain understanding and a certain camaraderie that can develop, whether it's real or perceived. Many of them, even though they had an affinity for the DA's office or for law enforcement, if they were Black or Brown they also, as people that come from New York City and the surrounding areas in New York, understand the plight of being Black and Brown here, of being over-policed. So there's some sort of strange affinity that takes place. They're doing problematic work, certainly, and they are part of this whole law enforcement paradigm; but there's this sort of affinity [and understanding that] we are all Black.”
Some Defenders note that being men could disadvantage them in certain respects. One Defender explains:
[W]ith the court officers, I think it could be kind of like a male bravado thing, if you happen to get into it with another court officer about something minuscule. I never really had any issues with the clerks. I mean, there is just a certain level of disrespect that I'm not going to take, just as a man. I think I'm pretty friendly and cordial, [but I don’t tolerate foolery. Take the whole “public defender versus private attorney” situation]. Listen, I'm an attorney. You shouldn't be treating any public defender like they are less than private attorneys, but if [public defenders] choose to accept that, that's on them. I'm not going to accept that, especially when it comes to calling cases. You're not going to bump me for a fucking private attorney. I'll be quick to go to the front and say, “I know I signed in before him, so why are you calling his case first?” I've said that before, and it's been a problem.
The women amongst the Defenders report that gender plays a role in a myriad of ways. Some court officers and clerks take liberties with them that are not taken with their male colleagues. One Defender explains: “I think I have to be firm in setting boundaries. I learned that early on; I needed to set boundaries in the way I'm interacting with them, so they don't feel free to tell me disrespectful stuff, disrespectful sexual stuff, like as a joke. I couldn't be too nice with a lot of the male court officers, Black or white, because it was going to get to a point that they were going to say something [that would make one think], did he just say that and laugh like that was supposed to be funny?” Another Defender states: “I’ve had strange interactions with court officers. [Some] court officers hit on women and stuff, which is inappropriate. I’ve had a lot of that, being bothered by them. I don’t know that I can say I’ve had any significant experiences with them being nasty toward me or my clients because I’m a woman.” Another Defender gives this answer:
Of course, some court officers and clerks get a little too familiar. Like I've had instances of male officers or clerks touching me inappropriately. One time I had my hair straightened, and I was talking to my client outside of the courtroom. A sergeant came by—[mind you,] we are at work; so I’m like, “Hey, how are you? Hope you had a good weekend. Have a good night.” It’s that kind of level, not even deeper than that—and as I'm talking to my client, he comes up and [is doing something] between tugging and running his finger through my hair. (Author reacts) Yeah. And I thought, one, we ain't even that cool; two, even if you thought we were that cool, why would you do that as I'm talking to my client?
I've had situations with clerks where, if they're passing by you, they just have to touch you, or [do] little minute things that, quite frankly, a lot of guys do—other clerks or court officers—and us as ladies just kind of learned to deal with….
Some Defenders report having to flirt with male court officers to have their cases called or to have other professional favors done. One Defender answers: “I can't tell you how many times I've had to entertain creepy flirtatious conversations with court officers…. There was actually one court officer, who later on got in trouble in Brooklyn, who I had to interact with on a daily basis almost. He got in trouble because he was coercing women to have sex with him, women who are either clients or family members of clients, promising that he would help with their case. And I used to interact with him, and I literally would have to flirt with him to get my case called. Like, ugh! Creepy, creepy, creepy man.” Another Defender concurs: “Well, I'm ashamed to say this, but sometimes I flirt with them court officers and court clerks to get what I need. It sucks, because they don't do this to the men; but I gotta do what I gotta do for my clients. I feel gross about it, but I gotta do what I gotta do.”
Some Defenders note that court officers are kinder to women they think are attractive. One Defender explains: “If you were pretty and cute and everything, then the court officer flirted with you and wanted to make you happy and did favors for you. If you're not, then you have to wait, then you have to, kind of in a nice way, try to fight your way in to make sure that what you need done gets done.” Another Defender shares similar sentiments: “I think that if you are a woman and you are perceived as ‘attractive,’ whatever that means—you could be physically attractive; you could be a pit bull; you could be docile—whatever that means in your interaction with court officers who are largely male is how you were treated. So I think you understood what that meant and you played those cards how you played them; it’s not just me, but a lot of my friends [that] are public defenders. So as a woman, you understood that you had to know court officers based on how they responded to your gender; and you played into that.”
Some Defenders do report that court officers were very kind when they were pregnant. One Defender states that “when I was pregnant, they were just extra nice to me. They would call my cases; they would never let me wait. They were just really nice to me; and I don't know that they would be like that if I were a guy, because I wouldn't have the pregnancy thing happening.” Another Defender similarly recalls: “I do have to say that when I was pregnant, they were good, unexpectedly good. They went out of their way to move people off the seat so that I could get a seat to sit down. They would talk to the judge about getting my case called early, which I didn't expect because that's not how they treated me beforehand. And, of course, I took advantage of that.” While noting how court officers didn’t take female attorneys seriously—“it was a lot of ‘sweeties’ and ‘honeys’”—another Defender expresses: “When I was pregnant, it was nice, because they made sure I always had a seat. They would make people move for me. When I walked into the courtroom when I was pregnant, they would always call my cases the minute I walked in. It helped. It was nice, their sexism.”
As with judges and prosecutors, some Defenders don’t really notice being treated differently based on gender. One Defender replies: “I don't think it matters. I'm oblivious. I mean, some male court officers or clerks have flirted with me, but that's the extent of it.” Another Defender offers a similar response: “I can't say I've had a personal issue. I can't personally say that because of my sex I've been treated differently.” Another Defender responds to the question this way: “None at all. Now race is a whole different thing.” Another Defender notes: “Clerks, I don’t think that I can really speak to that. I don’t think that I’m being treated differently because of my sex when it comes to clerks. Not sure though, because the manner in which we interact with them, I don’t know if there’d be a way for me to tell.”
Some women amongst the Defenders note either indifferent or negative treatment from female court officers. When asked about the impact of her gender, one Defender states: “With female court officers, it's not helpful at all.” Another Defender remarks:
I would say with the ladies, some of them are just bitchy. Even if you don't have any bad interaction with them, they’re just bitchy. There were two court officers that, when my class started and it was a group [consisting of a] good number of Black attorneys, treated the guys differently than they treated us girls. And it was like, we just got here; nothing happened. I didn't even track to the court part they worked in, so for sure I know nothing happened between me and them because I didn’t even work there! [Now] usually as a Black person, you pass each other in the hallway, you do either the head nod or the smile; if you’re in arraignments, you’re like, “Hey! How are you?” But with them, their attitude was just like, don't talk to me, bitch.
A lot of the court officers, especially the ladies, want to prove that us lawyers need to respect them. And it's weird for me, because I'm the kind of person where I say hello to everyone, good morning, good night, good evening, like all of that. I'm not the most chatty person, but I do make sure when I'm interacting [that I’m polite]. So I wonder to myself, where the fuck is this coming from? I'm not to rude to you; why are you being rude to me?
Other responses from Defenders:
Defender Oh, these gender questions are so hard…. I'm trying to think of earlier examples in terms of how clerks would treat me…. I just think for me, I try to be respectful and to be kind in my delivery. If I have a request, I don't know if in my head I feel like I have to be extra nice or extra kind, especially if I'm trying to coax or ask someone to do something or to help me out, even if it is within what their job responsibilities are. And I don't know if I feel like, if I were a man, maybe I wouldn't have to feel an obligation to be as kind and nice in my delivery, if that makes sense.
Defender Well, I think they can be more paternalistic to women than to men. I think that there is, as with judges, this idea of, well, this is a man's job and a man can behave a certain way. A man can be loud, a man can be argumentative, and a man can talk back to you. A man can be forceful about what he wants and how he wants to behave…. But when a woman does it, it's very different. Then the woman becomes a problem, and then you treat it differently. “Sit down, Ms. [My Name].” “Sit down.” “I'm not doing that.” It can be very different when a woman talks back or a woman argues or a woman insists on something; then they can reprimand you. They don't reprimand men.
The judge is the person that— well, I don't know if the judge really controls the atmosphere of the courtroom as much, because I've seen judges kowtow to the court officers and the court clerks. They're the ones that really create the atmosphere in the courtroom. I mean, a good judge will take control of that; but I've had people tell me that they asked a question and the [court officers and clerks] won't answer it, or they’ll say, “You should know that” or “I already told you that.” It's like, what are you talking to me like that for? I'm here on business and I'm asking you information and you don't want [to answer?] I mean, some can be great and lovely, but others can be dismissive and condescending. And I don't think they treat men like that. I don't see that. I see them being very paternalistic toward women.
Defender [Court officers are] nice to you because you're a woman in front of them. That’s probably half the reason they’re nice….
Defender Especially with the court officers, the angry Black woman narrative [is alive and well. They are quick to tell serious Black women], “You need to calm down,” when I’m arguing on behalf of my client or noting some injustice my client is experiencing. I'm not going to calm down. This is some bullshit.
Defender I think that with women, if the clerk is a man, I think that they are probably more likely to come over and help. When dealing with court officers, you can probably garner some sort of favor to get them to do what you need them to do. But a lot of times, if you're not in a position where you can garner some favor from them, I think that they are definitely more responsive to males generally, but specifically white males…. With clerks, I don’t think there’s any real difference with them. I still think it’s the same thing: if you’re a man, they just seem to be willing to be more responsive to you. They are quicker and more professional about it, versus thinking that you can wait and you’ll be fine, or expecting you to be a little more understanding of whatever BS they have going on.
Defender
Honestly, sometimes it worked in my favor because the reality is that most of the court officers in New York are Black males and I'm a Black woman. So that is sometimes appealing. A little smile, a little extra conversation, and I can get clients brought up early or get my case called first or whatever. So I think my gender has helped, honestly, in that realm. With clerks, I don't know if it's played a role.
Has a court officer or clerk ever mistaken you for a person who was not an attorney?
As Defenders perceive it, court officers are the criminal judicial system players most likely to openly mistake them for persons who are not attorneys. Both men and women amongst the Defenders experience being seen as defendants (mainly) and other non-attorneys. Here are some anecdotes:
Defender Once I was in Manhattan, and a court officer demanded for me to show my OCA pass when there was a white attorney I knew [sitting next to me]. We were having a conversation about a case, and he walked up to me and demanded me to move back. The white attorney told him, “She’s an attorney; I know her,” and yet he refused to allow me to continue talking until he saw my pass.
