Courtroom Arrangement in Norfolk Superior Court, Massachusetts

choi

(1) On May 31, 2024 I published a posting titled "Jury Verdict in Trump's Criminal Trial," whose Note (a)(i) stated in full,

"Courtroom layout in Boston -- be it federal or state court -- has plaintiff or prosecution table on the right side of courtroom when one is positioned at the door of courtroom and looks at the judge on the other end (of the courtroom); defense table on the left.

"If parties' table are not situated left and right but instead one in front of the other, the plaintiff's or prosecution's table is in the front (closer to the judge) and the defense table is in the back.

"There are no signs saying such, just by convention.

(2) Karen Read is a 44-year-old woman who was on trial for secondary-degree murder of her then boyfriend (a Boston police officer) by backing her SUV and hit him after his disembarkment from the vehicle. The trial ended in a hung jury. See
'Starkly divided': Here's what Karen Read Jurors Said About Evidence Before Judge Declared Mistrial. Boston 25 News, July 1, 2024, at 3:51 PM EDT.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/stark ... rors-195103269.html

(a) The English surname Read is pronounced exactly the same as English verb read AND English noun reed (a plant).
  
The English surname REED (there is no misspelling) is place "name from Read (Lancashire)[,] Reed (Hertfordshire) or Rede (Suffolk). The Lancashire placename derives from Old English rǣge 'roe female roe deer' + hēafod 'head'. The Hertfordshire placename derives from Old English rȳhth 'rough piece of ground.' " Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, by Oxford University Press.
(b) WFXT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WFXT
("WFXT (channel 25) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with the Fox network and owned by Cox Media Group. Its studios are located on Fox Drive (near the Boston-Providence Turnpike) in Dedham")

Fox network and owned by Cox Media Group are two separate entities.
(c) Dedham, Massachusetts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedham,_Massachusetts
("is a town in, and the county seat of, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. Located on Boston's southwestern border, the population was 25,364 at the 2020 census")

Political divisions in New England, at the level below states, has basically two forms of government: city and town. City has a mayor, city council.

Town has a board of selectman consisting of five members whose terms are staggered (some but not all members stand for election at a time); the board hired a manager to run things on a daily basis. The legislative body of a town is town meeting (rather than council) which is held every six months; any resident may attend town meeting and speak his mind, but not necessarily be able to vote (in the town meeting, as opposed to a election on the election date at the poll).

At the top of the column (in the preceding Wiki page) is a map of Norfolk County, where you can see Dedham (red) is on the southwestern border of City of Boston (City of Boston is part of Suffolk County). Norfolk County gas an exclave "Brookline" which is surrounded by City of Boston on all sides and is NOT physically connected to Norfolk County (to which Brookline belongs). That is because Town of Brookline refused to merge into Boston in 1874 (and therefore stayed in Norfolk County).

The column in the Wiki page also states the Massachusetts town is "Named for  Dedham, Essex."

(3) To bring your attention to the news report, my point is not about the trial itself. Rather, it is about the courtroom arrangement.
(a) At the top photo, the prosecution sits at the front table, and defense at the back table. The judge (a woman with short gray hair) sits hear the right margin of the photo, with clerks (a man and a woman both in black) sitting lower than and in front of her, the judge -- the woman to the left of the female clerk had a microphone covering her mouth, the woman being a court reporter. A court reporter has two methods to set the record: stenography or, like here, listening to the argument and then repeating what her hear directly to a tape recorder.
(b) At the defense table, defendant Karen Read has darker hair than a woman on the legal or defense team. Read sits in the middle with a male attorney on her left. The other woman (on the defense team) sits on the right end of defense table.
(c) Norfolk Superior Court (located in Dedham)is small, having two courtrooms. This courtroom is where I was a few years ago, when I sued Brookline Public Library. In the emergency hearing for temporary restraining order, both town counsel (attorney for the town) and I sat the gallery, with town counsel by the bar of the gallery. At two pm, the court was in session, and town counsel rushed to the front table. I was just behind her and went to the front table also. Town counsel was hesitant, perplexed. clerk of the court waived her hand to direct town counsel away, town counsel got the hint and went to the back table. This showed town counsel had no real-life experience in a courtroom.
(d) In the background (of photo 1) are reporters (when jury was absent). In photos 19 and 20, the jury sat in a box below reporters' and sandwiched between reporters at the back and (two) courtroom tables in front. Back to photo 1, you can see the witness stand is where (judge's) bench  and jury box intersect -- on the left side of the courtroom.

(4) The last thing I wish to add is that during the trial of Karen Read, the judge ordered that demonstrators must stay 200 feet from the courthouse. Demonstrators were divided into two camps: supporters and detractors of Karen Read. They occasionally argued.

I did not go to the courthouse. Instead I go to Dedham Public Library, which is situated about 150 yards behind the courthouse. Every weekday I saw two state police cars close to the library (about forty yards away), and a tour bus idling next to the library. Last Friday (June 29, 2024) I finally realized that the state police vehicles were there as backup, so was the tour bus. In case there is a riot in front of the courthouse, state police may move in, arrest people and take them away in the tour bus.

choi

https://www.yahoo.com/news/stark ... rors-195103269.html

I am revisiting photo 19. What I thought was a jury box actually was populated with the deceased's family member.

The deceased is who the prosecution called victim of a murder: the former Boston police officer John O'Keefe. In Photo 19, the front row had
(a) a beefy man in blue shirt at the right end. That was John' brother.
(b) a woman with glasses at the left end. That is John's mother. A photo later showed the mother wiping her tears quietly.

In the trial against Karen Read, the jury box and witness stand were both situated to the LEFT of judge's bench.

   July 3, 2024