| As Jury
Trials Restart in SDNY NY Post Driver
Testifies in Plexiglass Witness Box for 2d
Day
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Sept 30 – The first jury
trial for months began on
September 29 in the U.S.
District Court for the
Southern District of New York,
and Inner City Press went,
masked, to cover it.
Newspaper
delivery drivers had sued the
New York Post, then the
Newspaper and Mail Deliverer's
Union of New York and
Vicinity. In the trial before
SDNY Judge P. Kevin Castel, a
union official sat in a
plexiglass box being
questioned.
Before he
went into the box, he told
Inner City Press that this new
set up did not seem
fair. A jury of
eight, all women, had been
selected.
The jury
box had been extended into the
entire northern half of the
gallery of Courtroom 26B,
rising up such that a fence
was built around it. Behind
the fence was a bench, with
two Sit Here stickers on it.
But if you sat there, you
could not see the witness,
judge or
lawyers.
Same too with the TV monitor
to show witnesses. It is now
blocked by the expanded jury
box such that the press and
public can't see it. (This is
all a work in progress).
In this trial it
might not matter, as the
exhibits are copies of the
Collective Bargaining
Agreement. But in other
trials, it might
matter.
Still, much work
has done into preparing this
courtroom, and it is to Judge
Castel's credit that he forged
away. In the summer he held an
in-person suppression
hearing about a gun in a house
in The Bronx.
During a
break in the proceedings,
Inner City Press called in to
another SDNY case, where the
judge was mentioning the civil
jury trial that had begun.
So it is a
work in progress, and all to
the good. Inner City Press
would only add that, unlike
for an EDNY sentencing on
September 30, over Inner City
Press' docketed objection, here,
telephone access should remain
for the foreseeable future,
given COVID.
On Day 2 of
this trial on September 30, a
woman who worked delivering
the New York Post until she
was injured by the truck was
in the plexiglass witness box.
The questioning was
interrupted by objections,
most of them overruled.
Following Inner City Press'
coverage, it appears that one
or more wire services will
cover the trial. It continues.
This case is
Sussman et al v. Newspaper and
Mail Deliverer's Union of New
York and Vicinity, 16-cv-7659
(Castel)
***
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