Arraignment court—in C10 of D.C. Superior Court—is starting to feel a little predictable. A man gets called. Sometimes he's in shackles. Sometimes not. He steps forward. He places his hands behind his back. The man is read his charges (drugs, stolen auto, fugitive warrant). He is then told to stay away from somewhere in the [...]

Just before 3 p.m., Judge Harold Cushenberry Jr. sentences Dante Dickens. The judge had found him guilty of the PCP charge (aka holding a dipper while asleep at the wheel of an idling car on Alabama Avenue). Before the judge could issue his penalty, he had to hear from the prosecutor and defense attorney.
The prosecutor [...]

The Dipper Man has nodded off. Dante Dickens is sitting outside Courtroom 321. His belly is full of Burger King. His eyes are closed. His shiny head tilts off to the left against his jacket color. He is wearing his work boots, dark blue work pants, and a work shirt with his name sewn on [...]

At 1: 30 p.m., "Lockup Number 10" is called. A thin, almost frail woman steps before the arraignment court judge in Courtroom C10 of D.C. Superior Court. The woman had spent the night in jail with a pitstop at a local hospital. She had been charged with simple assault.
Within seconds, her case is no papered.
"This [...]

It is 12:30 p.m. and Officer Harris is sitting outside the courtroom with a fellow cop. Harris is reading an Examiner. The other cop is tearing through James Patterson's Violets Are Blue. Both just testified in the case of the dipper man who fell asleep at the wheel. But there's been one snag.
A prosecution witness—the [...]

Sitting behind the defense table are a pair of brothers, Gerald and Richard Arnold. Richard is in braids. Gerald is in a light blue shirt that's too big for his frame. They look bored. Almost sleepy. They came into courtroom 320 clutching legal file folders. But the proceedings are slow and tedious. A juror is [...]

For a big part of the morning, one woman rides up and down the elevators in D.C. Superior Court. Sometimes she's careful to plot her course, pacing the banks of elevators before choosing the right one. She will look up and consider the various floors, the various possibilities. Other times, she just darts inside.
The woman [...]

Officer Harris takes the escalator up to the third floor inside D.C. Superior Court. He then does what all officers must do every morning in the courthouse: check in on his case. He walks over to courtroom 321 and scans the printout case list taped to the door. His case is there.
It's almost 9 a.m. [...]

"I don't want to go in this motherfucker."
Frank is standing in a grassy corner at the edge of the D.C. Superior Court entrance. He stares down at the steady rush of people waiting to be checked through the security entrance. He is wearing designer shades, a designer beige knit cap, and clean jeans cuffed at [...]