Last Wednesday I went to court. The 3rd Division of the 4th District Court, to be exact. It's at the Ridgedale Service Center in Minnetonka adjacent to Ridgedale Mall. For the record, I was not, and am not, in any trouble.
No, I went to court to observe the a typical day in the life of our City Prosecutor Ms. Jennifer Inz. This was Eden Prairie City Court day at Ridgedale. It is the day that people charged with crimes by our Police Department come into Court to get adjudicated. There were people there with lawyers, but most of them came alone to represent themselves. Ms. Inz started the morning with 97 cases to resolve that day. I observed her until noon. By that time I'm guessing that she had resolved more than 30 of them.
Most of the crimes on her docket that day were traffic crimes. There was the guy who was caught doing 97 mph in a 60 mph zone. He pleaded not guilty because there was another car exactly like his in the exact same location at 2:00 am in the morning doing 97 in a 60. There was a student charged with assault. There was a guy charged with his 6th DUI. There were lots of DUI defendents. Most of them pleaded guilty. There was a lady who shoplifted some sunglasses and ended up paying a $300 fine. Another that took some water softener salt. And another that took some watches and jewelry.
Ms. Inz is talking to defendants, listening to the judge and fending off pesky defense attorneys all at the same time. She is interrupted constantly by defense attorneys asking some version of the question: " Hey Jennifer, what are the chances of………" She fielded questions from defendants about why they could not get public defenders and why they could not resolve their cases today and why they could not get out of their punishment. She even fielded questions from defense attorneys looking for Minnetonka City Court and Mound City Court cases.
I learned alot. I know what a C-WOP is: Continuance without a plea. That just means you get to/have to take another day off and come back to the Court to resolve your issue. It was unbelievable to me the amount of paper in the Court. We spend a fair amount of time in city government reducing our use of paper files. In the court system paper files and paper everything is everywhere. That made an impression on me.
Another impression I came away with was how much volume is moving through our Court system. The docket for the day was overflowing, and so was the docket for the next day, and so on. I'm not sure what the answer to that problem is, but I hope someone is thinking about it.
I've been thinking about going to observe City Court for a long time now. I could never really fit it into my schedule. But am I ever glad that I went. It was interesting and educational to see it close up. Now I will have to go again on a Wednesday afternoon to see City jury trials. That'll be interesting too.




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