Eviction Day
1.0 The Inside of the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse
First Take
First walking into the courthouse is a overwhelming experience in and of itself never mind the
fact that peoples’ lives are being changed within its core.
You are first met by a wall of security and metal detectors forcing you to practically undress if you
don’t have the privilege of a Lawyer’s license allowing you to pass no questions asked.
Walking further into the building, we were met with a grand atrium space that reminds you how
small you are within the confines of such a monumental establishment. The building itself gives off
an air of monumentality with large columns covered in white granite and granite staircases.
First Take
First walking into the courthouse is a overwhelming experience in and of itself never mind the
fact that peoples’ lives are being changed within its core.
You are first met by a wall of security and metal detectors forcing you to practically undress if you
don’t have the privilege of a Lawyer’s license allowing you to pass no questions asked.
Walking further into the building, we were met with a grand atrium space that reminds you how
small you are within the confines of such a monumental establishment. The building itself gives off
an air of monumentality with large columns covered in white granite and granite staircases.
Tour
We were led on a tour through the
whole courthouse to see the operations of the different parts of the
courthouse
including several different courtrooms, some transaction floors and office
space.
When walking through the space, you
will start to notice the presence of many security guards, many
lawyers moving
through crowds of people awaiting their hearings and the energetic static of
private
conversations between lawyers and their clients.
The sheer size of the building is
enormous and once you begin to navigates its halls, only then do you
realize
that there’s a whole other series of hallways and doors that only judges and
other court
personnel get to move around in. While moving through the space,
you end up passing numerous
courtrooms providing confusion to the public using
the building.
There are few ways for a person of
the public especially a new-comer to the courthouse to navigate
their way
through the building; if they have al their papers in order and have a clue to
their hearing
number and information, they’re in good shape but make up the
minority, the majority of people that
navigate the courthouse struggle to use
the unmanned information desk with a slow moving display
of all the court cases
for a single given day or try to wander through the courthouse looking for
their
case.
Uses
The Brooke courthouse is home to
several different entities of the legal system in Boston including a
branch of
the Boston Municipal Court (BMC), housing court, juvenile court, and
probate/family
services.
The hustle and bustle of the halls
of the courthouse elevates throughout the morning generally
stemming from the
section where the Lawyer of the Day program is set up to help patrons of the
court who cannot afford a lawyer to get some advice from legal professionals.
There is also a section of the
courthouse, specifically for the housing court for mediation services
where
many housing disputes result in agreements between the landlord and renter
without reaching
the actual courtroom.
2.0
Housing Court
The courtroom
The courtroom is laid out to be a
threshold between the public and the judge/magistrate/clerk; there is a literal
bar that separates the room in two parts, the seating for the public and the
legal portion where you plead your case to the judge.
The courtroom that we had the
privilege of sitting in to watch some of the trials occurring that day had a
simple plan allowing natural light to flood the room through large bay windows,
the double height courtroom had about 30-40 people packed into the rear where
the seating section was designated.
3.0
The Hearings
We were able to meet and speak with
Chief Justice of the Housing Court, Tim Sullivan; we asked him questions about
his day to day schedule, what kind of cases he deals with etc.
We had the opportunity to sit in on
a few hearings conducted by the Chief Justice of the Boston Housing Courts
which ranged from no-shows on the defendants’ part to full hearings about how
long renters had to move out under their eviction notice.
One example of a case we witnessed
occurred due to a behind payments on a property which resulted in an eviction
being filed for the renter to vacate the premises. The defendant explained his
situation to gain some sympathy from the court and pleaded his need for a
longer period in which to find a new place to relocate to. The chief justice
tried throughout to remain sympathetic to the defendant who often were dealing
with less than ideal circumstances and typically ruled in favor of giving the
defendant more time to deal with finding a new home or to come up with
back-rent.
Take Away
Edward W. Brooke Courthouse provided
a lens through which we could view the subject of housing court from a first-person
point of view. The issues that were clearly outlined by our trip to Brooke Courthouse
include lack of staffing, lack of accessible information to the public, and lack
in wayfinding throughout the building. “Evicted” by Michael Desmond provided a
large scope of background behind the lives of people who deal with the eviction
and judicial system, but we didn’t get much insight about the proceedings of
court internally. By being able to see the process first-hand gave me clarity
about the eviction process; the general realization of the landlords that we saw
in court were typically in partial sympathy to their tenant but have their
business to build and maintain. I look forward to dealing with these issues
first hand in our proposals to renovate the existing conditions at the Brooke Courthouse.