Defender One time, I was watching some of my coworkers who were doing a jury trial, and one of my colleagues [who was white] went and sat down in the first row, which is supposed to be reserved for attorneys. Then I went and sat next to him, and one of the court officers came up to me and said, “This row is only for attorneys.” He's whispering to me because there's live testimony happening. I said, “I know,” and he was like, “Can I see your ID?” I looked at him and didn’t produce it immediately, so then he says, “You know, I have to ask everyone.” I said, “Do you? Because you didn't ask my coworker who just sat down for their ID. I’m telling you I’m an attorney; I don't know why I have to prove it when you're not asking everyone else.” Because there was a trial going on, I wasn't trying to create a big scene in the courtroom, so eventually I gave him my ID…. There have been a few times where I've had to produce identification where I can see other [attorneys] don't have to produce ID. It happens a lot.
Defender Countless times I have walked into courtrooms and have been told that I can't sit in the front row by officers, so much so that now I don't even sit in the front row when I go into a courtroom. Whether it's a courtroom where the officers are familiar with me or not, it just bothers me how frequently that happens, where the front row is reserved for attorneys and officers are telling me that I can't sit there. I had one officer go so far as to say, “Oh, you can't sit here,” and then when I told him I was an attorney, he's like, “Well can I see some ID?” In my head I’m like, I have on a suit, and you think that I'm going to sit and lie about being an attorney? I can read this sign right here. So I go into my bag to take out my ID, and I guess he saw the legal files, so he's like, “Oh no, no, forget about it.” I said, “Well, you couldn't take my word for it before, so just sit and wait for the damn ID.”
So I don’t sit in the front row anymore. One of the clerks came to me one day and said, “[My Name], every time I see you in court, you’re sitting further and further in the back.” And I always say, “Because I'm sitting with my people. Outside of this suit and outside of court, you would think that I’m any one of these individuals not sitting in the first row. So I have no problem sitting in the second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth row.”
Defender One day I was going to sign up a case, and I was with about eight new attorneys from the office. It was really their first time going to Criminal Court, and I'm [supervising them]. There was a matter on that I was going to cover, and I went up to where the sign-in sheet is. We were right near the first row where the lawyers typically sit. A court officer came up to me and said, “Um, excuse me, sir, what are you doing? You're not supposed to be here.” And I said, “Excuse me?” And he says, “You're not supposed to be here.” I said, “Where am I supposed to be?” And he says, “You're not supposed—.” I said, “Sir, I'm an attorney. What's the problem?”
He then apologized to me and said, “The reason I was mistaken is because I had never seen you before.” (Author reacts) Meanwhile, the very new attorneys who had never been in that courtroom before were all surrounding me, standing next to me. They were all pretty much white; I think they were all white. So I said to him, “And what about these folks here?” pointing to the new attorneys who had never been in that courtroom before; and he actually said to my face, “Oh, I've seen them before.” (Author reacts) I've had some crazy experiences….
Defender I remember [earlier in my career,] I walked into the well in a courtroom that I've been to many times, and they said, “Oh, the court reporter's here.” I responded, “Okay, no, not me.” … Another time, a court officer thought I was the interpreter. In [another borough], I would go into court and sit down in the front row, and court officers would come over to me and say, “This is for attorneys only.” I’ve had court officers come over to me saying, “Who are you?” if I sit down in the first row.
Defender Multiple times. One example was—one of many—I was dressed for court. I think I was [in] Community Court in Manhattan. I was [wearing a] suit [and] a trench coat, and I had files in my hand and a briefcase. I'm walking down the aisle to go sit in the front row, and [a] court officer yells at me to tell me that the front row is only for lawyers. So I stood up and I looked at him to give him a moment to just look at me. I have court files in my hand. I have a briefcase. I'm wearing a full suit and a trench coat. And he repeats, “You're gonna have to sit back there.” So I said, “Sir, I am a lawyer.” He responded, “Oh, okay then.”
That's happened multiple times. I mean, it's sad. If I wasn't Black, I don't think the court officers would have to know me to just look at my appearance and decide I'm a lawyer. But if I am Black, they have to know you to know that you're a lawyer. If they don't know anything about you, the assumption is, you're certainly not a lawyer….
Defender It has happened to me repeatedly from court officers. It would happen every year when there was a new class of court officers who did not know me…. Now anybody could come in the courtroom and wear a suit and sit down in the front row. But in my experience, most of the time, it's an attorney or a social worker. So you're sitting there, you have your files, you've just approached the rail. You've signed up a case. You've sat down. You've boldly pulled your cell phone out, you're looking through your email, just doing your job, knowing that in criminal court, it is totally acceptable for defense lawyers to have their cell phones out in court…. And they would come up to me and tell me to put my phone away or say, “You can't have your phone out in court.” And then I would say, “Can attorneys have their phones out?” [They usually stammer back,] “Uh, uh, uh, yeah. Are you, are you, are you an, are you an attorney?” I respond, “I thought the suit, the redwell, the files, the signing up a case gave it away; but I've been wrong before.” (Author laughs) …
It just shows their implicit bias; and this is how America thinks. They see color, and they make judgment calls based on that without having an intentional sort of thought process on the situation and saying, “If I'm not saying it to the white person on either side of him who also have their phones out, then I shouldn't be saying it to him.” Now if you were going across and saying it to everybody, that's different; but this is clearly implicit bias that's manifesting itself in a discriminatory way.
Defender I've routinely had to present my ID in ways that other people just don't. Just sitting in the first row, having people actually come up to you and check your ID; that's happened several times with me.
[I have a Black female colleague who, when she was new,] had to really jump through hoops [to have access in court.] They not only asked to see her secure pass, but also her actual ID; they had her show two forms of ID to prove that she was a lawyer, which is just wild. It didn't just happen one time for her; it would happen very frequently. And it got to the point where she thought it was normal, that we had to show both a secure pass and an ID. Then someone told her, “No, that's not the case at all.” I'm not sure what the follow-up on that was, but I do remember there was some sort of follow-up. But yeah, it's definitely happened.
Defender I've even had a Black correction officer mistake me as a defendant. I was walking on the 12th floor bridge in the Manhattan courthouse. It's the area that connected the jail to the courthouse. That whole area where the pens are on the floor is referred to as the bridge…. One day, I was walking through the hall, and the Black CO saw me coming and motions for me to go into the pen. I said, “Easy, bro. This nice suit doesn’t tell you I’m a lawyer?” And he—I guess he couldn’t see my tag—he said to me, “Here some of these dudes in here got nicer suits than you.” I said, “My man, the moment that you think every Black person is an inmate, you need to change your job.”
Defender Yes. Now, no; they all know me. It's been [a long time], and I've been in the same court part. But new [court officers and clerks] always do. And in the beginning, I was never an attorney. They never, ever thought I was an attorney. They always thought I was with Probation, or they thought I was a client. Usually, the ladies who work in Probation, the probation attorneys, are Black women; so maybe that's why [I always got confused for a probation attorney] ….
One of my friends from high school was a defense attorney [in] Manhattan when I started, and she's Korean. She’s always [been mistaken for] the Chinese interpreter, not even a Korean interpreter. It happened like every single time in the courtroom. She's been there for years. She's not the Chinese interpreter; she's Korean, and she's an attorney. [For court officers and clerks], if you’re not a white man, [the automatic assumption is that you’re not an attorney].
Defender Absolutely. I've been called Probation. I've been asked if I was from CASES or from some other program. Then more than once, I've been [mistaken as a] family member for a client. All of those things.
Defender Yes. Sometimes when I'm walking in [the courthouse], I'll be walking in behind a white attorney who hasn't showed [the court officer standing by the door] their [secure pass] to get into the courthouse; and I assume that because I go there every day and I've seen them 30 times, they'll recognize me as an attorney too, with my suit and my bag and my [public defender] files in my hand and my heels. [Yet, the officer will say], “Ma’am, you need to go through the magnetometer.” And I'll have to explain to them that I’m a lawyer. That's happened for me a few times….
Defender I've had situations where I'm in a suit, I go into the courtroom, I sit in the first row. They're like, “The first row's reserved for attorneys.” I’m like, “I'm aware of that.” So then they’re like, “Are you an attorney, or are you waiting for your…, are you, are you a client?” Obviously, if I'm sitting in the first row, I'm an attorney. Before I used to get offended; now I play games. “Are you an attorney?” “I try to be.” Or I’ll have my OCA pass on me. I’m like, okay, you really want to make me pull this out and then have to act ignorant because your dumb ass doesn't think I'm an attorney, when you automatically assume that this white person sitting here is an attorney.
Defender I was in a courtroom one time watching a trial. I came from another courtroom, and I was watching. I was dressed, but maybe I loosened my tie or something. A clerk told me not to sit in the front row. She said, “Hey, can’t sit there. You gotta go sit in the back.” She then went back to doing what she was doing. She eventually realized I was a lawyer. She didn't apologize. She just said, "Oh, okay, you can sit there." That was the only time from a clerk.
I had a witness point me out as the person he was describing who broke into a house. [It was a felony trial that I was watching]. I was dressed in a full suit. The witness was telling a story about how people broke into the house and tied him up. The [prosecutor] asked, "Oh, do you see the person in the courtroom?” Instead of pointing at the accused, who was sitting next to his attorney, he pointed in the audience to the second row, right at me. I was like, What the hell?! And he's like, "Yes, he is right there." …. So then I left, and they ended up taking a great plea after that because of the mishap. (Author reacts)
Another Defender gives this answer:
I've been asked if I'm an attorney by court officers, but I never go to court without a suit; and that's intentional. When I first came to the Bronx, I wore a suit to the office, in the office, [and] out of the office, because I believed that there was going to be an extra layer of, who is this person? I wanted my persona, until everyone knew who I was, to be. I am a lawyer. I am Mr. [My Name]. So I've been asked to show my ID [in court]; the old sergeant who used to be in the [domestic violence court] part, asked me, “Are you an attorney?” [I’m like], “Yes.” “Can I see your ID?” But I don’t think I’ve been mistaken for a client.
A few Defenders also note being confused for other Black attorneys. One Defender states: “I've definitely been mistaken for other attorneys of color; I’ve had prosecutors, judges, and court officers calling me somebody else.”
How do court officers generally treat public defenders? How about clerks?
Defenders report that court officers’ treatment of public defenders varies. One Defender states: “I guess that varies. I really feel like it is based on the person. I've had good experiences with them. I have seen them be rude to some public defenders, but I feel like when they are rude or discourteous to them, I feel like it's because they think the public defenders are being rude to them and not respecting their position in the courtroom or whatever.” Another Defender states: “I think they treat them like they treat everybody else. I think if a court officer is discourteous or rude, that's how they are to everybody, even to private attorneys.” Another Defender answers as follows: “It really depends. Like you have your court officers who are just kindhearted, and they're just doing their jobs. They just view their job as, I'm just maintaining the court or whatever. But some court officers are just so rude; they kind of act like an extension of a police officer, the way they get agitated so quickly…. They get so heated over very basic things that it's a bit scary sometimes.”
