Making Law at the Doorway:
The Clerk, the Court and the Construction of Community in a New England Town
By Barbara Yngvesson
It’s interesting how much Yngvesson seems to like small towns. Anyway, her notion of the clerk as a gatekeeper of the court seems to be spot-on. As the man presiding over the hearing, the clerk, it is his duty to hear the “evidence” of these “garbage cases” in order to determine whether or not they actually go to court. Most of the cases really didn’t need to go much further than they did. They mostly involved small claims and neighbor disputes, and I suppose that in most cases, we cannot waste the time and resources of the court over small, petty squabbles.
However, there was definitely one case in particular where I felt more of a response may have been necessary. The final case involving the Hispanic woman and her family, the Polish couple, and the English couple seemed to be a bit more serious than the clerk was willing to recognize. He dismissed their cases as “frivolous” and really appeared to be talking down to them. He believed their quarrels amounted to “kidstuff”, and that they were simple problems only involving poor people. They sounded a bit more serious to me. Children carrying weapons? The use of racial slurs and epithets? Physical violence and confrontations between men and women? I suppose throwing them in jail wouldn’t have really helped things, but the clerk really seemed way to dismissive in the charges the complainants were making, especially in the way in which he tended to talk down to the people involved.
In a way, I found his dismissive behavior and his “stop fooling around” attitude to be somewhat inappropriate. There were fairly serious allegations the complainants were making. What was most unusual was the way in which local law was applied to make it seem like this type of behavior was acceptable. Both the complainants and the clerk seemed to agree that due to the bad neighborhood, “vicious behavior is a normal exchange.” Therefore, certain acts and actions were actually tolerable due to the context in which it was occurring, and the actual law doesn’t apply. However, if the same actions were occurring elsewhere in another community, criminal charges may have been brought forth, or at least the matter may have progressed beyond a hearing.
The Clerk, the Court and the Construction of Community in a New England Town
By Barbara Yngvesson
It’s interesting how much Yngvesson seems to like small towns. Anyway, her notion of the clerk as a gatekeeper of the court seems to be spot-on. As the man presiding over the hearing, the clerk, it is his duty to hear the “evidence” of these “garbage cases” in order to determine whether or not they actually go to court. Most of the cases really didn’t need to go much further than they did. They mostly involved small claims and neighbor disputes, and I suppose that in most cases, we cannot waste the time and resources of the court over small, petty squabbles.
However, there was definitely one case in particular where I felt more of a response may have been necessary. The final case involving the Hispanic woman and her family, the Polish couple, and the English couple seemed to be a bit more serious than the clerk was willing to recognize. He dismissed their cases as “frivolous” and really appeared to be talking down to them. He believed their quarrels amounted to “kidstuff”, and that they were simple problems only involving poor people. They sounded a bit more serious to me. Children carrying weapons? The use of racial slurs and epithets? Physical violence and confrontations between men and women? I suppose throwing them in jail wouldn’t have really helped things, but the clerk really seemed way to dismissive in the charges the complainants were making, especially in the way in which he tended to talk down to the people involved.
In a way, I found his dismissive behavior and his “stop fooling around” attitude to be somewhat inappropriate. There were fairly serious allegations the complainants were making. What was most unusual was the way in which local law was applied to make it seem like this type of behavior was acceptable. Both the complainants and the clerk seemed to agree that due to the bad neighborhood, “vicious behavior is a normal exchange.” Therefore, certain acts and actions were actually tolerable due to the context in which it was occurring, and the actual law doesn’t apply. However, if the same actions were occurring elsewhere in another community, criminal charges may have been brought forth, or at least the matter may have progressed beyond a hearing.
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