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Juvenile Court Observation Paper

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This project was an extremely rewarding experience! It provided a lot of information I had never thought about within the court system, especially pertaining to juveniles. To conduct my research on the topic of juveniles and the juvenile court system, I was allowed to shadow a public defender in court. I was also able to have discussions with multiple public defenders, apart from the one I was shadowing. Following the shadow experience, I conducted interviews with a public defender and prosecutor to see both sides of the juvenile court. This allowed me to ask more in-depth questions about things I saw or caught my attention in court. Overall, I learned a lot about the court process and what goes into being a public defender and prosecutor. …show more content…
Getting into the court was also pretty simple, as it was just some basic security with metal detectors and officers if needed. I was able to just sit in the back of both courtrooms and see and observe what was going on. I took a few notes about questions I had or things that I noticed that I planned to ask in the interview. I saw about four cases, with one of those being a trial. It was extremely sad most times with the situations a lot of these kids were in. Following the trial at the end, I went to lunch with a group of public defenders and I was able to ask them a few random questions and discuss what happened in court. I also asked each how long they had been working and their opinions on their career in general. This was insightful as I was able to hear their real opinions that they do not necessarily voice in front of a judge. Following the shadowing in court, I set up an interview with the public defender I was with in court. There were a few bumps with scheduling with both of our busy schedules, but we figured it out. This interview was conducted on Zoom and recorded for future viewing. I asked her some of the deeper questions I was not able to ask on the day I was in

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