Some Defenders note that court officers treat public defenders based on those public defenders’ reputation and behavior. One Defender states: “It really depends on the reputation of the lawyer. Among private attorneys, some private attorneys have good reputations, and some have bad reputations. Same is true for public defenders. So based on who you are, that is how you will be treated. There is this one public defender that everybody hates. So this public defender, they all treat her badly. There are a couple private attorneys that everybody hates, so they get treated badly too….” Another Defender concurs: “I mean, again, it's the kind of situation where if you are the public defender that's always argumentative and being a dick, then they're going to be a dick to you. I don't get that necessarily, but I've seen it happen where they're like, ‘Step out of the well! Step out!’ Like, no one's yelling and screaming at me because I don't think I give that vibe for anyone to do that to me in general and just in my life, let alone professionally. But I've seen court officers scream at defense attorneys and our public defenders; and I'm just like, damn, calm down.”
Some Defenders think that court officers generally treat public defenders negatively. One Defender notes: “Generally, pretty bad, because they don't like our clients. They don't like us because we're not private lawyers, so our time isn't valuable. We can sit in a courtroom all day and wait for a case to be called. You can have something you want to talk to your client [about], and they won't bring them up … for you to talk to them.” Another Defender agrees: “Very poorly. They don't call our cases. I don't think they think we're real lawyers. They call us ‘legal aid’ to our clients: ‘Do you have a lawyer or do you have a ‘legal aid’?’ (Author reacts) I mean, [they treat us] with very little respect.” One Defender also explains:
Court officers are not nice to public defenders. I've gotten into arguments with court officers, and I get into arguments with them all the time, especially the ones that have Napoleon syndrome, because they’re about five feet tall [and feel like] just because they have on a uniform that they can disrespect you. I'm not combative; but you're not going to yell at me. I'm not one of those people where you can yell at me or say anything to me, and I let it go. I've just never been that. And as you get more confident in doing this work, you realize you have to stand up for yourself because if you don't stand up for yourself, they're going to shit all over you.
So I've gotten into it with my share of court officers. Hell, one even hit me; and I cussed him out because I was like, “I don't know what the fuck you're doing.” (Author reacts) Yeah, he physically hit me. And I went into his supervisor and said, “Listen, your court officer put his hands on me, and that's unacceptable in any way, shape or form.” The superior asked, “Do you want me to get him to apologize?” I said, “I don't want ANYTHING from him. I want nothing from that man. Just have him stay away from me.”
Other Defenders note how court officers treat private attorneys better than public defenders. Says one Defender: “I mean, it depends, but everyone generally treats private counsel better. We know what it is. They treat private counsel better. They call their cases. They're more deferential….” Another Defender remarks: “We aren't treated as good as 18B and private attorneys. They skip us when it comes to calling the cases and everything. They just assume that we can sit there all day—this actually goes for the judges too—because we're public defenders. Our time is not valuable. We can sit in court all day, or we can simply give off our case and our client to another colleague. It’s like our clients are not important. It's not important for our clients who can't afford private attorneys, but have to have public defenders, to have the representation that they choose.” Adds another Defender: “A private lawyer will get their case called first. They have access to their clients in ways that we don't often have access to ours…. Somehow the idea that somebody's making ‘money’ gives them a status that we don't have. And usually, it’s white men that are the private lawyers, at least in my borough; it's not women. And even the women in private practice tend to sit longer than the white men.” Concurs another Defender:
A lot of them delay in calling public defenders’ cases; they put private cases before your case. Even if you get there early, even if you’re the first one to sign in, if a private attorney walks up, they're going to put his case or her case before yours. So you're just sitting there. I've had to correct it and place it on the record numerous times: “I was in this courtroom at 9:30. I signed in before everyone else had. However, my case was not called until two or three hours later.” So there's a lot of favoritism there, a lot of casual racism, a lot of microaggression. Like I said, the whole freaking system needs to be revamped.
Other Defender responses:
Defender For the most part, they treat us okay, because I guess they see us all the time. We are frequently in those court parts and whatnot, and they see us. As far as what I can see, my observation is they treat us with some sort of respect and they're nice to us. There are always a few rotten apples, a few that can be nasty or mean. I feel like even in the one [court] part where you can't really use your phone, the officers are not nasty [about it.] They'll just come and be like, “You can't use your phone.” They treat us with some sort of respect.
Defender I would say like second class citizens…. One of the things that happens is—and I saw this with my own two eyes, and I know it's illegal—[court officers receive gifts and money from private attorneys] at Christmas time. There are different things that the private bar does, liking giving gifts to court officers, that we don’t do. So that automatically creates preferential treatment….
Defender I would say in [my borough] generally, it's all right; but you can tell sometimes some of them, especially those who have let us know they are Trump supporters, MAGA folk, “blue lives matter” people, [have this attitude about us that’s like], (SIGH), here they go with their bullshit again, making arguments. Here they go holding up [stuff]…. In off-the-record interactions, they may be “fine,” but I'm giving that side-eye anyways. (Author laughs) If you’re hitting me with MAGA and Trump and blue-lives-matter, I’m giving the side-eye…. But whatever; we can get through the interaction without shit getting crazy.
So I would say they have less patience for us, which is hilarious because it's like, the fuck do you care? But yeah, I would say they have less patience; but overall I guess [they are] fine enough.
[With the clerks], I haven't really had or heard anything concerning clerks for the most part. My interactions with clerks have been [good]; if they can be helpful, especially if you interact with them respectfully, it's good money. They'll go out of their way to [be helpful]. I haven't really had any bad interactions with clerks.
Defender Court officers treat us like we’re replaceable, like anybody can do our job. They need a case called, they have a client who's acting up, they want you to just be whatever they want you to be to get it done. They don't treat us as individual people. They just kind of treat us like, whatever; you're gonna be here anyway. You're always here, so your time doesn't matter, your client will be fine if you have to wait….
I think clerks definitely treat [public defenders] differently, because they don't give us any priority. Private attorneys call in all the time and say, “Hey, I'm not gonna be able to make it. Can you just adjourn this case if my client is there? Blah, blah, nothing’s happening, I’m not ready for trial, I’m engaged somewhere else.” If you're a public defender and you try to do that, it’s a shit show. They'll be like, “I don't understand; why you can't come do it yourself? Why can’t one of your colleagues come do it?” There's a totally different level of respect for the work that we do and the time that we spend in the courthouse and the time that we have to dedicate to our clients.
Defender I think that a lot of court officers are considerate. See, the thing about public defenders is that we're always in these courtrooms, as opposed to a private attorney that pops in and pops out. So you have to build relationships with people. Part of being a public defender is relationship building, like on all aspects. You have to build a relationship with the court officers. You have to build a relationship with the clerks, with judges, with ADAs, with your colleagues. You have to build relationships because you live in this world [of criminal practice]. You spend all day, all afternoon in these [parts]. So, you do little favors for them. You ask little favors of them. You do these things so that you create these relationships.
I think that in the Bronx, there really is an ability to create relationships with the court officers and with a lot of the clerks. Now with that said, there are some courtrooms that are just notorious; there are some court officers, some crews and some clerks that are just notoriously difficult to deal with. You try to do a favor, and there's no reciprocity. They ask you to stand on a case and then you say, “Okay, so will you bump my case up?” And they say, “No, I can't do that.” I mean, I had a court officer say that. I'm like, “You just asked me to stand on a case, and I said, ‘Sure, no problem.’ I did you guys a favor.” “Well, I can’t bump you up with all these people sitting here.” So when that happens, it’s like, so you just took from me and you're giving me nothing back. It's difficult to build a relationship in that situation.
Are there any court officers or clerks who treat white public defenders differently from how they treat Black defenders, including you?
In the main, Defenders recognize a difference between how court officers and clerks treat Black public defenders versus white public defenders. One Defender notes: “[Most court officers and clerks] might also have a personal relationship with the white lawyer. They may be drinking buddies; they may date them; they may know their family. It's not always a great relationship; but in many cases, it is…. They also don't make assumptions about who you are and what you are because you are white. Their presumption about you as a white person is that you belong the first row.” Another Defender remarks: “It's like their license is more credible than my license, like we didn't all take the New York State bar exam. It’s like their time is more valuable. Court officers will speak to them with less hostility than they will speak to me.” One Defender offers this answer:
Particularly older white public defenders who've been around a long time, they get a little bit more deference. They get to come in to court dressed in tennis shoes and an outfit that is not really court attire; and it’s like, what? Because you’ve been around for 20, 30 years you get to look like a slob? And yet all the Court personnel, including judges, just treat them a little different. If I rolled up without proper court attire…. I’ve seen white older attorneys and even younger ones, with just a cardigan and pants or a skirt, and they do not get asked if they were clients. I’ve never seen white attorneys get asked if they were clients.
Some Defenders never personally experienced a difference in treatment, but they witness or hear about differential treatment. One Defender states: “I have heard some stories. I have heard that some of the court officers, especially in Criminal Court, are really, really, really disrespectful. I have not seen it, but I had heard of them pushing attorneys out of the way when they're trying to make arrests. I've definitely seen them be verbally aggressive, and I've definitely heard them be verbally aggressive….” Another Defender recalls: “No, I don't think I've had any personal experience with that. I do know that my Black male colleague was slammed up against the wall by a Black officer. I don’t think that officer would have done that to a white attorney, or a private attorney. (Author reacts) I don't think he had his ID that day. He said, ‘I’m just going right there to the security desk to handle a matter.’ He and the officer got into it; he said, ‘Man, you see me here every day!’ And he was about to keep walking, and the officer pushed him and slammed him up against the wall.”
Other Defender answers:
Defender I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are. I will just say in my experience that when I told this judge that he had treated me differently and that it was bad for my client because I was the only person of color, all of the court officers, even some of the ones who were super friendly to me, all start talking negatively about me. They were all talking about me to my white officemate—they didn't know she was my officemate—saying, “Oh did you hear what [My Name] did? She accused the judge of being a racist! This judge is so nice!” And blah blah blah blah blah. Like, everybody was just talking about me, and it showed that they feel like they can talk a certain way around white people just because they are white.
And so it was so strange around this time, when it came to race and white people and the alliances they made; and they were drawing the lines really quickly. I had Black law clerks call me and say, “Oh yeah, I know about this judge. Congratulations for standing up to him.” Then I had white law clerks trying to distance themselves and then being the ones to go out and start the rumor that I had called the judge racist.
Defender [Some of these court officers can be racist. One time] I had been called over to court, because there was a client of mine who was returning on a warrant in [a particular courtroom]. The client returned in the afternoon, and they called. It was like 4:30 p.m., and the supervisor called me and said, “Your client is in [the courtroom]; you need to go over to the courthouse.”
