Projectors, White Boards &amp; Electronic devices in judicial courts Are projectors, white boards and other electronic devices viz monitor screens, laptops,scanners, recording and playback devices etc. available or allowed in courts? As a example, the lawyer of either the plaintiff or defendant would like to present using a projector and display screen clipings, transcripts, laptop etc. as part of evidences, proofs. Is this allowed in the high courts and Supreme Courts?
These questions are typically left to the discretion of the judge in whose courtroom the presentation is happening. It is very common to see these types of devices in trial courts, but they are much less common in appellate courts, and I doubt you'd ever see one in the United States Supreme Court, where the arguments are essentially limited to oral presentations.
tl;dr there is at least one instance of a disorderly conduct charge for watching pornography in a public library. I bring you the story of STATE OF WISCONSIN v DAVID J. REIDINGER. From the most recent (January 2016) appeals court decision: David Reidinger was found to have violated WIS. ADMIN. CODE § UWS 18.11(2), which prohibits disorderly conduct in University of Wisconsin System buildings or on university lands. The evidence at trial established that others witnessed Reidinger viewing pornography in a public library on the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC) campus. On appeal, Reidinger argues he has a First Amendment right to view legal adult pornographic material at a public library. Reidinger also vaguely alludes to a conspiracy between numerous public officers and employees to harass him. We reject these arguments and affirm. Background Following a bench trial, Reidinger was found to have violated WIS. ADMIN. CODE § UWS 18.11(2) and was fined $295. Shannon Riley, a student supervisor at the McIntyre Library on the UWEC campus, testified she received a complaint from a student at 10:40 p.m. on December 14, 2014. The complaining student testified that she and her roommate were working on homework at the library when they noticed Reidinger watching pornographic material on the computer next to them. Two university police officers, Edward Lancour and Amanda Henry, responded to the complaint. Lancour and Henry met with the complaining students, who showed the officers a picture they had taken of Reidinger’s computer screen that showed open pornographic images. Lancour then personally observed Reidinger watching pornographic material on the computer for approximately thirty seconds before asking him to close the browser and move with him to a library stairwell to discuss the matter. Lancour testified he told Reidinger his watching pornography was causing a disturbance, to which Reidinger responded that he had a constitutional right to view pornographic material at a public library. Lancour then told him they had received several complaints, and witnesses had stated that Reidinger viewing pornography at that location made them feel uncomfortable. Reidinger was issued a citation for disorderly conduct under WIS. ADMIN. CODE § UWS 18.11(2) the following day. I am actually mildly surprised by this decision, because United States v. American Library Association, 539 U.S. 194 (2003) seems to indicate that the ability of adult users of a public library to disable Internet filters in order to view lawful content is constitutionally critical to the question of whether such filters are allowed, as stated in a concurring opinion by Justice Kennedy: If, on the request of an adult user, a librarian will unblock filtered material or disable the Internet software filter without significant delay, there is little to this case. Specifically, as stated in the dissenting opinion on Bradburn v. N. Cent. Reg'l Library Dist., 2010: "Even accepting for the moment that these libraries are not a limited public forum, eight justices found the ability of a patron to disable the filter constitutionally critical." Thus there are many reports of libraries refusing to stop adult patrons from viewing pornography on these grounds: Seattle libraries: No sleeping or eating allowed, but porn-watching OK Is Web Surfing For Porn At The Public Library Legal? City libraries say ‘checking out’ porn protected by First Amendment Public library okays porn viewing despite parent complaint However, a Washington State Supreme Court decision (Bradburn v. N. Cent. Reg'l Library Dist., 2010) found that public libraries do not have to disable Internet filters by request of an adult user. (Note: I also posted this answer on Academia.SE)
Question 1: Some of the more recent questions from December 2016 on this on Avvo.com replying to a question on Los Angeles Small Claims courts: &quot;[T]he likelihood of any small claims judge in LA awarding them to you is slim.&quot; And another answer: &quot;Yes you can if the claim is $10K or less.&quot; Another California lawyer on Avvo in 2013 replying to a San Francisco, CA question: &quot;I have seen cases where punitive damages have been awarded in small claims court. You can always request and try to offer evidence that you feel warrants such a finding&quot; (one additional lawyer agrees) And another licensed in California to the same question: &quot;Punitive damages are available in Small Claims [but] if you do not ask for it, it cannot be awarded.&quot; Another one from 2010 to another question: &quot;You can, up to a maximum claim of $7,500. Punitive damages are based on the net wealth of the defendant, so normally litigants don't request any amount, since the amount depends on the defendant's financial disclosures.&quot; Question 2: In Indiana: &quot;If punitive damages are awarded, the TOTAL of all monetary damages CANNOT exceed the Small Claims Court's jurisdictional MAXIMUM award&quot; According to another attorney in California from March, 2019: &quot;You can sue for up to $10,000.00 in small claims, and pray for punitive damages up to that amount.&quot; So, attorneys in California seem to agree that punitive damages may be awarded in Small Claims court in California if: You ask for punitive damages, and ask for them timely up to no more than the jurisdictional limit, and probably without stating an exact amount; Serve the claim as required for the court on the other party; If you can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the conduct was despicable, fraudulent, oppressive malicious or outrageous; If you can prove the net worth of the defendant which could warrant the award.
