DEARBORN — Spending a day at the 19th District Court in Dearborn was an interesting experience for two reporters from The Arab American News. The day exposed some problems that seem to be a repetitive issue with residents in the area. But for Mark W. Somers, who was serving as the judge on the cases that we sat through, it was just another ordinary day.

“That was a normal Monday morning,” Judge Somers told us during his lunch break, after he had sat through over two dozen cases, 15 of which we witnessed personally.

One of our objectives was to get an ethnic sampling of the people that were being charged by the City of Dearborn. What we found was rather surprising. Of the 15 cases that we had the opportunity to sit through, seven of them involved African American males and two of them involved African American females. Three of the cases involved Caucasian males and one case involved a Caucasian female. Two of the cases involved Arab Americans, one male and one female.

A 2010 Census report showed that African Americans comprised 4% of the total population in Dearborn out of over 98,000 residents, and the total percent of Arabs was 41.7% in the same report.

One of the more interesting cases involved a 43-year-old African American male who was undergoing three pending charges. His first charge was skipping a court required parenting class after he was charged with 4th degree child abuse last year. He served 30 days in jail from that charge and was put on probation afterward. His second charge was failing a drug/alcohol test that was court required and he also had a third pending charge from the city of Inkster.

“When was the last time you got high?” asked Judge Somers. 

“At a family wedding reception about three weeks ago,” the male defendant replied.

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“A wedding reception… so it was a family affair?” replied Judge Somers, before laughter could be heard in the courtroom. “I come in here and deal with the same thing everyday. I don’t understand how a grown man that gets the consequences continues to do it over and over again,” Judge Somers told the defendant in a more serious tone. 

Judge Somers said that he clearly remembered the defendant from his prior child abuse case and that he has a vivid memory of him abusing a child. The defendant has six children, ranging from the ages of 6-20. 

“I just recently got some grandfather hormones I didn’t know about,” Judge Somers told the defendant, referring to his recently born granddaughter who is just three weeks old. “I think about the world she will grow up in and it just pisses me off,” he added. 

The man was sentenced to four days in jail, fined $200 and was put on further probation.

Possession of drugs seemed to be the most common charge among all of the defendants, taking up almost half of all the cases. A younger African American male was given probation and subject to random drug testing after he was charged with possession of marijuana.  The sole Caucasian female defendant that we witnessed during our day was charged for kicking a police officer after he tried to grab her marijuana from a vehicle she was in. The woman is a mother of three and claimed she had not been taking her depression medication when the encounter occurred, which she says is why she reacted violently to the officer.

“Who’s taking care of your children when you are high?” Judge Somers asked her. 

“They are usually asleep when I do it,” the defendant replied. 

Judge Somers urged her to quit smoking marijuana after he put her on probation for 12 months and said she would be subject to random drug testing.

Another eye opening case involved a younger Caucasian male who was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs after spending the night in jail. The male appeared overly thin and seemed unclear as he was speaking to Judge Somers. His drug test had tested positive for both marijuana and cocaine. The defendant’s grandmother, who appeared distraught, was seated in the courtroom waiting for him to speak in front of the judge. 

“I have no idea where the cocaine came from,” said the defendant. “Someone must’ve slipped it in my marijuana,” he added. 

The defendant claimed that he had just gotten a job at a restaurant and that he didn’t want these charges to prevent him from working. Judge Somers set a court date for a pretrial and said he will have the defendant be interviewed for a court appointed attorney after the man claimed he couldn’t afford one. $200 in fines were also due.  

Another interesting case involved an older African American female who appeared to be in her 50’s. Dearborn Police picked up the woman off of Schaefer Rd. and placed her in jail for one night. Her city-hired attorney argued that she had physical and mental disabilities. She was also battling leukemia and received treatment once a month, the attorney stated. Judge Somers dismissed the case. 

We asked Judge Somers to give us more information on the number of Arab Americans that are charged on a normal basis. He said that the previous week, during Arraignment Docket, of the 56 individuals that had cases, ten of them appeared to be Arab American judging by their last names.

On the day that we were there an Arab American female who appeared to be in her late 20’s had pending charges for Disorderly Conduct on school property. She currently lives in the Cleveland, Ohio area and told Judge Somers that it was an inconvenience for her to drive three hours to attend her hearing. Her lawyer had asked Judge Somers if they could delay the hearing to another day because he was facing technical difficulties in presenting a piece of video evidence that could have helped his client.

“Why don’t we bring our I.T. guys in here and take care of this problem today?” said Judge Somers. “I’m trying to save this young lady another trip out here.” 

The lawyer quickly agreed that if they were successful in obtaining the video, they wouldn’t mind concluding the hearing later in the day. Unfortunately we did not get the opportunity to witness how this case played out.

But nonetheless, there were other  moments that grabbed our attention while spending the day in the courtroom. While the cases played out like an assembly line, one after another, there were some sideshow distractions. During one of the less interesting cases, we looked over and noticed that a mother was changing her infant’s diaper on the courtroom floor. Another female who was there to support a family member gave us unpleasant glares once she found out we were reporters.

But we wondered how a judge is usually able to handle all of this on a daily basis. We asked Judge Somers if his mood can in anyway affect the way he handles the courtroom.

“Every judge is a human being. Some days a judge feels terrific, other days they don’t,” Judge Somers stated. “Days can get long. Sometimes you may be more forceful going through it, but it’s important to make sure everybody has a fair opportunity. Some days can be harder, but you have to be careful to make decisions free of that. At the end, the goal is to be fair.”

Judge Somers said it’s important to set a good example in the courtroom because there is a message that needs to be conveyed. 

“Everything we do is important. From parking tickets to murder, it’s all important,” he stated. “You have to think about the city and the people in the courtroom.”