I raced over to the courthouse. All I had was the file, and I forgot to bring my secure pass. So I walked in, thinking to myself, I'm there every day. These officers know me. I walked in and I went through the metal detector. Now usually what happens is that you have to go through the metal detectors if you don't have your secure pass. If the metal detector goes off, then they have to “wand” you, [or take their handheld metal detector and do a body sweep]; but what happens in practice oftentimes—and this has happened to me before—depending on the officer who's there, you walk through and they're like, “Oh, you have your court file. That's the secret pass, so go ahead.” Sometimes I don't even have to go through the metal detector.
On this particular day, I went through the metal detector and my jacket [causes the metal detector to sound]. The officer who was there was this little white woman. She's not a nice woman, even if you try to be nice. She'll answer your questions, but she's just not nice. So I walk through, then I grabbed my file. She's like, “Wait! I have to wand you!” I was like, “Do you really?” She's like, “Yes!” So I stand there, and she's like, “Put your arms out!” I extend my arms out, and she's wanding me [intently]. It was just unnecessary; even if they do have to wand you, they just do it [lightly] and say, “Go on.” They know that you don't have anything, but she was really giving me the wand. It was degrading. [It’s like having] a bad experience with police officers [or airport security], when they are doing stuff with your hair and just grabbing on you and things like that. It was violating, and it's doubly violating because she knew who I was. I'm a lawyer; I'm going to a courtroom.
So she's wanding me, and I'm just looking at her in her eyes. She won't look at me. Then she's like, “Turn around!” So then I turn around and she wands me from behind. As I was turning around, I was maintaining eye contact with her for as long as I could, because I wanted her to look at me. She wouldn't, [but] there was another officer who was standing next to her. He was a man. I could tell he was watching me; and as I was turning around, he starts chiming in and says, “You're not special.” I just said, “Sir, I am not talking to you.” Then she starts talking about doing her job, and he is saying some other stuff, and I was saying things back to them. I don't recall what exactly I said to them, but it was along the lines of, “Whatever you're doing is unnecessary.” I wanted to say some cuss words and things like that, but [I refrained myself]. So we just went back and forth….
Oh, that was another thing: she goes, “What's in your pocket?” That's what really got me. She wands me and my pocket [caused the wand to go off,] and she's like, “What's in your pocket?” I said, “Some coins and some gum.” She didn't make me take it out of my pocket, so she was just doing this to humiliate me and to exercise some kind of control and authority over me, because if she was actually concerned about me bringing something in, then she would've told me to take whatever I had in my pocket out so she could see it. But she didn't. That really set me off. So we went back and forth on that.
Finally, I went up to my courtroom and handled my business and came out. I still don't talk to her, but the guy [tries to say hello] …. These court officers can be racist. That court officer was racist.
Defender I specifically remember one clerk who would always give me a hard time. They were pleasant, but they would nitpick at my requests and my forms. They put form over substance and make little comments. “Oh, I don't think the judge is gonna sign this.” And then the judge signs it; it's just a problem in their mind. It almost as if you get the sense that they are somehow offended because you're Black and you're a lawyer and they're white and they're a clerk, and they feel some kind of way that they need to show you [that they’re better than you.] I can't imagine that they would treat someone who was white that way….
With the court officers: when it comes to white lawyers or public defenders, totally. I mean, you see it. First of all, there's an across-the-board public defender tax: they will call private attorneys' cases first over yours, even though you've signed up before they have and you have been waiting. I think all of us public defenders, regardless of our skin color, receive that sort of treatment. But then there are court officers where you can see the way that they treat white public defenders and white lawyers. It’s just markedly different than the way they treat Black attorneys and Black public defenders.
Defender I think the answer is obviously yes, to an extent; but I also don't know sometimes if it's a race thing or if it's just a how-long-I've-known-you kind of thing. Because I've been there where I'm not on this [court officer]'s good side; but after a while I know them, they know me well, and then they're nicer to me. I've had that happen as well. So I think sometimes it is just based on how long you've known them; but there's always that undertone of, like, yeah, they're going to gravitate and be nicer to a white person than to me. So I have to sometimes be a bit extra nice if I really want something for them, because I'm just a walking threat. (Laughter) That's who I am.
Defender It depends on the court officers. The white ones, yes. The Black ones, no, because the Black ones are just like, you're not getting any special treatment. So back up, sit down. But the white ones? Yeah. If a judge says jump, they say, “How high?” If a judge says, “Call that person's cases,” the white ones will do it. But the Black ones will be like, I'm calling in the order that people signed in.
Do court officers or clerks treat prosecutors and defense attorneys the same?
Generally, Defenders perceive a difference in how court officers and clerks treat public defenders versus how they treated prosecutors. One Defender explains: “Prosecutors are definitely given more respect than defense attorneys. It almost feels like the court officers think they're there to protect the assistant district attorneys. They'll hold open doors for them…. They seem to take extra care and precaution to make sure that the ADAs are safe [and] feel safe.” Another Defender adds: “I will say that prosecutors get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to everything…. I just find that there’s a lot of push-back when a defense attorney makes a request for something. There’ve even been situations where me and the ADA are in agreeance about wanting something to happen on the case, and I’m like, ‘Why don’t you bring it up?’ because it will facilitate the whole process easier in terms of dealing with the clerks and getting things done. The clerks tend to defer to them: ‘OK, the prosecution wants this case advanced’ or ‘The prosecution wants X, Y, Z to happen.’ [If] the prosecution wants [them] to go retrieve some old file, [they would] do it less begrudgingly than they would if the defense attorney asked them. So yeah, I would say there are differences.” One Defender offers this answer:
Prosecutors are seen as a member of the family, so they get more respect. I've had it where I've signed up a case, but before they call it, they actually ask the prosecutor if it's okay to call this case. So I wound up signing a case in at 9:30 in the morning and that case doesn't get called until 12 p.m. because the prosecutor wanted to see if their complaining witness was actually available. It seemed like standard practice.
So yeah, they treat us differently because the DA's office is part of the government. There's like some government comradery there…. [As a symbolic example of that government comradery]: in [this particular office], the prosecutor’s office had a softball team, and on the back of their softball jerseys read, “The Real Public Defenders.” (Author reacts) So there's this idea that they represent the victims and they're helping to keep the streets clean…. Hopefully they changed it, but I remembered that was the talk around the office, that their jerseys said, “The Real Public Defenders.”
Some Defenders compare how court officers treat prosecutors to how they treat private attorneys. One Defender notes: “It's like how they treat private attorneys: prosecutors come in, they ask for what they want, they do whatever they want to do.” Another Defender provides this response: “I think the prosecutors are treated a lot better than we are. For one, most regular prosecutors aren't in court all that often, except for trial cases or when the case gets advanced. So they don't really have to deal with the upfront parts, which is where all the shit happens. And when they do come to the upfront part, I think the court officers are like, wait a second. The actual prosecutor on the case is here. We gotta call their case right away. The perception that their time is important because they're coming in here, whereas ours is completely irrelevant.”
One reason Defenders give for the preferential treatment is because of how much time prosecutors spend with court officers and clerks. One Defender elaborates: “They're right there in front of the judge. They deal with them every day; most of the prosecutors that staff the upfront parts are there all day.4 Those prosecutors are assigned to a courtroom, so they get to know the staff, they get to know the judge, they get to know the court officers, etc. So if there's an argument or something, they're more apt to turn to the defense and say, ‘Okay, calm down.’ [Their reactions are] based on the relationship that they've established because they're there all day together.” Another Defender agrees, noting that “the prosecutors are in the courtroom with the clerks and court officers all day. I don't know the court officers’ names, but I'm sure the ADAs know their names.” Adds another Defender: “The prosecutors are their friends. They call them by their first names. They know them. They have that same cozy relationship that the judges do with the prosecutors, at least on Staten Island.” States another Defender: “Prosecutors do have the benefit of going to a court part every single day for a week at a time, building relationships with court officers; and court officers have the discretion, and they use it to decide what they want to do. Like, I can’t drink my water bottle in the front row, but other people can drink their water bottle while sitting at the DA’s table. And my client can’t drink any water because who needs water, right? We’re not living beings.”
Not all Defenders perceive a difference in court officer treatment of public defenders and prosecutors. One Defender opines: “If you’re friendly, they’ll chit chat with you. If you’re an idiot, then they’ll be obnoxious to you. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a prosecutor or a defense attorney.” Another Defender states: “I think clerks could be as annoyed with a prosecutor as with a defense attorney [for] asking questions or asking for documentation or making them do work. They don't like anyone that's making them do work. I mean, I feel bad saying that because there are hardworking people out there; but I feel like there's an overwhelming feeling of, like, this clerk is good, and then these motherfuckers are lazy. (Author laughs) Like, we know who does work and who wants to work and who works hard and who doesn't. It's apparent.” Adds another Defender: “I would say yes overall, because a lot of times court officers just want to get the calendar done and get out; so if they feel like the defense attorney or prosecutor is holding things up, then they’re like, oh my God for everybody, I would say. In personal or political situations, of course they side more so with prosecutors, a lot of the court officers. But I would say yes overall, [they treat both the same].” Another Defender notes: “I think the best court officers actually do treat everybody the same—and by best, I mean the worst (author laughs)—they’re just nasty to everybody. They don't give a fuck, you know? Those are the people that, even though it's trash, you kind of respect that.”
In some places, court staff are actually on better terms with defense attorneys than with prosecutors. Explains one Defender about Manhattan:
The prosecutors in Manhattan are standoffish; they really consider themselves something different. The court officers don't really buddy up to them. I don't really ever see court officers and prosecutors [being] cool with each other, whereas I see court officers and defense attorneys, especially public defenders, [being] real cool with each other, for the most part. Except for those defense attorneys that take that hardline stand [with court officers], like, you're part of the problem. You're part of the system. I don't like you, and I'm going to give you as much trouble as I can. There are plenty of defense attorneys who have that attitude; and if they do, then they don't get along with the court officers. It's not smart; it's just not smart at all. Really, it just hurts their clients. But whatever.
A few more responses:
Defender I don't think so…. I think in some ways they view the prosecutors as having more power. If I were to guess, they're probably in agreement with the positions that prosecutors are taking and the work that they're doing, the actual work of trying to give people records and put them in jail. My read of court staff is that many of them are aligned with that, so I think therefore they treat them with more respect.
Defender I mean, for the most part [they treat both the same]. For the calendar calls, yes. In terms of personal interactions, obviously the prosecutor who happens to be in the part all day is going to have a better relationship with the court officers or a clerk than if you happen to be in multiple parts, like we have to do [as public defenders]. I think there's a certain nobleness that court officers and clerks endear to prosecutors, because they're all law enforcement. They’re endeared to prosecutors, because they feel like they're doing God's work. But I don't really give a shit about that, because we're not friends. So, that's fine. I'm not there to be your family. We get along fine. If I were to develop relationships or friendships with them, fine; but I'm not there for that. I'm there for my clients. So if you want to think that the prosecutor's doing God's work, you'll think that until one of your buddies gets arrested; and then you want me to stand up on the case or do them a favor.
