If you want to see where the problems of unaffordable housing and low wages and poor education play out every day, go to Detroit's 36th District Court he first time I went to Detroit’s 36th District Court, I didn’t know the drill. Most people don’t know the drill the first time they go. A lawyer I’d met agreed to accompany me. He went in the side door, reserved for attorneys and court staff. I joined the long line at the main entrance, waiting to pass through the metal detectors and have my bag scanned. No cell phones, the guard told me. Put it in your car. I waved the lawyer back outside. He was due in court, and his car was blocks away. Give me the phone, he said. I’ll bring it in. I returned to the line. You can’t bring in that hair clip, the guard told me. Just throw it out, I said. I scooped my bag off the belt and joined the lawyer, who was standing where the entryway carpet meets the linoleum, near a line of people snaking through a rope maze, waiting to pay tickets. I was intimidated and upset, and I’d been at the 36th less than five minutes. The lawyer and I rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, where he walked me to room 421. Room 421 is where people who are facing eviction, foreclosure, and other real-estate matters find out what courtroom to go to. They wait for their name to be called, and since there are a lot of cases, the wait can be long. Squeezed into the back corner was a small plastic table with four plastic chairs where children can play. On the wall, a sign, in large capital letters, admonished that NO STANDING is allowed. The six rows of black pleather chairs were all taken. Outside in the hallway, people sat on benches and the floor. The 36th District Court occupies the Madison Center Building, which was built in the early 1980s in an architectural style that might be called Federal brutalist. A massive cement box that takes up a city block, it is 6 stories high and contains 32 courtrooms. All the floors look the same. No signs tell you where to go or how to figure out where to go. The hallways are long and have dirty beige walls, the only light coming from the smudged windows at either end. I escaped room 421, went into the bathroom, shut myself into one of the two cubicles with a lock, which barely held the beaten metal door closed, and took some deep breaths. I splashed some water on my face and realized there were no paper towels, just a hand dryer that barely functioned. I felt overdressed in a button-down shirt, and out of place, and I was. But Mosby’s Judge Judy star turn was a portal to an alternate universe in another sense. It was another sample of a wholly imaginary version of our justice system as it is racially choreographed for the daytime-TV cameras. In this world, black plaintiffs like Mosby are treated respectfully, and win ready vindication. And still more strikingly, black judges preside over a disproportionate number of these people’s courts, dispensing out judgments that white and privileged petitioners must abide by. It takes but a cursory glance at the news headlines, and the course of legal history in this country, to realize that this is a nearly complete photographic negative of the actual state of things when it comes to the intersection race and procedural justice. So when Mosby stepped forward for her post-verdict interview, it was more than a bit discombobulating to hear today’s besieged Charm City DA burbling in gratitude. “I tried to speak to the D.A., I’ve spoken to police officers, and finally Judge Judy,” the undergrad Mosby enthused. “She, finally, gave me justice!”

• published: 17 Jul 2015
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