The sounds of court | Norman Douglas

Law360 Canada (April 8, 2025, 11:21 AM EDT) --

Norman Douglas

I am retired. I live alone. When I am in my rented condo, the silence is deafening.

My mind hears the cavalry officer riding with his troops through the canyon. His sergeant whispers: “It sure is quiet here, captain.” And the captain, scanning the cliffs above, nods warily and replies: “Yes, sergeant ... too quiet.”

Before I began my nearly 50-year career in courtrooms all over Ontario, I worked every summer from 1963-1970 to help (along with student loans) pay my way through university.

For three of those summers, from mid-May to the first week of September, I was fortunate enough to make good money at the Algoma Steel plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Good money but ear-damaging noise.

I worked in various mills: emptying railcars of heavy splice bars to feed them into the machines that stamped boltholes through them; as a “hooker” blocking off plates of steel (with wooden planks) so the magnet cranes could place them one on top of the other; and in an asbestos suit and face mask looping and crimping huge coils of steel as they rolled out from the hot end to the cold end of the 106-inch mill.

The noise of the steel plant stays with you as you punch out at the gate when your shift ends. The grinding cutting sounds of the hot saws, the wailing siren of the cranes as they roll on their tracks above you, the constant banging and crashing of steel plates, the whirring cries of all the machines that keep the steel moving, and the shouts of the foremen (no forewomen back in those days) giving directions to the inexperienced summer students: “Hurry up, we’re on incentive here, get moving.” When I left my steelworker days behind for other summer jobs (teaching Grade 12 English at summer school, reporting and broadcasting at CJIC television, and driving cab at night to complete my 16-hour workday), I did not miss the sounds of the steel plant.

But strangely, I do miss the sounds of the courtroom. I say “strangely” because until retirement, I never gave any thought to them.

Most Canadians have never been inside a criminal courtroom. They have seen them on television because crime is rampant in all the media nowadays.

Some of you readers, even though your chosen profession is the law, have never seen the inside of a criminal courtroom. Most Canadians have not unless they were called for jury duty, have been a witness or were regrettably an accused or the victim of a crime.

If you were a Grade 12 student at one of Guelph, Ont.’s five high schools from 1996 to 2016, you would have been in courtroom number two with your law class on occasion.

One of you approached me in London, Ont., six years ago. You told me you were a lawyer, and that the day you decided you wanted to be one was the day I came to your Grade 12 law class in Guelph and played the game You Be the Judge.

So, what are the “sounds” of the criminal courtroom? You need to know the layout first. There are five areas:


At the side of the room up near the lawyers and judge is the “prisoner’s box.” A door at the entrance to the long bench here leads from the cell area to this sitting place for the accused who are in custody (glassed in and guarded by two court constables). If an accused has made bail, they are in the body of the court or maybe waiting out in the hallway for their name to be called.

Now you need the overview of a typical day in court. Most criminal courts start at 10 a.m., but some earlier. Guelph started at 9:30 and drug treatment court was set for 9.

Most family and friends of the accused or of the victims, or witnesses who are subpoenaed to be there, arrive early because they are usually quite nervous and do not want to be late. Most lawyers are usually in the room early as well. Especially if they know the particular judge sitting that day will be opening court on the dot and expects them to have the courtesy of not keeping the public waiting.

So here are the first sounds of the courtroom each day. In the gallery, there is an anticipated murmuring, a tense whispering. At the lawyers’ tables, greetings, hearty exchanges and laughter as they strut their confident postures before their opponents and the watching public. The reporter and the clerk (the backbone of the organization) are scurrying, setting up equipment, getting the paperwork in order, making sure everything is ready to go. I guess I would call this the “buzz” before court opens.

The clerk leaves through the door next to the dais. The lawyers take their seats. Anticipation silences the crowd. The door opens, the clerk marches in and yells, “Order!” or “All rise!” The lawyers rise to their feet and the frightened folks in the “body” of the room jump to theirs. And here comes the judge.

