Just Another Day in District Court

This appeared March 5, 2006

Just another day of criminal cases at District Court 15-1-01, Barnard Building, West Chester Plaza, 720 Market St., West Chester, Magisterial District Judge Mark Bruno presiding. On the docket? Let's see. Drugs, DUIs, disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, and, oh yes, the U.S. Constitution.
It's a treat anyone with time owes themselves, to sit in the back of a small courtroom at a district court and watch how the messy basics of the criminal justice system get handled by professionals.
The folks in charge on the bench are called magisterial district judges, but there is nothing magisterial about the ones I've seen over the years, if by that you mean aloof or arrogant or imperious.
Think of a traffic cop at rush hour, or workmanlike goalie on a disorganized hockey team with no defensemen on duty in front of him, taking shot after shot after shot and sending them back out of the crease, only here with a load of paperwork in triplicate to get signed after each puck has been dispensed with.
I like to compare them to a parent of a very large family, where everybody's got a problem, everybody's got an excuse, and everybody wants to talk. Loudly. You sit at the kitchen table after dinner trying to take one kid's case at a time, but wind up having to work through three things at once, until finally the child with the biggest complaint gets a whole half hour to themselves.
On a recent Tuesday - criminal court day in West Chester - Judge Bruno sorted though the various cases as they came his way: making decisions on the fly, chatting with the defendants as they file into the courtroom, sending them out on the street or back to prison, and looking each person in the eye as he wished them "good luck" on their way out the door.
Not all of it was pretty.
"Go back to Chester," he told one ragtag-looking fellow, accused of causing a drunken disturbance at the apartment of a girlfriend - apparently a former one. "You're getting too old to keep getting in trouble like this."
The judge checked the man's arrest sheet, searching out his date of birth. "You've even got a few years on me," he winked.
Then there was the scruffy couple who were clearly agitated that he had been locked up on a fine that she thought had been paid several months back - although keeping track of similar charges seemed to be sort of a minor hobby for everyone involved. Bruno sent them on their way with a promise to look further into the case, and the advice to come back next week with a canceled check.
The final case of the morning involved a professional protester's claim of First Amendment violations by West Chester University authorities. Not your average everyday criminal case, but on the docket nonetheless. Although the legal verbiage got a bit heady at times, Bruno reacted with the same equanimity he had dealing with the earlier cases.
Like the parent at the table, he settled things as best he could for now, and let everyone know that life would go on tomorrow and things would sort themselves out in the long run, just as long as you sign the white copy, give us the pink and keep the yellow one for your files.