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Disabilities act creates obstruction of justices

Making courtrooms accessible for all proves to be a lot harder than some might imagine

April 10, 2004|By Trine Tsouderos, Tribune staff reporter.

The ADA requires witness stands, jury boxes, spectator seats, court reporter positions and even the judge's bench to be accessible to wheelchairs, said Dave Yanchulis, spokesman for the U.S. Access Board. Often, lifts or ramps are used, though both can pose problems, Zimring said. Lifts are expensive and used so rarely staff members often forget how to work them, and ramps can be only so steep, so they wind up being exceptionally long, he said.

Those who objected to the changes in Courtroom 103 argued that actually seeing witnesses is essential to determine if they are telling the truth.

For better or worse, trials are, in part, theater, Zimring said.

"On the one hand, both a judge and a jury must judge the truthfulness of the witness, and part of that is based on the witness' demeanor," he said. "On the other side, these appearances are often not true. People are often persuaded by performances that are not supported by the bulk of the evidence."

Upsetting the hierarchy of the courtroom by lowering judge's benches to accommodate lifts or wheelchair ramps also is a sticky issue, said Denis Pratt, a federal Access Board member and chairman of its committee on courthouse design.

"It would be more practical and easier to make a judge's bench, jury box and witness stand ADA-compliant if they weren't as high," Pratt said. But sometimes, he said, judges are unwilling to vary from tradition, and they resist efforts to lower the bench.

Laws requiring that buildings be accessible to the disabled have been on the books for decades, culminating in the ADA in 1990, which gave governments until 1995 to make public buildings compliant or explain why not. But even now, questions remain in many jurisdictions about who will force local courthouses to comply and who will pay for the work, Holzer said.