In the courts in which I presided for 20 years in Guelph and five years in the London area (notice I never referred to it as “my court”), I would follow the clerk out of my (it was my) office — the courtroom was Her (now His) Majesty’s. I would mount the three steps to my chair, bow to the lawyers, smile and announce “Please be seated” as I took my seat.

After saying good morning to the lawyers, I would turn to the Crown and invite her or him to call the first case. I would call this the “overture.”

The remainder of the day involves the lawyers making the most noise. I would call this the “BS.” The judge referees by interjecting or asking questions, and has the floor for his or her rulings and decisions and judgments.

The witnesses tell their stories. The victims are sometimes victimized again in the witness box. The accused sometimes decide to give their evidence (although in many cases their lawyers choose not to call them to testify).

Generally, then, the “noise” always comes from the small portion of the room reserved for the players. Never from those watching the action from the gallery. Or hardly ever. Stay tuned.

Now there is another type of courtroom I worked in during my 21 years as a Crown prosecutor. This was a larger room, so 12 seats could be allocated for the jury.

In Ontario, jury cases are heard by a Superior Court judge. There were other sounds heard in these courtrooms.

Now let me tell you about some of the more unusual sounds that are seared in my memory:

As a prosecutor:

• The self-represented accused man who rose from his seat at the counsel table (he was allowed to sit there as he was his own lawyer), stood beside me as I sat there trying to look unconcerned, pointed his finger two inches from my face and angrily berated me for a full minute before the court constable reacted. That same accused man, about a year later, told a friend he was going to kill himself either at my house or his ex-girlfriend’s. He shot himself in the head on her doorstep.
• The woman who swooned and fainted in the prisoner’s box, crashing to the floor as the jury announced “not guilty” to her manslaughter charge. The outcry from the body of the courtroom when the foreperson of the jury told the judge they were confused and meant to say “guilty.” Her cry of anguish when she was revived and advised of the guilty verdict. (This was the case of R. v. Schell and Paquette — it was a joint charge of killing a child, and the jury found them jointly guilty but was confused when asked individually what their verdict was.) I wasn’t privy to know what sounds they made when the Court of Appeal overturned their convictions.
  
• The day the Ottawa police SWAT team burst into the courtroom startling me and the high school class that was there for a talk I was giving. I had been giving them a tour of the unused room, explaining much of what I have explained here. I had pointed out the hidden buzzer underneath the judge’s chair. (Most courtrooms have an emergency connection to the police station that the judge can press for immediate assistance.) It seems one of the students on the tour couldn’t resist.

As a judge:

• The lawyer who yelled at me that I was “nuts” and “crazy” and said, “I will never appear before you again.” (If you want to know how that all came about and what happened afterward, it’s one of the cases referred to in my book.)
  
• The applause and cheers from the gallery. This occurred during the drug treatment court I helped institute in Guelph. One of the cocaine-addicted candidates had successfully completed the 18-month program. That involved weekly attendances to a 9 a.m. court to update me on how his week had gone, regular blood testing, counselling, curfews, performing well at a job arranged by the team and, of course, staying out of trouble. We would hold a graduation ceremony for those who made it, in the courtroom, inviting family and friends of the graduates along with the whole team who had helped them. All charges were completed with a “one day deemed served” sentence — sometimes a probation order — but they had avoided a lengthy prison term. No wonder on this occasion, there was a happy outburst when he finished his remarks.

I could go on but want to end on the final sound I live with.

At the end of the day, when the cases have been heard, the people have gone home, some of the accused have gone to jail, the staff have tidied up and I have gone back to my chambers, I would take off my robe and court attire, get into my incognito clothes — usually jeans, cowboy boots, and a shirt and blazer — and sometimes go back into the empty courtroom.

I would just stand there for a minute thinking about whether I had accomplished anything worthwhile that day. I would go over that day’s highlights in my mind.

The silence of the room was deafening.

I miss it.

Norman Douglas is a retired criminal court judge with 27.5 years of experience on the bench. His book, You Be the Judge, was published in December 2023.

The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.   

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