A field trip like no other. Sixty kids in plaid skirts and belted blue trousers enter the courtroom of Judge John J. Russo, trying to be invisible. Kind of like elephants trying to do ballet. We do not belong here, and are conspicuous in every way. We have come for the drama of real life in the city of Cleveland, currently the nation’s poorest. It’s like a play; we audience members wait nervously for the actors to get in place.
Instead of the curtain, the pounding of the gavel and “All rise” bring us to attention. Scene one: one defendant and his defense attorney share a whispered conference, and incongruously, a giggle. Case 525655 rises to his feet, and the tag he forgot to remove from his new shirt flaps under his arm. Drug trafficking the charge, a fifth degree felony, but he was merely complicit. Trying to make his life work on his eight dollar an hour job at Brown’s Stadium, and trying to help a friend without a driver’s license. Got caught in the driver’s seat and the web of justice. It was his nephew who ran from the cops that night. They both get another chance. He notices his audience and takes a moment for a monologue to the crowd: “This incident was a bad choice. Shows you how a quick bad decision can lead to trouble.” I’ve said it to these students a million times. Maybe they will learn it better from a man who just avoided a year in jail.
The next character was not so lucky. There is nothing inconspicuous about a man in an orange jumpsuit with his hands handcuffed behind his back. I can see his id bracelet, like the kind they give newborns to keep them from getting mixed up; unfortunately, this man is already lost. Case 526428 is convicted of attempted rape of a five-year old boy. I can see my girls across the courtroom wince. Took the breath right out of us to see this monster in real life. A tier-three sex offender, he will report to authorities every ninety days for the rest of his life. I can’t believe that he didn’t even say he was sorry. Like some strange audience interactive theater, I find myself sitting between the now nine-year old victim, and the rapist’s sobbing lady love. Her flowered shirt pops into my line of vision as the judge hands down six years in the Grafton Correctional Facility. The sentence for young Andrew will not be so brief, I’m afraid.
Scene three opens with a large man stuffed into his pin-striped suit; white tube socks and ripped up black shoes complete the ensemble. Case 5171817 is charged with 134 counts of pandering and child pornography, and has previously pled guilty to 16 second degree felonies. Today he wants to change his plea because, as his lawyer claims, he just didn’t understand what pleading guilty meant. The judge doesn’t buy it. I watch the grimaces of my students as the prosecutor outlines the sordid details of pornographic assaults on minors that the defendant was accused of disseminating. The defendant apologizes and cannot stifle his sobs. His children at home need a daddy; there is a baby on the way. And he has been married for seventeen years. I cannot help but notice that she is not in the courtroom today. As he pleads for his freedom a deputy walks in, a dramatic tool of foreshadowing. I marvel that he is sentenced to two years in prison in front of a room full of the same type of children he victimized. This dramatic irony is a ghastly final scene for us.
Back on the bus the students joke and giggle to let off steam. But we don’t get much done for the rest of the day. Even eating our lunch is difficult this afternoon. We are caught in a new web of understanding; the play was a little too vivid, and our lives just a touch too sheltered. But this is not like Halloween and its fake costuming. The world houses some real-life monsters that we have just witnessed. My students seem very thankful somehow to be back to familiar scenery. But I think it is a play that will long be remembered.
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