(Stereo)typecast in the Courtroom

It was Friday morning when a young, black male wearing chains and an orange county jumpsuit was escorted into court by two police officers and stood before Judge Volkmann. The people offered the defendant, who was facing criminal mischief charges, probation along with a full order of protection. The judge then requested probation to report its recommendations. Probation informed the court that it desired that the defendant serve time in jail instead of supervised release. 

In response to this harsh recommendation, the Ulster county public defender went to bat for her defendant. She began by calling the probation officer’s report “ridiculous and irrelevant” due to the subjective nature of the document. To support her claim, she rattled off some examples within the report where the probation officer conveyed that the defendant “was noncompliant with answering questions” and “had no meaningful relationships with his children.” The public defender, who was present for the entire interview, revealed that the particular probation officer repeatedly asked questions in such detail that she had to intervene: “I think he answered the question, can we move on?” After noting that the defendant expressed to her how important his children were to him, she argued that a half-hour meeting with probation is an insufficient instrument for determining the quality of her defendant’s relationships. Finally, she pointed out that probation’s assessment had nothing to do with the charges he was facing. She concluded that jail time was simply unwarranted in this case. 

Judge Volkmann responded in a condescending tone by asking the public defender if she believed that probation’s pre-sentencing reports hold no value with the court. She countered, “of course I believe that probation reports are significant in determining courses of action.” Nevertheless, she went on to explain that in this case she believed that the probation officer made unfair judgments of character and used inaccurate conclusions about his relationship with his children to falsely conclude that he was unable to cooperate with probation’s terms. Additionally, she made the point that two attorneys, herself and the assistant district attorney, had already reached an agreement on what the offer would be and that a probation officer’s opinion should not trump that agreement, suggesting that “if [a probation officer] wanted to prosecute people, she should have gone to law school.” Although the probation officer who wrote the report was not present in the courtroom, the officer who delivered it stood up and walked out, while another public defender covered his mouth as if he were trying to repress a smile. 

Judge Volkmann, however, was not amused. He declared that he was unsure what he was going to decide today. The public defender then proffered her own compromise: that the judge at least grant the defendant electronic monitoring. The assistant district attorney chimed in by reassuring the judge that her offer still stood. Nevertheless, Judge Volkmann denied the request, after which the assistant district attorney silently mouthed to the public defender, “I tried” followed by a shrug. Meanwhile, the young defendant seemed distraught, staring at the floor and shaking his head back and forth. The case was adjourned until Monday. He would remain in jail at least through the weekend.

Watching this case, I had to think about the blunt racial divide in Poughkeepsie City Court. From my vantage point in the jury box, where I had been invited to observe, the courtroom appeared starkly divided. On one side sat the judge, the clerk, the probation officer, and attorneys who were predominantly white. On the other were the defendants—brought in by chains or sitting on benches waiting for their names to be called—who were predominantly people of color. Like a beach where the white sand hits water, both sides are operating in the same system with very different roles. Listening to the public defender address the problems with probation’s report made me wonder how this racial divide may influence our civil servants to make problematic assumptions about defendants. If authorities primarily see only people of color being “caught up” in the system, is it possible that they end up with prejudicial notions about them? 

In American society, popular media commonly portrays black males as criminals and deadbeat fathers. Time and time again these “thugs” are targeted and over-policed because of the perceived deviant label associated with their skin color. Would it be reasonable to conclude that this probation officer behind the report only viewed the defendant as a deadbeat father because black males are supposed to fit that criterion? There may be other reasons behind probation’s recommendation and Judge Volkmann’s decision, but it is something we all must consider when looking at the people whose lives are altered by our justice system.