It was the loudest, most intense silence I had ever heard. At the front of the courtroom, U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs sat, listening. To the right, the federal prosecutor looked on impassively, having just asked for a sentence of 37 months in prison. On the left, the defendant stood, supported by her court-appointed lawyer and doing her best to struggle through her final statement before her sentencing, the silence intermittently broken by her rapidly spoken Spanish blending in with the softly-spoken English of her interpreter.
It was the loudest, most intense silence I had ever heard. At the front of the courtroom, U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs sat, listening. To the right, the federal prosecutor looked on impassively, having just asked for a sentence of 37 months in prison. On the left, the defendant stood, supported by her court-appointed lawyer and doing her best to struggle through her final statement before her sentencing, the silence intermittently broken by her rapidly spoken Spanish blending in with the softly-spoken English of her interpreter. And in the back of the room, in the witness gallery, myself and 11 other Groton students sat, watching right beside the defendant’s husband and family.
At last, the defendant finished her statement, and Judge Burroughs began the unenviable task of sentencing her. She was to spend a year on house arrest and another two on supervised release. No prison time. The defendant was indicted and pled guilty to transporting 9 kilograms of fentanyl and 2 kilograms of heroin across state lines and storing said drugs in her home. But because of the nature of her familial and financial situation, her uncle’s coercion, her two years of good behavior during the ongoing trial, and her two-year-old son, Judge Burroughs was inclined towards a more lenient sentence, or at least that’s what she explained to us when she met with our class afterward.
How did this happen? How did a High School Constitutional Law class get the opportunity to visit a federal courthouse (the Moakley Courthouse)? Yesterday, Mr. Lyons, who was classmates at Middlebury with Judge Burroughs and had taught Katherine Walker-Jacks, who was clerking for a judge at Moakley, arranged for us to visit the Massachusetts District Court. We saw a bit of everything. We listened to a plea deal in the morning, in which the defendant––Mr. Wilkerson––pled guilty to illegally manufacturing and distributing 20 machine gun parts (3D printed and bright purple). Afterward, we listened to the closing arguments of United States v. Nicholas Hoar, a police brutality case all over the local news, before finally hearing the above sentencing.
This trip was fun, to be sure, getting an inside look at our Judicial process and being able to meet and pick the brains of a law clerk and a district judge. But above all, it was eye-opening. It was educational, seeing lawyers make their arguments to the jury and hearing Judge Burrough’s thoughts directly afterward. It was heartbreaking to see a 35-year-old woman, one who made a stupid mistake and whose life was about to irrevocably change, break down crying during her sentencing. It was enlightening to see how Judge Burroughs took into account said defendant’s situation, punishing her to the required extent under the law, but also showing empathy and consideration for her and her family.