Defender I think the court officers treat the prosecutors and defense attorneys the same pretty much. I think clerks treat the ADAs better than they treat the defense attorneys. But I think that again, in those scenarios where you've built a relationship, then I think you're treated just as well. [I know this particular clerk in this particular court part who] is one of the most pleasant people in the world. She is very kind to defense attorneys and kind to the ADAs. She will call out the ADAs if they’re doing something wrong or if they’re taking too long on something. So I think she’s an example of a great clerk. But the ones that don’t love you or your clients that much definitely treat the ADAs better.
FN 4: Every All Purpose (AP) part has at least one prosecutor staffing it, and usually it is more than one. On any given court date, those prosecutors get the files for all of the cases scheduled for that date in that part. Those prosecutors then stand on the record (one at a time), representing the prosecutor’s office in the calendar call for each case. The cases called are assigned to individual prosecutors, most of whom are not in court; the prosecutors in the AP parts stand on every case. Only if the case is sent out for trial, or if the judge requests/demands the prosecutor’s presence, or in some other rare occasion, will the assigned prosecutor come to the courtroom and stand on his or her own case.
How powerful are court officers and clerks?
Defenders consider court officers and clerks to be either very powerful or marginally powerful. One Defender replies: “Very powerful. Court officers control the courtroom. They control when your case is going to be heard…. They control if and when [clients are] going to be produced.5 They control the behavior of the people in the courtroom. They can escalate or deescalate situations and cause clients to be arrested or otherwise handled in some kind of way. I would say they're incredibly powerful….” Concurs another Defender: “They're in control of the courtroom. [They decide] if your client can stay, or if your client can go…. Not only do they have control of your clients, but to a large extent the judges are dependent upon them. So the judges are extremely deferential to them. The judge theoretically has the most power in the courtroom; but as a practical matter, the court officers yield a great amount of power just by their ability to kind of do nothing if they feel like it, or to go slow, or to kind of obstruct court proceedings, passively or not. You have to go through the court officers to get to the judge, to get to your clients, or whatever. That's a pretty powerful position to be in.” One Defender answers this way:
When it comes to your time, they are very powerful. They literally control your time. That can be really [good or really bad, depending on how bright the officer is].
Say you have a client who is acting up a little bit, [because] they're tired of being there. They're going up [to the rail] and are like, “What's going on?” and are carrying on…. If a court officer is smart, they will just call their case and get them out of court, so the client is no longer causing a problem. But if a court officer is an asshole, they write, “DFL” on the file. I’ve literally seen that written on the file before. It means, “Dead Fucking Last.” It’s a notation to call that particular client’s case last. When I see that [written on the file of a client of mine,] I leave and go to another courtroom, because I know they're never calling that case until the very end of the day. They can do that.
The officers I think are cooler than the sergeants. There are some really shitty sergeants. There's this one Latina woman who’s a sergeant, and she’s like the worst. When you go into the courtroom [she’s in], you're like, this is going to be a shitty day. She's just cruel to everybody. And then there are some stupid ones who are just slow and dumb; and you're like, this is going to [take] forever, because you're dumb. Then there are really pleasant, nice, wonderful ones who are kind and give you mints. There is wide variety.
Some Defenders specifically speak on the power of court officers over clients. One Defender captures this sentiment:
Well, the court officers can arrest our clients, and they do, for stupid shit. We see it all the time. [Courtroom rules are stringent]: No talking, no cell phones, no hats. They can’t read, they can’t [do anything except] sit there in silence and look forward. It’s insane. Someone doesn’t want to remove a hat or hesitates in removing a hat or putting away a cell phone or backtalks or whatever, and all of a sudden you see a court officer diving on top of someone; [and] there’s a brawl that was created for no reason, or someone’s getting arrested for something stupid. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen court officers escalate situations with defendants that in no way shape or form needed to be escalated.
So yeah, they have the power to arrest them and to [inconvenience them]. I’ve seen court officers not bring what they deem to be “difficult defendants” up [from the holding cells] for their court appearances. Whether that person was being difficult or not, sometimes I think they aren’t being that difficult enough to warrant not bringing them up for their court appearance. Just things like that; [These are the] ways that they fuck with the clients….
Some Defenders see court officers differently. One Defender states: “In relation to everybody else you asked about, I would say they're lower on the totem pole. I mean, a court officer could cause your case to be skipped and you’d have to wait longer, because [the officer is] on some power trip or whatever, and that's the way they're going to abuse you. That's because that's the only amount of power they have. Other than that, what can they do to me? Make me come back or something?” Another Defender answers this way: “I wouldn’t say they’re that powerful, but they have the power to ruin your day. I don’t know that their power extends much farther beyond that, but when it comes to attorneys, they have the power to ruin your day. They have the power to not call your case, to make you come back at 4 o’clock, to make you sit there all day, and to give you a hard time when it comes to advancing things [and] putting things on the calendar.”
Defenders have mixed feelings about the power of court clerks. One Defender states: “I can't really speak to how powerful the clerks are. I mean, they control paperwork. They can also determine if your case gets called, [as well as] what goes in the file and what doesn't. If they want to do some harm, they certainly can, both court officers and court clerks. I don't know to what extent they actually utilize that and hold things up or harm our clients.” Adds another Defender: “With clerks, I don’t think that the clerk has too much power over defendants. All they can really do is just make us all miserable, [make us] sit there all day, all those sorts of things.” On the other hand, one Defender perceives court clerks to be quite powerful:
[The clerks also] have a lot of power. I feel like a lot of judges ask them questions. They have the judge's ear. They're sitting close to the [judges]. [It makes a difference whether] they feel like doing something or they don't feel like doing something. It's up to them to decide whether they're going to call a bench warrant.
Are they going to add something to the calendar [for an attorney]? Are they not going to add something to the calendar? Are they going to do the paperwork [and] send it over to the jail to get your client? If they do, it gets done. If they don’t, it doesn't get done. So that's a very powerful position too. How each clerk executes their duties varies widely.
I've been around long enough to know that there are some excellent clerks who are on top of their job and have really gone above and beyond [to help]. And then there are some who don't want to be approached. They don't want to do anything more than the minimum. There's one particular clerk that stands out in my mind as being affirmatively and vocally obstructionist. She would comment on clients, on what they did, and would just yell at them from her desk. It was really bizarre. I complained about her, and I'm pretty sure she found out I'm the one who complained about her because she then stopped speaking to me…. I don't know who told her that I complained, but someone definitely told her it was me that complained about her. I mean, I said something in the courtroom at some point when she was just being completely inappropriate.
Yet, no one said anything to her. The judge was there, the court [officers were there]. They were just letting her comment and do whatever [she wanted], presumably because they're dependent on her. So she has a lot of power. No one wants to piss her off because then work doesn't get done and they're there later. All the things that kind of go along with running the courtroom get stalled because she’s uncooperative.
Additional responses:
Defender One thing I learned in general is to try to build decent relationships with most of those players because they can make or break your day, and they can make your experience working in the courtroom a living hell. So very early on in my legal career, I learned to try to have some level of amicable relationship with the clerks and the court officers and the parts that I frequent…. A lot of them became friendly with me. I think it annoyed some of the other court officers and clerks [who did not like me], especially if I build a strong relationship with someone who could get things moving for me. So I might have a court officer trying to bury my notice of appearance; and the one I’m cool with, or the one I have decent relationship with, will go and pull [my] stuff out….
Defender In that little fiefdom of the courtroom, they're pretty powerful. They dictate when the case gets called. They do favors for people. You have to treat them a certain way for them to call your case. They dictate how long your clients wait, they dictate whether or not your clients have to come back after lunch. They dictate whether or not [bench] warrants are issued. If somebody's not there, are they calling the case first thing at 9:30? Or are they giving the person the benefit of the doubt and time to show up? So they have a lot of power.
Defender People think of court officers as people who don't have power; but they definitely have a lot of power to make sure that things go the way that you need them to go….
In the felony court parts in Supreme Court, clerks are the ones making sure that your case is getting called. It's not like a bridge officer doing it [the way it’s done in Criminal Court]. So, if they don't want to call your case anytime soon, or if they're like, “Oh, I don't feel like doing this right now; it's a jail case; it's 30 minutes until lunch…,” they could make your life a living hell and call your case late.
Court officers set the tone. Judges are the ones who are supposed to correct them, but they won't do it; and most of the court officers aren't responsive to any correction from the judiciary, because they don't work for them really.
Defender I think [court officers] are very powerful, because it's all good until it's not. Then they can kick you out the courthouse, right? They can kick you out of a courtroom. One hot head on a crew can just change the environment of the courtroom. You can go from a relaxed environment where everybody's doing their job to a very tense environment where you're walking on eggshells, where they're yelling at you, where they're yelling at clients and causing anger to both defense attorneys and clients, right? I'm a grown man; don't yell at me.
So I think that they have a lot of power.
FN 5: “Client production” refers to clients who are in jail either on bail or on remand being brought to court on their scheduled court date by the Department of Corrections. Once at the courthouse, court officers in the given court part where the client’s case is scheduled produce the client, i.e., they bring the client up to the courtroom, so the client is present for his or her appearance.
How do court officers and/or clerks your clients? Do they presume clients to be guilty?
Defenders have varied views on how court officers and clerks treat their clients, although overall the answers skewed towards clients being negatively treated. Some of the more balanced takes are: “Some of the court officers are great, amazing. Some of them are definitely stirring the pot up rather than trying to diffuse the situation. Sometimes, it's just being more cognizant that people in handcuffs are not comfortable; they’re under a lot of stress. They need to understand that they’re dealing with persons that are very vulnerable, emotionally and physically.” “It depends, it's a mixed bag. Some of them are okay with the clients. A lot of them are really nasty and will yell at clients, and they will be dismissive of anything they have to say.” “The court officers are sometimes hit or miss in terms of the way they [treat our clients].” “That depends. I have had some court officers really go out of their way to help me explain something to a client.” “Some can be very helpful and kind, and some are nasty. I mean, it's personalities. Again, it just depends.” One Defender offers an anecdote of a court officer looking out for a client:
I remember one arraignment where a client of mine received an order of protection, and this court officer saw me explain to the client the order of protection. There was something in my client's eyes that I didn't catch that the court officer did. So as we're leaving, the court officer approaches and says, “Mr. [My Name], can I just say something to your client?” and I said, “Sure.” And he goes, “The order of protection also means you can't reach out to her over Instagram.” And the client's eyes kind of lit up and he said, “Instagram?! That's not really calling her. That's just commenting on a picture.” And the court officer says, “Yeah, that counts though.” And that I think stopped my client from violating that order of protection. So every once in a while you'll get a court officer that's just really in tune with what's going on and treats those clients with respect.
