Courtroom 302 Chapter 1 Summary

Courtroom 302 Book Review

Steve Bogira, a prizewinning writer, spent a year observing Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse. The author focuses on two main issues, the death penalty and innocent defendants who are getting convicted by the pressure of plea bargains, which will be the focus of this review. The book tells many different stories that are told by defendants, prosecutors, a judge, clerks, and jurors; all the people who are being affected and contributing to the miscarriage of justice in today’s courtrooms.

Plea Bargains

Plea bargains are one of the most controversial debates that are discussed over the criminal justice court system. A plea bargain is when a defendant agrees to plead guilty to a crime and in exchange for something, for example a lesser sentence. There are three types of plea bargains. Charge bargaining is when a defendant pleads guilty to a less serious charge than the original charge. Count bargaining is when the defendant pleads guilty for some of the charge, but not all. Sentence bargaining is when the defendants get a lesser sentence than the maximum penalty. Through the course of this semester it has been brought to our attention, multiple times, about the problems plea bargaining has caused. Many defendants are pressured by those who surround them in

courtrooms such as, judges, prosecutors, their lawyers, to take plea deals and Courtroom 302 is one of them.
Bogira, the author, had many encounters with the issue of plea bargains when he was observing Courtroom 302. Tony Cameron is one example. He was a man who wanted to fight for his case, but felt has if he didn’t have a chance. Cameron was being charged with armed robbery and the pressure of a plea bargain was heavily laid on him. He spent 145 days in custody and was growing tired of the case. Finally, he accepted the plea deal and when Locallo, the judge, asked him if anyone was forcing him to take the plea, his response was, (Bogira, 2005, p. 105), “I’m just tired – I’m really tired. I just wanna get this over with.” Locallo decided to instead of letting him think it over, he “sweetens the pot” and plays a small trick saying he will add the days that he already spent in jail as part of his six years.
De’Angelo Harris was also pressured into taking a plea bargain when he was being charged for shooting and killing a man named Bennie Williams. Judge Locallo would rather have had a plea deal then have a jury decided Harris’s fate. The judge said, (Bogira, 2005, p. 189), “You never know what those twelve great citizens are going to do.” The judge wanted justice for the victims’ family because the man who was shot was a good citizen with a bright future. Instead of looking at the defendants’ past, he looks at the victims past and decides the defendants fate from there. Harris never wanted to take the plea. He said that he didn’t want to, (Bogira, 2005, p. 189) “cop to a crime he didn’t commit.” The PDs tried to convince Harris to accept the plea deal, forty years, that Locallo offered. One of the PDs told Harris that, (Bogira, 2005, p. 186), “This offer is guaranteed, but nothing is guaranteed after trial.” When he declines, they have Harris’s mom talk to him to try and convince him to take the deal. The judge tells Harris that he will bump the deal down to a thirty-eight-year term and De’Angelo reluctantly agrees.
Whether someone is guilty or not, the book does a great job of portraying the fear defendants have put in them. Not taking a plea deal can lead to a longer sentence and it’s never guaranteed which way a jury sways. With that sentence, it’s quite easy to convince a defendant that a plea deal is a better option than trying to fight for their innocents, losing and then serving for a long time.
The pressure of taking a plea deal doesn’t only come from Courtroom 302. In the film (The Plea) the defendant Charles Gampero Jr. was pressured into a plea bargain by the judge and even though he wasn’t guilty, he took the deal because he would rather spend a couple of years in prison than the rest of his life. Trials take time and like Judge Caprice Cosper said in the film (The Plea), "The system would collapse if every case that was filed in the criminal justice system were to be set for trial."
Analysis
I do believe this book does a great job with the portrayal of the criminal court system, but I think there is a lot more drama and significant cases that don’t happen as often in other courthouses.

Courtroom 302 is one of the busiest courtrooms in the United States and that isn’t always the case, but the processes are still the same. According to our textbook, (Neubauer, D.W. & Fradella, H.F., 2017, p. 13) “The overwhelming majority of crimes involve burglary and theft.” Which Courtroom 309 gives many cases that involved some sort of theft or robbery, like the case that mentioned earlier. It also gives a great representation of the flaws that our criminal justice system

has.
The judge had a little over eighty-five percent of all his cases that ended in plea deals for that year Bogira observed and interviewed. That is an accurate portrayal of plea bargains. According to our textbook, “Between 85 and 95 percent of all state and federal felony convictions are obtained by a defendant entering a negotiated plea of guilt.” (Neubauer, D.W. & Fradella, H.F., 2017, p. 330). Our textbook also said that, (Neubauer, D.W. & Fradella, H.F., 2017, p. 332) , “The majority of findings of guilt occur because of plea bargaining,” and that is how most of the judge’s cases ended.
Recommendation
This book was a great read and is a big eye opener. I recommend this book to students who are studying the criminal courts because it gives a clear picture of what exactly goes on in a courtroom. Not only does it give a great roadmap to what goes in a courtroom every day, but it also does a great job of pointing out the issues that go on in our society. The book did a great job at telling defendants back stories, which tells the reader why they ended up in front of Judge Locallo. It also did a great job at pointing out that racism is still existent, policemen are still brutal, the guilty aren’t punished and the innocent are, the system is still political, and justice is still being miscarried.