A &quot;night court&quot; is simply a court that operates outside the ordinary business hours for the convenience of people who have work during those hours. They aren't common and are mostly found in medium sized and large cities. A &quot;night court&quot; can do whatever judges in the jurisdiction decide should be offered at that time based upon the needs of people who deal with the court system. Small claims civil cases and protection order cases, for example, are also often handled in a night court format, and a variety of criminal law matters not requiring a jury trial could be handled in that format. Most cities have a judge or magistrate assigned to take arraignments, not always at night (often the position is rotated among judges in the jurisdiction every now and then), which, as the question notes, &quot;should serve to read the charges, set bail and potentially record a plea, but defer the rest of the process (discovery, pre-trials, depos, trial, and eventual sentencing) to later appearances.&quot; An arraignment court would often accept guilty pleas, and sentence people when they plead guilty to infractions, petty offenses, and misdemeanors. It would also often dismiss charges when the prosecutor decides that the case has no merit and decides not to pursue it. It would rarely enter not guilty pleas on the merits, but the court in the television show might not be a pure arraignment court. But, as my knowledge of television comedies is less expansive than my knowledge of the law, I can't tell you if this is &quot;an accurate portrayal of a Night Court, or purely a device for fictional purposes.&quot; I'm sure that the TV version has wittier dialog, more interesting lawyers and court personnel, and less boringly repetitive cases than real life, but I'd have to defer to someone who has ever watched more than the trailers of the show to comment further.
One wouldn't be able to make a claim about a driving record without it being testimony. Testimony will be challenged during cross examination. The prosecutor won't be able to bring up prior bad acts (such as previous speeding tickets) but will most certainly be allowed to rebut any claim of no prior bad acts made by a defendant. When the defendant claims a spotless driving record the defendant is introducing character or a character trait into the trial. Once introduced by the defendant the prosecutor will be allowed to challenge the credibility of that statement and, therefore, the credibility of the witness. Imagine the following interaction: Defendant: I have a spotless driving record. Prosecutor: Are you saying you've never been issued a traffic ticket? Defendant: Um, Uh, well... When a defendant goes to court they are facing a specific charge. The prosecutor will present evidence that supports that charge and it is up to the defendant and his attorneys to sow reasonable doubt within the jury, or at least one juror. By presenting character, the defendant may appear to be saying either, "Hey, it was my first time let me off," or, "I've never done it before so I couldn't have done it this time." Either way, it probably won't create reasonable doubt in the juror's mind about the specific charge they're weighing and it has the potential to open a can of worms that would be unfavorable to the defendant.
In brief: In common law systems, are there specific laws? Yes. Are they written down? Yes, here are the laws of Australia and New Zealand. Or are there only previous court rulings? No. Elaboration: Broadly (and rather vaguely) speaking there are 3 sources of law in a common law jurisdiction: Statute law which consists of the Acts passed by the legislature Administrative law which consists of the rules and regulations made by the administrative arm of government under the powers granted them by the constitution or delegated by the legislature Case law which consists of the decisions made by the courts; this can be decisions based on Long-standing precedents whose origins are lost in the mists of time Interpretations of statute and administrative law It is important to remember that the courts only get involved to resolve conflicts (civil or criminal) - they do not unilaterally make decisions on the law. Judges (if they are wise) never give opinions on the law - that is the role of solicitors and barristers who are the paid advocates of the parties. The role of a judge is to decide how the law fits the circumstances of the particular case before them. To do this they interpret the statutes, administrative rules and decisions made by other judges on similar cases. The decision of a superior court is binding on a subordinate court, persuasive on an equivalent court or a court in a parallel jurisdiction and subject to review by a superior court. The overwhelming majority of cases do not make new case law - most of the arguments in court are about why (or why not) the established law applies to the current facts; they are not about what the law is. Occasionally a decision will be made that modifies the previous interpretation or even more rarely represents a paradigm shift - those are the cases that matter!