Other Defenders recall court officers and clerks being helpful as well. One Defender reports: “I've had court attorneys or court officers who will call me or text me on my phone and say, ‘Yo, your client's here having a meltdown. Please come now, because you know these other officers are gonna wanna arrest him and beat him up.’ And I’ll run over to try to save my client from that fate. Or if I have clients who are having whatever personal issues—they have to go to work, they have to go pick their kids up, they've gotta do whatever they gotta do—there are officers who take those things into consideration and try to help.” Another Defender notes: “I've seen instances where clerks have been nasty to our clients, but I’ve also seen instances where some have been very understanding. For example, if there may be a language barrier, they will make sure that they call the interpreter, or they will help translate so that the client understands [whatever it is that’s relevant, such as] the payment of fines, or the completion of a particular program, or the order of protection, or something that they're signing.”
More often than not, however, Defenders note how disrespectful court officers are to clients. One Defender states: “The vast majority act as if they’re dealing with feral animals.” Another Defender notes: “A lot of the court officers can just be mean: ‘Sit down! Shut up! Go outside!’ They can be really harsh with people and can be very difficult with them, unnecessarily so. They can be very confrontational in situations where they don't have to be. And I’ve seen it probably thousands of times before.” Another Defender adds: “Court officers are too busy yelling at our clients to sit down and don't talk and take [their] headphones off their heads. I think court officers are always yelling at our clients.” Answers another Defender: “They're just disrespectful to our clients. If our clients sneeze the wrong way, [that could be a problem]. They're always looking for a reason to exert their power, especially if the client is young and Black…. They’re just an extension of the police; it’s profiling.” One Defender offers this answer about how Staten Island court officers treat clients:
The court officers did not treat our clients well. The worst of it was that there were a number of incidents where there was physical violence inflicted on our clients; and then court officers would become “victims” in these cases brought by the prosecutor's office. There are a bunch of [second-degree assault] cases where it was court officers who were punching our clients and then their pinkies got hurt or whatever.
So that's sort of like one end of it. But then there was just the more mundane, everyday violence of just the constant yelling: “Take your hat off! “Put the newspaper down!” “Do this!” “Be quiet!” “Sit here!” Just the constant dehumanizing.
Defenders are particularly bothered by court officers that show them respect but then disrespect their clients. One Defender explains: “It's so wild to me how, when I'm interacting with a court officer who knows I'm an attorney, I am a human being. They make eye contact with me. They're in a casual stance, with their hands just swinging and everything like that. They are just having a normal human interaction, whether we're talking about sports, or they’re just asking me how my day was, and what's going on. But then when they speak to a client, it’s like they are in police mode. They switch it on and off so quick…. It’s very intimidating. Their body language itself gives off the vibe of like, you better listen to what I'm saying. You know I run this here. You're just in here for now.” Another Defender concurs: “The court officers are sometimes hit or miss in terms of the way they [treat our clients]. Sometimes there are court officers who give me that deference as an attorney and treat me with respect, but then when it comes to interacting with my client and engaging with my client, they display this lack of acknowledgement of my client's humanity.”
Sometimes, court officers refer to clients using problematic language. One Defender explains how court officers will “call them ‘bodies.’ It's not just the corrections officers that do it; the court officers call them ‘bodies.’ They call the area that they keep our clients in the ‘pens.’ That has a psychological effect on anybody to refer to a human being as a ‘body.’ It’s like they need to remove the soul from the clients, so that they are no longer human. I even slipped up once and used that term; that's how often it is heard and used.” Concurs another Defender: “The way they refer to [detained] clients as ‘bodies’ is dehumanizing. It’s like they’re not even people.” One Defender recalls hearing an even worse term, answering that court officers treat clients “like they are pieces of shit. When I was [in public defense], they just used to call clients ‘skels,’ short for skeletons. (Author reacts) Yeah, exactly. When I first heard that, I was like, oh fuck….”
With regards to clerks, there is more variation in Defender perceptions. On one hand, one Defender notes: “I think the court officers are a lot worse than the clerks. Most of the clerks [perform ministerial functions] and are generally not completely horrible with them; and there are some clerks that are actually OK and really try to explain things.” Adds another Defender: “I feel like when the clerks have to interact with our clients to give them their paperwork—when the clients have to do community service or whatever—the clerks have always been polite. I've been shocked by how polite they are to our clients.” Another Defender states: “With clerks, the only time you really have an interaction with clerks and clients is when [clerks are] giving [clients] orders of protection and things like that. Sometimes you see them get nasty; but most of the time it's pretty cordial.”
On the other hand, a Defender describes witnessing clerks “be dismissive and say, ‘I can't help you; go to the information booth’ when it's something as simple as checking a court calendar to see if the client’s case is on today. There's no reason for them to have to go all the way down to the information booth when you could’ve easily answered their question. Instead, you were difficult for no reason, and I’m walking in and out of [the courtroom] 10 times calling their name, but they're waiting on the information line.” Another Defender notes how clerks sometimes are as abusive as court officers: “Sometimes they do partake in the yelling. ‘Sit down! Stop talking! Blah, blah, blah!’” Adds another Defender: “I think there is a difference in how they will engage with us versus how they engage with the clients. I'll go in, and maybe I have to ask a clerk about advancing case or talk to them [about something,] and they'll ask how [I’m] doing. And then that clerk may then have to give instructions [to clients,] or have the clients come and sign orders of protection or whatever; and they may not be as nice to the client. They may have a bit of an attitude.”
Defenders note that court officers and clerks tend to assume the guilt of clients, although to a lesser extent than judges and prosecutors. One Defender states: “Yes, they presume clients to be guilty. The first question they ask about our clients is, what did he do? Not, what is he accused of? But what did he do? And they wonder how the defense attorney's going to squirm their way out of this one.” Another Defender agrees: “Yes, [they presume the client to be guilty] …. If you have a client who's been waiting all day long, they want to get the fuck out of court because their time is valuable. Their time fucking means something. And a lot of times, court officers will sort of make remarks along the lines of, ‘Well, this is what happens when you get yourself arrested,’ or ‘This is what happens when you do X, Y, Z.’ So I do think there's this presumption of guilt. They will basically say, ‘I don't feel bad about treating you like shit, because you did X, Y, Z, and put yourself in this position.’” Another Defender gripes about how court officers “get so involved in the case: ‘Oh, your client is guilty.’ How the fuck do you know?” One Defender offers this response:
There have been many a times where they've made comments [suggesting their belief in the client’s guilt]. You're waiting for a jury, and they’ll say something like, “Well, hopefully they do the right thing, because [this client’s] a mess,” or like, “He should not be out on the streets.” Or afterwards, I've heard about them being upset when I’ve won. In one case I had, I was told by jurors that a court officer came back and told the jurors that my client was wanted on a federal case. It wasn’t even that serious of a case, but the fact that they were poisoning the jury pool like that was unbelievably wrong….
One Defender, however, offers this take:
I mean, I don't know if they care if my clients were guilty. I think they just presume that our clients should be under control and surveillance. So, maybe they presume them to be guilty? But I mean, I always felt like the whole system was designed to teach our client how to be good defendants and how to submit to police authority…. There was this constant reaffirming to our clients of how they needed to behave in court as though they might need to be tackled to the ground at any moment. Clients couldn’t talk in the courtroom, read in the courtroom, or do anything else; they were expected to sit there and stare at the judge for hours on end. And that is happily enforced by the court officers.
A few more responses:
Defender I must say—I have to put this out there—like the woman who did the Obama noose picture on Facebook and stuff like that,6 she has always been very pleasant to me, very pleasant to my children. When they come to court, she gives them snacks and candy. I have not seen her be mean [to us] or mean to clients or anything like that. So it's very shocking for me that she promotes racist stereotypes and publishes them in her personal networks that are being seen by Black people who she works with, and seen by the public. But being in court with her several times, I didn't get that from her. So it's shocking; but I guess it's never surprising….
I must say I've met many court officers who are white men that grew up poor in Brooklyn; and they have said to me in court, “I know I could have been that kid standing with you, Ms. [My Name], but for the fact that I'm white.” And that's happened more than once. So those guys acknowledge that they fucked up, they did bad things, they were in trouble as youth; but now they're standing as officers in this courtroom because of the color of their skin. And that's very powerful, and I appreciate that honesty. Those are the guys that are very caring and understanding and helpful to the clients; and [they] don't want to bust heads and things like that in the courtroom, even if somebody does get agitated or something like that.
So I think guilt or innocence is not the thing; it's like, should they be given another chance? And these guys see; they were given chance after chance after chance because of the color of their skin. So why shouldn't this kid get another chance? Fine, you did something; but does that mean your life should be affected negatively? [Should you be punished] for the rest of your life? No.
Defender Court officers and clerks spend a lot of time hearing the case. They hear a lot more of it than anyone else. So I think that they, either unbeknownst to themselves or on purpose, make a decision about the case; and I think that once they make a decision about the case, that's how they treat our clients. So I've had a court officer and a clerk step outside in the hallway and talk to my client and say, “Hey, listen: A, B, C and D. You gotta do A, B, C and D. I know that this is frustrating, and I know that this is unfair. But, I've been in here for a long time. I know this judge. I know how this judge behaves, reacts, and rules. So this is what needs to happen.” And then I've seen court officers do it, or clerks do it, for the other side.
I think that they treat our clients based on how they surmise the case is going, and then they use their power to mete out some form of justice based on that belief. This is where it gets dicey, because we're humans. They’re sitting in here, they’re listening to the whole thing. They can form an opinion; but then to now utilize that bit of information as something that now they can use to make things worse or better for my client is unfair and, frankly, criminal.
Defender Overall, they treat them shitty. They're not nice to them. I think some of the court clerks are nice; but overall, if I had to say [what the] general consensus was, most of them treat our clients like their time doesn’t matter. They treat them like they're supposed to understand the court system and proceedings, like they've been to court 2000 times and [know how things go]. Like [a client will] come into the courtroom and see attorneys standing in the corner waiting to talk to a clerk, or a client will go over there because everybody else is walking in and doing that; and then [court staff will] yell at the client: “Sit down! You’re not supposed to be there. Get out of here!” And the client is like, how am I supposed to know if I've never walked into this room and met any of you people and don't know what to do? All I know is I'm supposed to be in this room and I'd like to gather information about what's happening to me or where I should be and make sure I'm in the right place.
[Court officers and clerks] act like people are just trying to disrupt or be crazy…. They don't see their job as being a service job. They don't [think], hey, these are, for all intent and purposes, kind of like customers. People who are in the courthouse are like customers, and I’m supposed to serve and help them and help things go smoothly….
