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COURIER L 12 IFE, JAN. 11–17, 2019 DT
BY COLIN MIXSON
Talk about throwing the book
at ‘em!
Do-good attorneys with the
Legal Aid Society are stocking
a Kings County courtroom
with books of all sorts, giving
young defendants an opportunity
to entertain — and educate
— themselves during the
sometimes hours-long waits
for their cases to be heard, according
to a local judge.
“What better way to help
stimulate a mind than to
provide a book,” said Kings
County Supreme Court Justice
Craig Walker, who worked
with the Society to launch its
new reading program.
The legal eagles installed
the bookshelf at Brooklyn’s
Young Adult Diversion courtroom
inside Downtown’s
Criminal Court building on
Schermerhorn Street, where
some defendants between the
ages of 16 and 24 are given opportunities
to perform community
service to avoid criminal
convictions.
The new stacks hold some
200 books, whose titles include
comedian Trevor Noah’s
“Born a Crime,” rapper
Jay-Z’s “Decoded,” and Ta-Nehisi
Coates’s award-winning
“Between the World and Me,”
which picked up the 2015 National
Book Award for nonfi ction
among other honors.
The hundreds of titles came
free of charge from generous
bookworms at publishing company
Penguin Random House,
which partnered with the Society
on the project.
And defendants who get
lost in a good story needn’t
worry about fi nishing it during
their time at the courthouse,
because the books are
free to take and keep, according
to an attorney that helped
get the effort off the ground,
who said Penguin Random
House will regularly replenish
the stacks’ selection.
“We are excited to partner
with Penguin Random House
on this pilot,” said Society
staff lawyer Noor Ahmad.
Getting the books into the
courtroom didn’t simply require
installing a shelf for
them, however. Attorneys
with the pro-bono Society
spent nearly two years winning
support for their scheme
from judges, many of whom
have strict policies outlawing
books — and cellphones, newspapers,
and other forms of casual
entertainment — within
their chambers.
And the jurists weren’t the
only ones who needed convincing.
Many court offi cers
worried bringing books into
a courtroom might result in
some unruly defendants using
them as a weapons, according
to Society spokesman Redmond
Haskins, who said the
reading program fi nally got
green-lit in October, and that
bailiffs were some of the fi rst
to recognize its benefi ts after
the stacks arrived.
“A court offi cer said the
books are fl ying off the shelf,”
Haskins said.
The Society is already looking
to expand the program to
courtrooms across the city following
the successful debut of
the Brooklyn bookshelf, according
to Ahmad.
MADE IT HAPPEN: Justice Craig
Walker worked with the do-good
Society to install the bookshelf.
File photo by Stefano Giovannini
BOOK ‘EM: The courtroom bookshelf is stocked with titles defendants
can freely take. Legal Aid Society
The right to read
Courtroom stacks offer free books to defendants