Barbara Mundell

 

We went to the South East SUPERIOR COURT OF ARIZONA IN MARICOPA COUNTY. The tour began by first attempting to get into the building. When going through the security gate, the guard said that recording devices were not allowed in the building and that they would need to confiscate them. A discussion ensued between my friend and the guard, which then quickly turned into an argument about a Supreme Court ruling that allowed recording devices and my friend requested the guard to call the judge. The guard began to get very angry and red in the face and decided to escort my friend out of the building. My friend then informs the guard that he is supposed to be at a court hearing and asked the guard if he was also going to deny him due process. The guard responded by saying, “sue me” and happily showed his nametag, which only had his first name on it. I found out that it is the Presiding judge, Judge Mundell that sets the policy to not allow recording devices in the courtroom. So my friend is now sitting outside banned from entering the courthouse and I am running around trying to find what courtroom the hearing is supposed to be in to inform the judge that he was here, but not allowed to enter the building.

We finally got that fiasco out of the way and now we are sitting in the courtroom. The public defender along with the prosecutor and the judge all decide to leave the courtroom and head to the back chambers. My friend and I are sitting in the courtroom alone, other than a police officer standing behind us at the courtroom door (presumably to be able to handle any unruly judges or prosecutors that might get out of hand). This was the most bizarre part of the entire thing. We where sitting there assuming that we were speaking to each other in confidence, and in a somewhat joking but also somewhat serious manner, we commented to each other that the two attorneys and the judge were in the back room conspiring against him. When the three came back out of the chambers, to our astonishment, the cop had been eavesdropping on our conversation and decided to inform the judge that we thought they were conspiring against us. The judge then got very upset based on what the cop had said and then she said that she “can’t deal with this today”, that she “can’t deal with people accusing her of conspiring” and then she said that she’s not going to have anything more to do with this case and leaves the court room.

Then to finally top of the day, my friend hands a motion to his court appointed defense attorney, and asks him if he can please file the motion with the court. His attorney then looks at it for about 2 seconds and then he threw the motion back in his face and says no, he’s not going to file the motion.