There are clients who come in there with these urgent situations: “Hi, can you please help me? I need to find my attorney.” And the [officers or clerks are] just like, “Sit down! You have to wait. Your attorney will be here.” And they don't do anything to help facilitate. They don't care. The person will be sitting there all day till 3:00 PM, and the [officer or clerk] could have easily reached out and called someone or let them know what was happening, and they'll refuse to do that; or they’ll treat them badly because of how insistent they are on trying to get out of court quickly without recognizing that this person has a human need and seems to be distraught about their circumstances at this time….
Defender Oh, they're nasty…. Black court officers can understand when a defendant comes in there agitated, or when a client comes in there agitated. They’ll be like, “Yo, my man, just calm down.” They could talk to them in a certain [way, whereas] white court officers just want to fight. Like I had a client who was arguing with a white court officer. I was standing outside talking to another attorney. [The nature of the argument was] nothing to get worked up about. The client said, “Suck my dick.” Do you know this white man punched him in the face? (Author reacts) If that was a court officer of color, a Black court officer or a Hispanic court officer, [the situation would’ve been handled differently] …. But this [white court officer’s] first instinct was to punch this man in his face.
FN 6: See Ida Siegal, Brooklyn Court Officer Suspended After Posting Racist Photo of Obama, NBC New York (Jun. 9, 2020, 6:56 AM), https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/brooklyn-court-officer-suspended-after-posting-racist-photo-of-obama-being-lynched/2452817/.
Do court officers and clerks treat clients differently based on their race, gender, or appearance/dress?
Race Most Defenders notice a difference between how white clients and nonwhite clients are treated. One Defender states: “There’s a big difference in terms of the way they speak to them. It’s not with this nasty tone, ‘Sit down!’ [and things like that.] The assumption is if you're white, then perhaps you're not even a client. So that initial interaction is like, is this somebody's father who's here? Who is this? Is this another worker? It's a totally different vibe, I think, based on race.” One Defender recalls an incident that exemplifies the “if you’re white, you’re not even a client” sentiment very well:
[One time] they let a white man walk out when I was practicing in Manhattan. A white defendant who was incarcerated wore a suit to court, and at some point he walked out of the courtroom; and they let him walk out because they thought he was a lawyer. There's that space where they bring your client and put him in a little room between where you go in[to the holding cells and the courtroom]. They keep sometimes two or three people there [right before their cases are called], and then they have a court officer guarding them. The [white defendant] just walked out of there and just kept on going. I think that kind of embodies it all. This was in Manhattan Supreme Court. It made the papers.7 You can probably Google it.
Defenders note how court officers and clerks generally treat white clients like they are human beings in need of compassion. One Defender remarks: “I really think that being white makes a difference. I think with being white, like white mothers sitting in the courtroom, they're not going to ask you to waive your white client because his mother is in the courtroom.8 They're going to talk to the father or family member in a respectful way: ‘Well, he hasn't been seen yet. Just have a seat. I'll let the lawyer know you're here.’ Do they do that for the Black family? Sometimes; some do, some don't. Your mother will be sitting in the courtroom and they don't want to bring you up. Are they going to do that to a white person? No….” Another Defender states: “My white clients are going to get treated like human beings for the most part. Obviously, there are no absolutes; but for the most part, 90-plus percent of the time, my white clients are going to be treated by everybody in the system as if they're human beings that may have made a mistake once. It does not matter what their rap sheet looks like.”
A few more answers:
Defender Possibly? I will say I have seen some young white kids get treated harshly, and maybe it's like, what are you doing here? You should be better than this kind of situation. I don't know. But it depends on if the court officer or the clerk is a biased person, right? I don't know if they hold biases towards any particular person.
Defender I have to say that there's a bit of colorism when it comes to [some clients and race], because when we're talking about “Hispanic” and “Latino,” that can mean a lot of things. You can be Hispanic and Latino and mahogany; or you can be Hispanic and Latino and be butter pecan. So when it comes to Hispanic and Latino and Black clients—and I'm going to put it in one category—then colorism very much plays a part in it. The closer you are to a Eurocentric hue is going to determine how you are treated. So it's less about the ethnicity and national origin as much as it's about the color of their skin. That is for Hispanic and Latino clients as well as for Black clients. I think that when it comes to the court officers and their perception, there's a perception that clients that skew more towards the European side versus more towards the indigenous side are going to be treated differently.
Gender Defenders notice two main differences in how court officers treat female clients versus male clients. One main difference is in the willingness to use violence. One Defender explains: “With female clients, court officers are more likely to use words. With male clients, court officers might be quicker to put their hands on them or push them in the direction they want rather than to ask them to go.” Another Defender notes that “even with the most difficult female client, I’ve never seen violence against them, at least not to the level that I’ve seen it for male clients…. For male clients, if you step out of line, the chances of physical violence being inflicted on you are so high. I think with a lot of people in these power positions whose operation is dehumanizing our clients—calling them ‘collars,’ ‘bodies’ and so on—it’s just so easy to inflict violence on our clients.” Another Defender agrees: “They're less likely to put their hands on women, because (laughter) some of these girls can be quite aggressive…. They get the ‘sweethearts’ and nice overtures to assuage the women and stuff like that; and it doesn't happen like that for the guys usually.” Adds another Defender: “Overall, I feel like my female clients are perceived to be less of a threat; however, most of my personal female clients are charged with violent crimes. (Laughter) But even so, my female clients are perceived as being less of a threat even though their charges may be more serious than my male clients….”
The other main difference Defenders notice is how court officers would hit on female clients—and on female family members present in court to support clients. One Defender notes: “If a female client is in their eyes an attractive female, some court officers will act like leering idiots towards her and look at her in an inappropriate way. They tend to be more paternalistic with female clients than with male clients.” Another Defender concurs, stating: “I constantly am finding cops in court hitting on people that they have in custody. There was this one officer that was just inappropriate with my client's girlfriend, who was there in the audience to support him…. For female clients, they have to deal with what they have to deal with all the time, which is unwanted sexual advances.” Answers another Defender: “I'm thinking of male court officers interacting with female clients. If they're young or look attractive or something like that, I would see court officers treat them a lot differently; whereas if you have an older Black, Latino or Asian woman, or if they don't speak English, they will get treated like the men.” Another Defender adds: “They are generally nicer to women. They’ll talk softly to them. They’ll disregard everything the women say, but they won’t be manhandling them and sassing them constantly….”
Other answers include:
Defender I haven't had that many women clients over the years. I think some can be more respectful to women than men, and more sensitive to the predicament that a woman is in. It depends on the person; but for the most part, no, I don't think they treat women—
Are Black women even women to them? Are they seen as women? That's the whole point: we're all viewed so differently in the eyes of the system. Our humanity isn't there. They don't see their mother or their sister or their daughter; they see whatever concept of Black femaleness that's been embedded in their minds probably for generations. It is certainly not the same way that they see their own family members.
But are women treated better? Yeah, they probably aren't pushed around the same or shoved or pulled….
Defender Also, the physical size of my male clients changes things. If my client is a certain height and a certain weight, my male client specifically, you'll see them call extra officers or whatever the case may be.
Defender Yeah. I mean, I think they are a bit gentler with females sometimes; again, I think that depends on how they look…. Also, sometimes they're a little impatient with clients who have to come with their children; and that's something that's always disgusted me. Like, yes, this woman is here. She can't get daycare. We're in court all day, trying to get these cases called; and a baby maybe cries for a second, and they're having a heart attack. It's like, calm down. Whereas some court officer—very few—would say, “Oh, just wait outside if you can. I'll come and get you when your case is called.” Very simple.
Dress Finally, Defenders notice a difference in how court officers and clerks treat clients based on dress. One Defender states: “I definitely think that they treat clients who are dressed in a shirt, slacks, ties and all that sort of stuff better than a client who's got on what appears to be pajamas, or a bonnet, t-shirts, jeans, or anything that doesn't conform to that traditional court attire.” Another Defender concurs: “Yes. If the client is dressed in a suit and tie or is ‘professional-looking,’ the court officers tend to be more courteous as opposed to someone that's in regular clothes or not well put together.” Another Defender agrees: “A client who was dressed for court will get a little bit more respect than one who isn't coming in dressed for court. If the client has no belt, his pants are falling down, he has to keep pulling them up, he gets no respect. But if a person in a suit approaches a court officer or clerk, they’re going to at least give the person an ear. They would definitely give the person an ear based on the dress.” Adds another Defender: “You have some clients who would dress up; they would wear a little suit or a nice shirt. When they dress well, court officers and clerks treat those people differently. And then you've got people who can't come in to the courtroom because of what they are wearing; and you're like, why are you wearing that? So then the clerks are like, ‘What is wrong with your client?’ Or they make fun of them, or they'll say something slick on the sly. They may not say it to the client, but they'll say it to you.”
Some Defenders offer slightly different takes. In one Defender’s experience, “clients that show up in work uniforms get special treatment. Wearing a suit didn’t really matter.” Another Defender answers: “I don't know that if you come in with a shirt and a pair of jeans that you're treated better than if you come in with a t-shirt that has holes in it and jeans that have holes in them. I mean, do you get treated better or worse? No, because you're Black. So you’re going to get treated pretty much the same. They're going to make you wait all day, even though you have a job to go to and you got there at nine o'clock in the morning and you have to be at your job at two o'clock. They don't care, because you're Black and your lawyer’s a public defender….”
A couple more responses:
Defender Yes. If a client comes in and had on nice clothes, nice jeans, nice khakis, nice suit pants or whatever, and a button-down or a polo or a sweater, that client is going to be treated differently than our clients who come in with more urban wear…. Also, our clients that are perceived to be clean, our clients that are perceived to be domiciled, our clients that seem to have access to bathrooms on a regular basis, whether they are in the shelter system or an SRO or a private apartment or home or whatever, are very much treated differently and interacted with differently than our clients who are perceived to be, and are quite often undomiciled….
Defender Yes. Yes. People who looked like they were poor or didn't have professional jobs were treated as though they deserved to be there. With people who were in suits or were otherwise dressed up or looked like they had money, there was an assumption like, they're not meant to be here. This is an accident.
FN 7: See Melissa Grace, Robert Johnson & Corky Siemaszko, Well-suited escape plan: Prisoner walks out of Manhattan Supreme Court by dressing as lawyer, N.Y. Daily News (Sep. 30, 2009), https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/well-suited-escape-plan-prisoner-walks-manhattan-supreme-court-dressing-lawyer-article-1.381813.
FN 8: The phrase “waive your client” refers to clients that are incarcerated. Generally, accused persons have a right to appear in court and be present for whatever proceedings are occurring. However, a defense attorney may choose to waive the client’s appearance for a calendar call. Court staff often prefer that defense attorneys waive their clients so that they don’t have to do the work of bringing up the client to the courtroom and then back down.
