A judge’s shambolic courtroom

Judge Raymond Bodnarek ever really deigned to acknowledge.

Woolley’s letter asks the question, “when, if ever, is it appropriate to incarcerate the victim of a crime,” and acknowledges she hasn’t the answer.

But the nature of the order, which as she says “subjugated” the young woman, is “relevant to the assessment of the conduct of the lawyers and judge in this case.”

Consider the other myriad deficiencies of the proceeding. Consider one day, June 9. First, someone forgot to bring the exhibits to court; oops, a delay.

Then someone was pounding the keyboard of his laptop so hard it was interfering with the automatic recording equipment. There ensued a cheery chat among the judge and the prosecutor and various officials about who was the offending typist.

It turned out to be the judge, who then announced he had switched from his iPad to a laptop and would now switch back, if only his batteries would last.

At this point, Our Heroine, the long-suffering and witty complainant, snapped, “Oh my God, people.”

Then a headset didn’t work, and the judge told the complainant that someone was being dispatched to fetch a new one, to which she replied, “Oh my God.”

On another occasion the same day, court was to play the 911 call the woman had made as she fought for her life. But of course, the speakers either weren’t set up or weren’t working.

“How unorganized is this court?” the woman asked.

The day before, as the court prepared to re-swear the woman, the sound system was on the fritz again. “Come on, guys,” said the woman, “let’s get started.”

As she put it once, “Can we make this testimony faster? Like somehow get me out of these shackles and get me free?”

Well, said the judge, “we’re making much better progress …”

The woman interrupted: “I’m the victim and look at me. I’m in shackles. This is fantastic. This is great fricking, this is a great system.”

“We’re making really good progress now,” said the judge.

“Not great progress,” snapped the young woman. “Look at me, I’m in shackles.”

Then he told her they had to start late the next day because Blanchard needed to be seen by a dentist.

“So, I am in the jail cells incarcerated while you sit missy pritzy on your fricking chair and I get to sit in the jail cell? Cool.”

As she put it a minute later, “I need to be seen by a dentist. You don’t see me crying, My Lord.”

Wherever her fierce spirit roams now, one trusts there’s not a prosecutor hectoring her about the need to answer “yes” instead of “yep” and “yeah,” a defence lawyer asking “can you give us any description of his penis?” (to which she replied, “Are you serious?”) and a judge marvelling about the centimetres of movement and calling it progress.