Judges don't have timesheet entries (and are often expressly excluded from FOIA obligations). They get paid salaries and are expected to work hard enough to clear their dockets in reasonable periods of time, however long that takes. If you wanted a more direct evidentiary estimate, you could estimate that a judge and his clerk together probably work 90-120 hours a week, figure out how many trials and hearings of what length were conducted and deduct that time spent on that from the total, and then divide the remaining hours by the number of opinions one can estimate that the judge wrote (or better yet, a reasonable estimate of the number of pages of opinions that one can estimate that the judge wrote). Typically, a lot of the legal research grunt work and more boilerplate parts of an opinion are written by the law clerk under some general instructions from the judge, with the judge writing the more substantive sections personally and heavily (or lightly, depending upon the quality of the law clerk) revising the draft opinion as a whole. The longer the opinion, the more likely it is that a substantial portion of it was written by the law clerk. For similar kinds of legal writing (e.g. appellate briefs and motions for summary judgment and proposed orders or written closing arguments) one to six hours per page from all professionals working on the document would be in the right ballpark. Judicial opinions come with some efficiencies, because once a judge decides a point of law or reaches a factual conclusion it doesn't have to be belabored in the same way that a litigant who isn't sure if their reasoning will be persuasive or not must. But, judicial opinions also typically have to spell out a greater proportion of legal and factual foundation for the end analysis that isn't hotly contested, will summarize all of the material points from the evidence presented in the case, and will frequently also recap in some detail the arguments made by the advocates for both sides of the case before actually engaging with those arguments in an analysis section. On balance, those factors probably pretty much balance out. If the judicial opinion is shorter, elegantly written, contains pithy turns of phrase, and/or contains lots of legal citations or factual analysis not raised by either party, it is probably closer to five or six hours per page or more. If the opinion is longer, has a rote and mechanical feel to it, and has very little factual analysis or references to law not mentioned by the parties, it is probably closer to one hour per page or even less. When some of these factors go one way, and other of these factors go the other way, it is probably in between in terms of hours per page. This said, sometimes it takes a judge a long time to write an opinion, but the end product is very short and elegant. In these situations, often what happened is that the judge and the judge's clerk spent lots and lots of hours writing a long and detailed first draft, then got an insight that provided a much more efficient and succinct way to reach a resolution to the case. In those circumstances, there would be dozens or scores of hours of work that went into the discarded first draft, only to be superseded by a half a dozen or dozen hours devoted to a much shorter final draft. In those cases, the final draft of the opinion might be ten or twenty hours per page or more once you include the time spent on the discarded draft. Of course, another factor is that some judges are just more efficient legal writers than others, and some judges have more familiarity with some areas of law than others. A opinion that might take one judge twenty hours to write might take another judge presiding over the very same case and producing an opinion of the same length and quality a hundred hours to write. The opinion in Meads v. Meads was 176 pages. If I had to make a best guess, I'd estimate that it probably took about 600 hours to write, probably about two-thirds of which was law clerk hours and probably about one-third of which was judge time.
In general, court hearings are held in public; and anyone is free to make a fair and balanced report of the proceedings. It is important that justice is seen to be done. However, in some circumstances that is not true—the obvious example is if a child is involved. It is not sufficient though merely that "[the claimant] wants to keep his/her identity confidential". Have a look at the Civil Procedure Rules (part 39): 39.2 General rule – hearing to be in public The general rule is that a hearing [including a trial] is to be in public. ... A hearing, or any part of it, may be in private if – (a) publicity would defeat the object of the hearing; (b) it involves matters relating to national security; (c) it involves confidential information (including information relating to personal financial matters) and publicity would damage that confidentiality; (d) a private hearing is necessary to protect the interests of any child or protected party; (e) it is a hearing of an application made without notice and it would be unjust to any respondent for there to be a public hearing; (f) it involves uncontentious matters arising in the administration of trusts or in the administration of a deceased person’s estate; or (g) the court considers this to be necessary, in the interests of justice. The court may order that the identity of any party or witness must not be disclosed if it considers non-disclosure necessary in order to protect the interests of that party or witness. https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part39#39.2 If you can satisfy the court that one of (a) to (g) apply, the court may make an order anonymizing proceedings (for instance, you would only be referred to as "AB" in reports and judgements) or it might hold the hearing in camera (in private). However the other party may well wish to oppose your application. Indeed, even a newspaper hearing of your case but unable to report it is entitled to object: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2010/1.html (In re Guardian News) Conclusion In these circumstances, when carrying out the ultimate test of balancing all the factors relating to both M's article 8 rights and the article 10 rights of the press, we have come to the conclusion that there is indeed a powerful general, public interest in identifying M in any report of these important proceedings which justifies curtailment, to that extent, of his, and his family's, article 8 Convention rights to respect for their private and family life. For all these reasons, we would set aside the anonymity order in respect of M. ... Therefore, A, K, M and HAY will be named here and in the judgments on the substantive appeals, as Mr Mohammed Jabar Ahmed, Mr Mohammed Azmir Khan, Mr Michael Marteen (formerly known as Mohammed Tunveer Ahmed) and Mr Hani El Sayed Sabaei Youssef (or Hani al-Seba'i), respectively.