My experience belies the writer’s statement about the fair and unbiased rule of the Judge.
I wish the writer’s description “The judge conducts the trial fairly and is not biased towards the defence or the prosecution. The function of the judge is to aid the jury with their expertise knowledge, without attempting to influence the jury by using their authority. The judge controls the trial from beginning to end, which is like a referee in a sports game who controls the game from beginning to end. The judge interferes during the trial using his authority to make sure the trial is fairly conducted and both sides stay within the rules.” was always true.
I represented myself in a medical malpractice case, after my lawyer had done such a terrible job other lawyers wanted to sue her but refused to take the case because of the mess in which she had left it.
The defendant, Dr, Peter J. Jannetta, is a “bigshot” in Pittsburgh, Pa. The surgery he performs is called the Jannetta Procedure.
He paralyzed my face and caused such scar tissue damage that no one else was able to go back in and try and “fix” me in the area they needed to go.
I wont go into the details other than to say there was proof of :”ghost surgery” as well as negligence and malpractice.
The 2 Judges involved were outright nasty to me in both conferences and in the courtroom.
When I asked for sanctions against opposing counsel; he had not replied to interrogatories (questions to be answered on paper) way past the alloted time. If opposing counsel does not come to court to contest the request, it is then granted.
Instead the judge made me literally sit in a corner and he had his court officer call opposing counsel to come to the courtroom.
I was made to wait over 20 minutes until she came at which time the judge asked her if she had a problem with my request against her. She said “No” and he then ordered the interrogatories to be answered within a certain period of additional time or sanctions would apply.
Another Judge, not involved directly, took me aside one day and told me how much he thought the case was worth without an attorney. He said he did not want me to proceed without an attorney. To that end he told me to try and find one (altho could not and that why proceeding Pro Se, which I explained to him.) and he would order a continuance in the case.
When opposing counsel and I went before the original judge he said the trial would start the following week. neither counsel nor I was prepared as we had the continuance.
The Judge said he did not care about the continuance (which was legal) and that trial was to start the following week.
The trial judge refused to allow me to present the perjurious testimony of the defendant.
In 2 depositions he said facial paralysis was a “major and common complication.”
He then said on the stand, to my direct question, that it was “unknown”>
I asked him which was true as all 3 statements were said under oath and the Judge would not allow the question.
The Superior Court of Pa called his testimony perjurious and the Supreme Court agreed sending the case back to the lower original court.
As officers of the Court, any and all of those judges should have referred the perjury to the criminal division. None did.
As far as I am concerned the oath judges take and the belief that they are fair and impartial is no more than a fairy tale in many cases.
You can see it on TV with Anna Nicole or other celebrity cases or even in those where it is a ‘nobody’ against a local ‘name’.