Courtroom

Two fourth graders from Friends Central School in Lower Merion yesterday got a first-hand taste of the unpredictability of American justice. One jury of their peers acquitted Hilary Marston and Evelyn Bricklin of misdemeanor charges for allegedly violating National Park Service regulations by demonstrating without a permit at Independence Park. Another jury decided it could not reach a verdict. The conflicting outcome came after two classes of sometimes-fidgety youngsters took extensive notes and considered the same evidence during a mock trial before U.S. District Judge Louis H. Pollak.

Reputed Junior Black Mafia member Ronald "Rock" Mason yesterday was convicted of two weapons offenses for bringing a loaded semi-automatic handgun into a police station during a hearing for two alleged JBM members. Municipal Judge Louis G. F. Retacco deferred sentence until Dec. 18 and set bail at $15,000. Mason already is in jail under $1 million bail awaiting trial on drug charges. Mason, 19, of Divinity Place near Greenway Avenue, was arrested June 20 in a courtroom at the police station at 17th Street and Montgomery Avenue during a recess in a preliminary hearing for reputed high-ranking JBM members Aaron Jones, 27, and Samuel "Black Sam" Brown, 26. At the hearing, convicted drug dealer Richard Isaac refused to testify against Jones and Brown, who, he told police, were two of the three men who repeatedly shot him on a North Philadelphia street on Feb. 21. Mason, who is Brown's nephew, was sitting in the second row of the courtroom with his hand on the gun, police said.

Common Pleas Judge Eugene E.J. Maier says he's a big guy who can take care of himself. It's the people in his courtroom who need protection. "If somebody is going to get killed in City Hall, it's not going to be in my courtroom," Maier vowed. On Monday, Philadelphia Sheriff Ralph C. Passio III avoided a contempt of court citation by Maier and assigned a deputy sheriff permanently to the judge's courtroom. Maier is the first city judge to have a deputy sheriff stationed in his courtroom while it is in session.

It was a discussion about race and opportunity and how this country's most elite educational institutions could fulfill the American promise of equality. And it took place in a courtroom whose own lack of diversity reflects the very problem at issue. One of the most striking truths in the Supreme Court's consideration of the University of Michigan's affirmative-action policies is the fact that the court remains one of America's least integrated public forums. Much like Michigan or other premier American colleges and universities, the high court is an elite institution that historically has been out of reach for black people - and reminders of that history have yet to fully dissipate.

Until last year, the courtroom in the Gloucester County Courthouse had resembled a classroom where visitors sat in wooden theater chairs beneath the glare of fluorescent lights. Now dark cherrywood benches line the room, which is set aglow by a brass chandelier that hangs from the domed ceiling. On Tuesday, a ceremony will mark the opening of the refurbished courtroom and end the first phase of the $2.1 million renovation of the 115-year-old courthouse and its 66-year-old annex on Broad and Delaware Streets in Woodbury.

Carlos Stokes has gone to court this day to attend a hearing for his younger brother. No big deal, just a favor for his mom. He is sitting in the back of the courtroom, watching while another hearing is going on. Something about a shooting in the Abbottsford Homes in East Falls. This hearing has nothing to do with him. At first. Joey Grant, the assistant district attorney, is questioning a witness. "Do you see the man that shot you, the first person that shot you, here in the courtroom?"

The murder hearing was over, but the fight was just beginning. Lawyers for accused killers Aaron Tymes, 20, and Jamal Parker, 19, were asking Municipal Judge James M. DeLeon for bail for their clients yesterday. But some noisy friends of the defendants, who had been warned earlier about using their portable telephones and beepers in the courtroom, became disruptive. One of them, Marlin Owens, 20, was ordered to leave the room, and as he was being escorted out by sheriff's deputies Warren Lawrence and Barry Walton, other pals gathered around menacingly.

Hillary Transue was in the 10th grade when she found herself in Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr.'s courtroom on a harassment charge. She had created a fictitious MySpace page attributed to an assistant principal. It was a prank. The principal's hobbies on the social networking website included "collecting Johnny Depp's underwear," Transue said. She showed up at the Luzerne County courthouse in 2007 with her mother, Laurene, who had figured that a public defender would be there to help.

George Gomez lost his cool yesterday when the man accused of killing Gomez's brother entered a courtroom for a hearing. Gomez, 20, slipped through a security door leading to the glass-enclosed front of the courtroom, and leaped on the suspect, David Velasquez, 17, knocking him to the floor and sending chairs scattering. Velasquez appeared stunned as Gomez began punching and wrestling with him on the floor. Court Crier Richard Brandt dived into the fracas and put a choke hold on Gomez.

In other courtrooms, witnesses testified about murder, drugs and theft. But it was Phillies centerfielder Lenny Dykstra in Courtroom 2 who grabbed everyone's attention in the Chester County Courthouse yesterday. No, Dykstra has not run afoul of the law. The Devon resident's visit to West Chester concerned a civil appeal of his plans to build a Dykstra's Car Wash in Tredyffrin. The zoning board there had rejected his car wash plans, saying that the proposed 33,000-square-foot facility - complete with automated car wash, vacuum cleaners and, of course, baseball memorabilia - was too big for the plot he has purchased at the busy intersection of East Swedesford and Valley Forge Roads.