Alexandra Metcalfe

Court Observation
4/2/14
On Friday, March 7th I visited the Monroe Country Court of the 7th Judicial District in
Rochester, NY. I observed a trial under Judge Ciaccio, who was the ruling judge in the case that
was charging Marcus Holmes with two counts of robbery in the second degree. For my two
hours of observation, I observed the closing arguments of both the defendants lawyer, Ms.
Turner, and the plaintiffs lawyer to the jury. I knew they were closing arguments because both
lawyers were summarizing the facts which were presented at earlier dates in the trial, and they
were only stating facts that would help their side win. Also after each lawyer made their
argument, the Judge told the jury the guidelines the must follow to convict the defendant of his
charges and I know that closing arguments are the last thing the jury hears before they start to
deliberate the trial and choose a verdict.
The case being tried is a violent criminal case, because robbery falls under a criminal act.
Since Holmes is being tried in the second degree of robbery, if convicted, it would be a felony,
and he could be looking at more than a year in prison. The degree of a crime means the level of
pain and suffering experienced by the victim who in this case is Jesse Green. Usually, robbery in
the second degree means that either a weapon was present and used during the act of robbery, or
there was another person who aided in the robbery. To charge the Holmes with this felony, the
plaintiff must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants commit both accounts of
robbery he is being charged with. The first account of robbery being charged is that the
defendant was aided by another when the defendant forcibly stole property from the plaintiff.

The second count of robbery being charged is that physical injury was caused, by the defendant,
during the robbery which was sustained by the plaintiff.
For the first account, the prosecutor had to prove there was force, something was stolen,
and there was another person who was present and aided in the stealing of property. Force, in
this case was described as the use of threats and physical contact for the owner to give up or for
a person to take the property of the owner. Steal or stole is the intent to deprive a person of
their property, and the wrongful taking of that property. Holmes and his partner Colby Smith,
stated by the prosecutor used force one Jesse, as they pulled his arms, punched him and forced
him to the ground. After he was on the ground they stole from Jesses pockets $502 and two cell
phones. The defendant tried to show that there was no burden of proof that Holmes took part of
the robbery that he was a bystander as Colby Smith was the one who forcibly stole from Jesse. If
Ms. Turner could prove this, Holmes could not be convicted of his first count of robbery.
However, the judge and prosecutor states that a person only has to aid in the robbery, or be
present and able and ready to assist in the robbery.
The second account, the prosecutor had to prove that Jesse Green sustained physical
injury during the robbery. The reason this account is second is because in order to convict
Holmes of this account, they first need to determine if he actually performed or aided in the
robbery, which is what the first account states. During the trial, to prove physical harm, the
prosecutor showed evidence in the form of pictures to show the injuries Jesse sustained on his
face. You could clearly see that he had a broken nose and substantial cuts and gashes to his
forehead. She also restated the evidence of a bloody scarf that the plaintiff was wearing the night
he was robbed and beaten. Ms. Turner did not state much on the injuries Jesse sustained, but
focused mostly on the facts that Holmes did not aid in the robbery, and that knowing who both

Jesse and Colby is, is not a burden of proof that Holmes took part of the robbery. She also
highlighted a lot on the fact that after the police showed up, Jesse would not give the full names
of the men that robbed him because he did not know why two guys who he has known would
jump him and violate his trust. This could show that Jesse took the time to think up names or that
he did not want to press charges in the first place. There were no witnesses to the crime so it
could be true that Jesse made up names or did not get a clear look at the two men who robbed
him as it was dark and he was robbed in a parking lot that was not well lit.
Though I was not able to hear what the jurys verdict was, I believe that Marcus Holmes
would have been found guilty of both robbery charges. Based on the evidence presented, it puts
Holmes and Smith with Jesse in the parking lot after a night in the bar at the time Jesse was
robbed, and through Jesses statement and the other facts shown, it is beyond a reasonable doubt
that both Holmes and Smith aided in the robbery.
This observation, though confusing at the beginning, started to make a lot of sense
because I knew a lot of the terminology that was used. I am very happy I got to see the closing
arguments because it summarized the facts just as I have been doing with case briefs. It was like
a verbal case brief. Through the statements and the judges closing speech, I got a better
understanding of how the court uses the terminology to convict a person of a robbery crime.
Many words like force we have described in class but it was interesting to see what they
considered force and how similar and different it was to our word of force. I also got a better
understanding of how a degree of a crime works and how a person could be convicted of more
than one account of a crime even though he only performed one criminal action. It was a very
useful tool and it made me understand more on how a trial is conducted.