In Court

During our internship, we visited court and witnessed several cases in various stages of the legal process. On our first day, we saw two cases that both related to police officers. The first case was a matter of the 1st Amendment. In this case, a police officer had written a letter to the editor of a newspaper, refuting the favorable claims about the police force that a writer for the newspaper had made in a previous article. To punish the officer, the police department took away 3 of his sick days. He sued for his days back, saying that he was never notified that he broke a rule and that his letter to the editor was protected under the 1st Amendment right of free speech. While we did not actually witness the trial of this case, we got to see the lawyers representing each side interact with the judge  to decide various motions, such as the request to bring forward more evidence.

The second case we saw in court was a criminal case of excessive force. In this case, a police officer was being accused of using excessive force in arresting a juvenile. This case was particularly interesting because it is very relevant in the current news, and the media presence inside the courtroom was intense. With this case, we still did not see the actual trial, but it was still extremely interesting to watch because the defendant was attempting to move the venue of the trial to another county due to media prejudice, and the prosecution was attempting to put a gag order on the defendant's attorney (meaning that the attorney could not speak to the media about the case). In the end, neither motion passed, but each side got pretty heated during the legal proceedings.

Third, we saw a whistleblower case. A whistleblower case is a case that pertains to a person who reports their another person (usually their superior) in a company or workplace for committing illegal or questionable acts. In this case, a police officer in Morristown reported the police chief for taking side jobs while still receiving pay for being the police chief. Later, that police officer was demoted from his position within the detective bureau. Under the whistleblower laws of New Jersey, a whistleblower is not allowed to be punished by being demoted solely for reporting his/her superior. In court, we saw an expert witness testify. She was an economics expert who explained the process she took to determine how much the police officer was owed from the police department in the suit. A few days later, we heard that the case had been decided in the demoted police officer's favor, awarding him $1.7 million.