Court Monitoring

What is court monitoring?

Court monitoring groups share a common belief: Public scrutiny of the courts is essential to ensure the courts are fair and just.

WATCH’s court monitoring program has these components:

• Trained volunteers observe court hearings every day and report what they see
• Research projects look closely at specific courts, like domestic violence court; or certain types of hearings, like probation revocation hearings, to document how they are handled
• Staff work with advocates and court committees to push for change
• We make our findings public through our newsletter, website and the media

Court monitoring groups focus on issues such as:

• violence against women and children
• racial disparities
• drunk driving
• police brutality
• teenage domestic violence
• how judges conduct themselves in court

Why monitor the courts?

It is the only way the public can know what is going on and be a voice for change. The legal system plays a significant role dealing with violence in our society, and must be accountable for its actions. The presence of observers in the courtroom sends the message that the public cares what happens there. A judge had this to say about WATCH, “They hold up a mirror [to us]…and sometimes we don’t like what we see.”

Observing hearings day after day provides a picture of a local justice system and its procedures and practices. Independent court monitoring groups are in a unique position to document problems and make recommendations. We work closely with the courts but are not part of them.

WATCH promotes court monitoring across the country because it works. Some things we have accomplished:

• Released The Impact of Minnesota’s Felony Strangulation Law, a review of domestic strangulation cases following passage of new legislation in 2005
• Published Victim Impact Statements at Sentencing: Do They Matter? a collaborative research study on how judges respond to input from crime victims
• Formed the Hennepin County Fatality Review Task Force which review domestic homicides and tries to close loopholes and prevent further deaths (please link to the fatality review team website or latest report)
• Supported the county in establishing a specific Domestic Violence court and making child protection court open to the public