State Courts

Common Law: ?Season 1? highlights

By Ron Sylvester

When I started a video blog — or “vlog” — to share the daily exploits of a criminal court in the Midwest, I asked for a lot of trust and a little faith. I got both from a judge, a public defender, a prosecutor and courthouse deputies who let me follow them around with a video camera.

Six months into “Common Law,” we’ve received a write-up from Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, and we have a Facebook page.

As we prepare to continue, I thought I’d share 10 of my favorite videos. Let’s call it “Season 1.” In no particular order:

• Sometimes justice isn’t blind, and as Judge David Kaufman pointed out, it’s not fair, either. I like how the judge didn’t hesitate to criticize another branch of the government:

• I entitled the video Guarded Compassion because it called attention to the way Deputy David Rank didn’t forget the humanity of the people he leads around in handcuffs. Such compassion is something people may overlook in law enforcement officers:

• I used to joke with public defender Lacy Gilmour that every time I showed up to video one of her hearings, she won. That included Gilmour winning an acquittal for her client in a theft trial:

• The story of an 18-year-old facing prison for getting in a fight really drove home how impulsive mistakes can result in big problems. Think before you act, kids:
• Some don’t learn even after they go to prison. John Taylor spent 12 years and prison and wasn’t out a year before he was arrested again. Then he asked for a lower bond:

• Others don’t learn until they go to prison. Teresa Cloud got five last chances but kept using drugs:

• Plea bargains are often misunderstood, but in the case of a girl set fire by her stepfather, prosecutor Marc Bennett explained that sometimes pleas are in the best interest of the victim:

• Bennett has a tough job, because most of his cases involve crimes against children, whom he must then put on the witness stand:

• When Deputy Dioane Gates arrested a guy he knew from high school, it gave a quirky twist to the video. Pay attention to Gate’s reaction in the last frame:

• The story of deputies who fly fugitives back from other states to face charges in Wichita ended up being longer than most posts, so we split it into two parts. You can watch Part 1 and Part 2, or see it for the first time as one story:

Full post as published by What the Judge Ate for Breakfast on February 03, 2010 (boomark / email).