i was sitting outside a courtroom at the h. carl moultrie i courthouse this morning, waiting for the day’s list of cases to be posted on the courtroom door. i was there on a minor matter — requesting a stay in a landlord/tenant case pending an agency decision. two women sat down in the seats next to me, and began talking.

“i just want to go to my apartment at night, go to work in the morning. i ain’t seen nothing, i ain’t heard nothing. they don’t bother me, i don’t bother them. i ain’t talk to nobody.”

their conversation fascinated me. the woman who did most of the speaking told her companion about how she left her apartment to find her car had been shot up “by an AK, really big holes” during the night, but the bullets had missed her grandbaby’s carseat. about how her mother had raised her son, and she didn’t get involved when her mother disciplined him. about how she got a call at work that her daughter had been murdered, “but i didn’t freak out or nothing, i mean, i was a little upset, but if she dead, nothing i can do.” it turned out that a woman fitting her daughter’s description had indeed been killed, but it was someone else. she didn’t express any relief. “she’s grown, 20. she knows she shouldn’t be out there, walking the streets at all hours of the night. i told her not to bring that stuff to my house.”

i have no idea why the women were in court this morning. i don’t think they were there for any cases in my courtroom, which seemed to be handling short administrative matters — a continuance in an auto accident case (an agency issue, where the wrong company had been named defendant), an assignment of a wrongful death case to track 3 mediation (fall at a construction site), another l&t case besides mine. i was happy to watch the lawyers in the cases called before mine — it takes a lot of the mystery (and apprehension) out of the process when the both lawyers in the case before you are standing in for other lawyers, and one of them was obviously handed the case that morning and didn’t have time to review the file.

my own appearance was straightforward — the clerks were very nice, the judge seemed happy to see a law student in court, opposing counsel agreed to reschedule for early may. but as i left the courtroom with my supervisor and my client, i couldn’t help but wonder about the two women.