I quickly took my Computer Architecture quiz, and I think I did well on it. I had to leave early to go to the City Court of Atlanta. Being summoned to appear in court is a very hectic, but interesting experience. It’s certainly worth discussing in more detail.

I arrived in the City Court of Atlanta on Trinity St. at approximately 1:30 PM, an hour before my trial. I paid three dollars for parking at a local parking lot. Before entering the main area, I placed the contents of my pockets in a small blue basket, so that I could safely pass through the metal detector ahead. Inside the main hall, there were four courtrooms, and a large waiting room in the center. I asked one of the attendents in the hall if it was okay to sit in during other trials. It was - and I soon entered one of the nearby courtrooms.

The setup is straightforward. The bench, occupied by the Judge and Clerk of the Court, faces the court. The Defendent’s Box is on the right of the room, and the Prosecutor’s Box is on the left. The rear side of the room contains rows of benches for the attendants. The defendent stands in the center in front of the bench, with the prosecutor (usually the District Attorney) to the left, and the current witness (if present), to the right.

I managed to hunt down the prosecutor before my trial in a vain attempt to plea bargain for a reduced sentence. Of course, he wouldn’t budge, for reasons that are easy to guess. One of them is that I’m not a lawyer. Eventually I went to the judge. Since the penalty for my offense is a suspended license, I was given three options: plead guilty and have my license suspended, plead not guilty and defend myself on the spot (a lose-lose situation), or hire a lawyer and reschedule the court date for November 20. Being a poor college student, and qualifying as an indigent, I filled out necessary paperwork which allowed me to obtain a public defender.

The day was hardly over, however. I returned to Georgia Tech to teach CS1322 recitation for the evening. I had a lot of fun, mainly because I was finally able to use the on-screen overhead projector and the computer on the podium for a live demonstration on graphical user interfaces in Java.