Friday, March 2, 2012

Baltimore City Circuit Court

Last week students visited Baltimore City Circuit Court. We were given a tour of the 10 year old building and then were allowed to sit in on a trial and jury selection. The day was long, and the students made some fantastic observations:

Grant Lindahl

The courthouse

Visiting the Baltimore City Courthouse is a unique experiment. It’s a complicated machine the American Court Systems. When we arrived we had to walk through metal detectors, it was a mistake to wear my steel-toed boots. A confused tour guide greeted us, he wasn’t quite sure why we were here. I thought it was interesting that the marble that our tour guide remarked “ was donated by the Vatican”- so much for separation of church and state.  One of my classmates Ian exclaimed “ These murals are really interesting, they must have had really great posture in the 17th century.” Sitting in on an actual case was long and intense but the drawing opportunity was nonetheless fruitful. At the end of the day we got to have a brief discussion with the court justice and he said” The one problem with the court system in Baltimore is that the Justices are policing and nominating the Justices where it should be an appointment by the people.” 







Kayla Bikers


Ian Moore

Rachel Kim





Shadra Strickland

Dingding Hu