How do court officers interact with police officers from the same or different jurisdictions?
Police officers come into courthouses for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, they come in to testify in a hearing or a trial. Sometimes they come to the courthouse to return a person on a bench warrant. Sometimes they come to the courthouse to arrest a person of interest who is scheduled to be in the courthouse on a particular day. When they come to the courthouse, police officers often have to interact with court officers in fulfilling these functions.
Most Defenders describe the interactions between police officers and court officers as amicable. One Defender states: “They're very friendly.” Another Defender describes court officers as “very deferential” to police officers: “It’s like they’re all men in blue or women in blue; they’re all buddies in blue.” Another Defender notes that court officers and police officers act “like they’re brethren.” Another Defender describes the interactions this way: “Oh, they're the same. They're happy to be amongst the bad and the blue. They're happy to chat it up and have conversations with them and act like they're a team.” Adds another Defender: “They're good friends in the same jurisdiction. I think the court officers identify themselves as law enforcement, and I've worked with corrections and court officers [before]. I see that there is this definite sense of alignment that court officers have with police officers from their jurisdiction. And I think that exists with police officers of other jurisdictions. I think when you see yourself as law enforcement—I don't know from personal experience—but it seems that there's this feeling that they're all in it together.” Another Defender notes: “They treat them like the ADA’s. They go up to the [police officers]; they figure out what they need and what they want. Court officers make sure they get in and out of there. It's like they're on the same team.”
A number of Defenders believe that court officers almost look up to and idolize the police. One Defender explains: “I think court officers try to ingratiate themselves with the police officers. I think they're very friendly with the police officers, and that's one of the reasons why I always view court officers in that realm, as the same type of law enforcement.” Another Defender states: “I think a lot of court officers are police officers wannabes.” Adds another Defender: “Oh, it's like, ‘We are the world,’ buddy, buddy, BFFs, like ‘We've known each other for our whole lives.’ And I also think there's a level of envy and respect. I believe that a large number of court officers wanted to go through the police academy and for whatever their circumstances were, they were just not [able to]. So there's sort of a ‘big brother, little brother,’ ‘older sibling, younger sibling’ sort of thing. There's this reverence of the NYPD by the court officers; there's a forced familiarity.” An additional Defender notes: “It’s kind of like they’re kneeling down [before the police], but not actually kneeling down; but it’s like, oh, a police officer has entered.” This Defender offers the following answer:
My personal opinion—and this is me watching for a decade—court officers want to be police officers. Court officers are like police officers in training. I've seen some social media posts where they're telling each other, “Have a good tour.” Some of the lingo tends to turn into lingo as if they're outside walking the beat on the street. And I think it's because that's really the pie in the sky for them, to have been a police officer. I'm not saying that they couldn't. I'm not saying that they would if they had the chance; maybe there's something about the court officer position that's a little better for their particular situation, so they'll take it even if they had the chance to trade.
But the police is very much big brother; and [they] will sometimes use their position in the court to mete out some sort of justice. For example, the police are outside waiting to arrest your client on a new case. They know that your client has court that day. So rather than go to their job and miss them or go to their house and miss them or chase them around the city, they know they have court that day; so they'll come stand outside and wait for them to come out so they can arrest them. Sometimes they give that information to the court officer.
Now some court officers will say, “There are police officers outside waiting for your client, so just let your client know so when they walk out there, they're not shocked.” They can't allow them to leave the courthouse, because they understand that they have to follow the rules. And they're not trying to tell your client to walk out the back door; they understand that [the client has to] be arrested…. There’s the court officer that'll tell you, then there's the court officer that won't say anything; and then there's the court officer that will help effectuate the arrest: “Step outside with me for a second; I want to talk to you,” or I’ve seen court officers say things like, “You left something outside.” One time, a client was looking for somebody; and the court officer said, “Oh, he's outside. He went to the bathroom.” Client stepped outside to go to the bathroom, and the client was arrested. The person [the client was looking for] never even went to the bathroom.
Some court officers will allow police officers to come and sit in the courtroom while your client is in front of a judge or other people that are making decisions about them. [Then the court officers will inform the judge that] cops are now sitting in here waiting to arrest him. So now he looks like a double criminal. The message that's sent is that it's not just this case; he's got other things going on. And that isn't something that he's even been convicted of yet; he's just being arrested. But that information is now disseminated because the court officer has allowed the police to come into the courtroom and sit where your client’s sitting. Some court officers have told me that they can deny police officers the right to come into the courtroom; they can tell them to wait outside. But not all court officers do that, which lets us know as public defenders that the court officers and the police a lot of times are in cahoots. And it's probably because the court officers are looking up to the police in the way a lot of people do…. Police make the decision about guilt or innocence on the street before it ever gets to the building.
This answer speaks to a problem for Defenders: collusion between court officers and other government actors to harm their clients. Another Defender confirms this collusion between cops and court officers: “I've had court officers hold my case. I've signed it in; why isn't this case getting called? [I find out that] they're waiting for a detective to come arrest my client. I don’t know about it, and they don't even give me the courtesy to let me know. Or they're holding them for immigration, or they're holding the file [for some other reason] ….” Indeed, court officers conspire not only with police officers but also with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), particularly during the Trump administrations. One Defender elaborates: “I mean, obviously we've seen a lot of cooperation between ICE and the court officers. I think that was really disturbing…. I know ICE was kicked out of Rikers, so they couldn’t arrest people there. So they had to find other ways to access noncitizen clients. One of those ways was by coming into the court building to arrest people and trying to access people by using the holding cells or using rooms in the courthouse. In order to do that, the court officers had to give them permission and information, to tell them if the person is here or not here, to identify people, and to allow them to use rooms to search or to keep clients….” Another Defender gives this account:
I actually had a situation when ICE was coming into adult courts; and I had a client who we thought that ICE might be coming to look for. I went to this particular court part to check in. I asked a court officer about my case; I said, “I’m trying to get this case called.” She’s like, “It can’t be called yet. Where is your client?” And I was looking at her like, why the fuck does it matter where my client is? Who are you? You’re just the court officer; call my case. What’s the problem? I thought to myself, this is weird. What’s going on?
So I went to check on another case in another part; and then when I returned, this Black court officer that I’m cool with, who’s like a normal human being, who goes above and beyond for our clients and is super nice, came up to me. I asked, “What's going on with this case? Like this lady is being weird.” And she replied, “She's trying to get you to bring your client in because ICE is here. I promise I didn't tell you that.” And then she walked away.
I realized, oh, that's why you're being weird. You're trying to call ICE on my client or trying to make sure my client's here before you call ICE. You're a stupid bitch.
I was happy for the information; I was glad that she was willing to give it to me. But it's sad because she was kind of putting herself at the risk of ridicule or a writeup, because that woman that wanted to help ICE was a sergeant, and the woman that was being nice and helping me wasn't a sergeant; she was working under this sergeant. So you have these conflicting motives in the courthouse and amongst different court officers based on what's going on. Like, it's not her job to be out there calling anybody else and having them come there to arrest a client, especially after there had been so much back and forth with the courts about whether or not that was something that should be happening.
So yeah, a lot of times they'll collaborate to make sure that our clients get arrested by police or government officers from other jurisdictions versus just calling the case and doing their job….
A few Defenders offer different takes. One Defender observes: “Sometimes cops are assholes, and court officers can handle that because they control what case gets called…. At times, they are collaborative, and at times they are competitive.” Another Defender states: “I can't say I've seen much interaction between court officers and police officers, unless they know the person. I don't see any interaction beyond high and bye.” Another Defender has this take: “They don't like each other. None of them like each other. The cops hate the court officers, and the court officers hate the cops even more than the cops hate them. And DOC hates everybody. (Author laughs) So, no, none of them get along. Nine times out of 10, if you're a cop who's over in Criminal Court, you've screwed up.9 That's like a punishment. So if you see a cop who's over there, they probably did something they had no business doing; and this is their penance.”
A few more responses:
Defender I mean, from what I observed, they gave each other tremendous respect and deference. I think when I was at the courthouse was when the court officers started wearing steel toed boots, and it was a big deal that they were wearing steel toed boots. They were now like police; it was like they were militarized. They developed weird SWAT gear and began to take on this militarized, quasi-police role. So from what I could tell, they saw each other as buddies; and it was bad for us.
Defender Oh man. So I'm a lawyer, I'm a public defender. I'm in this court part every day. Now you know the chain that separates the well from the audience, how it’s a cardinal sin to step over it? When a client does it, they're like, “Oh my God! Come back in here, do it the right way!” There's this whole hoopla.
I once was in a part, and this court officer who was particularly nasty—I mean, she didn't want to bring up detained clients from the pens downstairs for their court appearances. “Why am I bringing them up? They have this issue or that issue.” And it's just like, excuse me, this is their court case, and I'm the one who decides if I want to waive their appearance, not you. And a lot of court officers have this habit of trying to get you to waive your client's appearance, which is disgusting—was present. In this particular instance, a law enforcement officer from another jurisdiction walked over that rope, and I'm watching this nasty court officer because I'm like, oh, she's going to give it to him….
She stated, “I’m going to talk to him about that.” She went over to him, and I watched the interaction, and it had NOTHING to do with walking over the chain. They said nothing about it. Nothing. And I was just like, man, what's good for the goose is supposed to be good for the gander, but apparently not. It was clearly not the thing to do. This officer had been sitting there watching people lift the rope and struggle with the rope to try and close it the whole time. And he walked right over it, and they didn't have a peep to say about it. If it had been anyone else….
Defender Warrant squad police officers who bring in clients who failed to appear for their scheduled court dates get priorities over a lot of clients. You walk in from the street with someone, you're sitting on the bench, or you're waiting to pick up someone to take them to wherever, and everybody else waits and you get served. So I think there’s a brotherhood. When a police officer gets injured or shot, everybody's like, “One of us got hurt.” So they're very close, I think, to the police.
Defender I can see they're all homies! I mean, in the arraignment courtroom, there are both corrections officers and police officers who are working together, as people are transferred from one custody to the other type of custody. You'd have to look really closely at their badges or the decal or whatever is on their shoulder to figure out who's a court officer and who's a police officer. They definitely all seem like [they’re] on the same team….
Defender Oh, they're like cousins. It's funny, because as a people watcher, I’m sitting in court all day long with nothing to do. It's interesting to watch interactions of court officers with beat cops that come in uniform versus detectives that come in suits, because there's a hierarchy within that too. But yeah, court officers and police officers are like brothers. It's like as soon as the police walk in, there are accommodations, there are conversations had….
FN 9: Police officers that work in the courthouse usually work in arraignments. When a client is brought out of the holding area and into the courtroom, it is usually police officers guarding them in the courtroom.
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