Three hour walk in Hillsborough County Clerk of Circuit Court? Well, it sounds boring and repetitive because I was just there a month ago, but I was wrong. This time I was able to observe a trial hearing in a felony court. I have never been in a situation like this before and I felt like I was watching a movie.
I started my visit by going to the felony department. I walked into the desk where people were waiting to get hold of felony records in order to ask the people at the desk if there are any trials going on at this point of time. It was a little bit before lunch time and there were not much trial courts going on, but I was lucky to catch one. On the 5th floor of the court house in court 51A, Judge Emmett Lamar Battles’ trial case was going on break so I had to come back later to listen to it. This case involved home invasion as well as gun shooting.
I used the lunch break to go around the other important departments in the court house. I went to citrus civil court to look up some document on my public profile political figure. There I found that I was not the only person who was looking for case documents. The people at the room were mostly attorneys. I had to fill out a request form for which case I was looking for and what type of request I had. I could both view the docs and give them back or I had to put a request for prints. At this same room people where dealing with a lot of foreclosure and mortgage cases as well.
When I found out that my case documents were destroyed I went down to the first floor to check the docs in family law department. I was mainly looking for marriage license records for my public profile, but I could not find any information by looking at the computers at the room. One of the ladies at the department’s desk helped me to look if there are actual docs for my person. She was able to find some case docs, but not the once I was looking for. I went to pay my $1 a page fee at the front desk. While I was waiting on the long lines I observed how chaotic the situation in child support department and traffic is. The lines were endless. Some people were filling new cases and others were paying their current fees. I remembered how Path Frank was saying that her staff was short, but this time I experienced it myself. The lines were endless and the workers were doing what they could but unfortunately their work power was not enough to deal with the work load. The process was very slow. Even I had to wait thirty minutes to pay my five pages.
I came back to the court room after their brake and then it hit me. The case I was listening to was true. I was not sitting in a movie theater; I was sitting in a court room. The witnesses were coming one by one and the attorneys for the plaintiff and the defendant were asking questions and then showing their evidences to the jury people. I was able to see some of the witnesses from the sheriff department who were the detectives and crime investigators that responded on the home invasion and gun shooting call back in July, 2009. They were explaining how the process went and who they talked to at the scene. I was able to record some of the witness’s names as well as the plaintiff’s name but I rather not mention them here because I am not sure if I can. I looked up the case and the arrests made just of curiosity after I left the room. Felony cases take a lot of time and jurors didn’t look very happy to be there again and again. to follow the case here the link to it:http://publicrecord.hillsclerk.com/oridev/criminal_pack.ap?pcSearchMode=NS&pnPidm=952050&pcCaseId=09-CF-007748&pnCnt=9999
After the court house, my final stop was at the State Attorney’s Office to see if I can look for any more records but there were none for the public profile person.
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