April 1- 7, 2004

pretzel logic

A Tale of Two Courts

by Howard Altman

The 15-year-old squirms in the hard, wooden chair while his mother tries her best to keep him in line. "Stop that," says the mother to the noisy teen. "Keep your mouth shut. I don’t want to be here."

Neither do I.

But thanks to the teen, here we are. He, his mother and I. Sitting on the hard, wooden chairs of the waiting room at Philadelphia Family Court.

We are sitting and waiting; 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., noon, the hours only tolerable thanks to the huge television screen in the front of the room showing Richard Clarke blasting the Bush administration at the 9/11 hearings in Washington.

We are sitting and waiting for the slow, rusty cog of justice to grind on.

The teen is the perp, one of many in this cavernous room.

I am the vic, also one of many.

Every so often, the assistant district attorney walks out of the closed courtroom to speak with me. Likewise, the public defender occasionally strolls out to speak with the teen -- whom we shall call Robert D. -- and his beleaguered mom.

Beyond that, we are left with our thoughts.

I really can’t say what Robert D. is thinking.

But I know what’s on my mind.

For the wiseass teen who has dragged me in here, it’s only 11 blocks from Family Court to the Criminal Justice Center.

A short trip from numbers to letters.

One I truly hope this kid, my neighbor, never makes.

So far, Robert D. is only facing numbers, as in the amount of time he will have to spend either behind bars or on probation for participating in the thefts of my minivan. (Yes, thefts. It was stolen twice and vandalized once in between in the period of a week or so).

The day before my date with Robert D., I share a courtroom with a couple of kids -- not much older than he is -- who are facing letters.

L-I-F-E or D-E-A-T-H if Kennell Spady, 19, and Kareem Johnson, 20, are found guilty of killing Faheem Thomas-Childs, the 10-year-old who was gunned down Feb. 11 during a gunfight outside the Peirce Elementary School in North Philly.

I am in courtroom 306 of the Criminal Justice Center to follow the progress of the abuse of corpse case against a pharmacy employee from West Philly named Ralph Pitt who is accused of dumping the body of 24-year-old Jena Tadrzynski. It just so happens that Spady and Johnson are in court for a hearing of their own.

As I wait for Pitt’s preliminary hearing to be called, a family sits down next to me on the bench.

They look somber and a bit shell-shocked.

It does not take long before a young man from the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia comes out from behind the bulletproof glass separating the actual courtroom from the spectator’s gallery. In a calm, soothing voice, he explains that the journey this family was forced to embark on is long, difficult and filled with many, many unforeseeable and heart-wrenching twists and turns.

The family is genuinely grateful that someone has taken the time to meet with them and tell them what to expect. They thank the young man for his assistance.

A few minutes later, another grieving group enters the gallery, wearing blue shirts emblazoned with a picture of Faheem.

Minutes after that, I am summoned to the other side of the glass to wait for Pitt, who is bound over for arraignment by Judge Jimmie Moore after a detective reads Pitt’s statement about how he came back to his apartment to find Tadrzynski motionless, threw her into the shower to revive her and, failing to do so, panicked and dumped her body.

All in all, another glorious day at the CJC.

This is what I am thinking after I hear the judge rule that Robert D. was in my van without my permission.

Kid, what you put me through is nothing.

What you are going through is nothing.

Not compared to the families of the dead who were forced by killers to endure the pain of Courtroom 306.

Not compared to those on trial in that room.

Get your act together, young man.

This is your second visit to Family Court. The first time, a judge found that you assaulted someone.

It does me no good to see you behind bars. It does your family no good and the city no good.

It’s 11 blocks between Family Court and the CJC.

Your call if you make the trip.