Snapshot: A Day At Family Court
By Erin Miles Cloud
Snapshots From the Road is a series of brief reflections from CRC staff and people we’re in community with, dispatched in the moment from across the country. Through this series we aim to spotlight the vast amount of harm that the US legal system causes every single day in jails, prisons, courtrooms, and more, that often goes unnoticed. We also hope to capture and share moments of community resilience and joy as we fight to build a better world.
Court Watching in Family Court
December 18th, 2023
We were in a group of about 20 people. We met in the morning. We came to support a father who had been fighting for his child for over 3 years. A father who uprooted his life for his child, fought for connection with his son, and had righteous rage at the State.
The father quietly stood outside the courtroom. He was waiting: waiting for his attorney, waiting for the court to open, and waiting for his son to come home. It was the type of quiet that carves out space for stress, anxiety, and also hope. We met up with more people, and eventually, the few of us turned into a small crowd. We didn’t talk much. Many of us didn’t know each other. The hallway was filled with that strange “I think I know you, but not really” energy. The type of energy that allows social anxiety to flourish. We were all connected and disconnected at the same time.
We had come to support a family, and our mere presence felt oppositional to the starkly empty hallways. Every so often you’d hear someone in our group laugh. You’d see people huddling together to think through an idea. It might have been awkward, but it was community in a building designed to separate.
We weren’t alone. Observing us were seven men with guns. The security unit was likely sent to quell this court watching. This gathering. This group of parents, advocates, lawyers, community members. I watched them watch us, wondering what these people think we are plotting. Do they know that the night before people came together to think of ways to make kids safe? Do they know that many of the people here to court watch were people who had already been in those courtrooms and subjected to their lawlessness? Do they know that local activists dream of a community center for families to heal? They might. And sometimes I think it is the healing, it is the community, it is the transformation of awkward stranger turning into colleague and comrade of which they are most afraid.
Do they know that local activists dream of a community center for families to heal?
Within 30 minutes, we learned that we would have to come back later that day. It was curious that the father’s lawyer didn’t tell him until he arrived at court. Was he working with the court to undermine the collective power? Is this why he didn’t tell him? Was he more comfortable with the judge than with his client? As a lawyer I think a lot about how we normalize the Court and its demands — we may whisper to our friends that judges are unreasonable but fail to back up the righteous screams of the people it most hurts. What would it mean for him to walk with his client? What would it take for us all to be less afraid?
Most of us left the court together at that time. The father left with his lawyer. I felt grateful for that. I had heard that the father had been trying so hard to meet with his lawyer. I was happy they would at least have some time to truly talk.
We waited to come back to court. I have learned that it is not in our actions, but in our waiting that we find the most resolve. We went to a community room in an apartment building that our local partner had booked (brilliant organizing). We sat on chairs, fell asleep, felt the sunlight, ate snacks, and did interviews. By 2:30, we weren’t friends, but we certainly weren’t strangers.
We came back to the courthouse ready to “watch”. We wanted to show up to let this child know that he wasn’t alone. We wanted the father to know that he was heard. We also wanted to show the court we were ready. Ready to make changes. Ready to support this family. Ready to bear witness to the story of this family.
The white woman that supposedly represents this young Black child asked to kick us out. I don’t know if she ever asked this child what he wanted. I don’t know if she cares that his father wanted support and transparency. I heard her talk more about kicking us out, than about the screams of her client who desperately and clearly said he loved his father and wanted to go home.
Less than 15 minutes later, the judge kicked us out of the courtroom. Kicked out by a judge who certainly hadn’t sat with the community the night before. A judge who certainly did not hear people’s dreams of family, community healing, and investment. A judge, who could only imagine that the child’s cries and the father’s rage was a plot for exploitation.
She closed the courtroom, on the basis that the social media post that announced the tragedy at issue in this hearing was “exploitative.” Was it exploitative to bring together a community? Was it exploitative that people from the community were so moved by the child’s pain that we came to make sure that the system that said it would “protect” him would actually protect him?
I don’t think that parents have to do everything they are told to do, but this father did. He followed the rules, did the programs, and met with “the people”. They still didn’t give him his kids. What would you do then? What would anyone do? Do you just stay silent for three years and listen to your child scream for you? I don’t get it. To me, reaching out, talking to the press, going to social media — isn’t that what those things are for? Isn’t that responsible parenting? I don’t know what more Black parents can do to make people listen. This wasn’t exploitation, this was parenting at its highest and most caring peak.
We also wanted to show the court we were ready. Ready to make changes. Ready to support this family. Ready to bear witness to the story of this family.
She wanted us out, and I truly believe she feels to her core that kicking out community support is the morally right thing to do. She has no idea who we are, who the organizers are — she knows the system better than the people in the room, and it shows.
But she cannot take away what was built, what was organized, and what was shared — the clarity of the organizing, the seedlings of relationship, and the witnessing of true parenting. That is our power.
Erin Miles Cloud is a Senior Staff Attorney at Civil Rights Corps. She investigates and litigates issues relating to family separation in the criminal-legal and family-regulation systems, and is the mother of two beautiful children.
