Courthouse Security -- Too Much?
Fred Grimm on the state of security at the federal courthouse in Ft. Lauderdale:
Yet for non-lawyers, it must seem onerous and forbidding. It's true there is a need for a certain level of protection, given that criminal trials occur there nearly every day. But he has a point.
And, although Grimm doesn't mention it, the actual physical facility for the federal courthouse in Ft. Lauderdale is a disgrace. A byzantine hodgepodge of rooms, corridors, crossovers and poorly-designed courtrooms, with lousy sight lines and awful acoustics. I also don't like the parking lot, but I can live with that if the courthouse is acceptable once you are inside. I know a new courthouse is in the works, but it has been "in the works" from around the time Arky Freed ran our town, i.e., a long time for you newcomers.
And don't get me started on some of the judges there.
He's right. For us lawyers, it's easy enough to show your bar card and i.d. and go through the scanner, although it's a pain when you are transporting documents and exhibits and witnesses and seeing the same CSO guys every morning who require the same ritual be performed.An obsessive level of security has transformed the federal courthouse from a democratic institution into a forbidding fortress. No cameras allowed. Across the river, in the county courthouse, spectators are warned to turn their cellphones off. At the federal courthouse, someone with a cellphone can't get past the doorway metal detectors, where the marshals laboriously record the name, photo and driver's license number of anyone seeking entrance to their semi-secret domain. Ordinary folks get the clear impression they aren't much welcome.
And on an extraordinary day, when Broward County's top law enforcement officer was bundled off to prison, few ordinary folks showed up.
Yet for non-lawyers, it must seem onerous and forbidding. It's true there is a need for a certain level of protection, given that criminal trials occur there nearly every day. But he has a point.
And, although Grimm doesn't mention it, the actual physical facility for the federal courthouse in Ft. Lauderdale is a disgrace. A byzantine hodgepodge of rooms, corridors, crossovers and poorly-designed courtrooms, with lousy sight lines and awful acoustics. I also don't like the parking lot, but I can live with that if the courthouse is acceptable once you are inside. I know a new courthouse is in the works, but it has been "in the works" from around the time Arky Freed ran our town, i.e., a long time for you newcomers.
And don't get me started on some of the judges there.
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