One Bloke’s Verdict on U.S. Court Scene: Jolly Good Show

Forget Disneyland, Universal Studios or the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

William Phelps, a 74-year-old Englishman who vacations two weeks each year in Los Angeles with his son, insists there’s no better place to spend his holiday than watching criminal trials in Santa Monica Superior Court.

For the past five years, Phelps has left his wife at their son’s Hollywood home playing with the grandkids each day while he has taken a 40-minute bus ride to the seaside courthouse.

Phelps, who lives on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England and home to 125,000 people, says he has learned far more about America spending his time in the courthouse than by visiting amusement parks.

“I’m absolutely fascinated with it,” he said in a gravelly working-class accent. “It’s better than the movies, because it’s reality.”

Nattily dressed in a crisp white shirt, red argyle vest and blue pinstriped slacks, the old gent was an unimposing figure in the bustling courthouse last week as his vacation wound down.

He chatted up the bailiffs and clerks with ease, pumping them for the location of the most sensational trials.

Once Phelps selected a case, he set up camp in the front row of the spectator gallery, leaning forward on the edge of his seat, sometimes cupping his hands behind his ears to hear better, his steely gray eyes watching the proceedings more intently than many jurors.

From the daily dramas he has witnessed, he has concluded that America is a violent, racist country. Why else, he asks, are 75% of the defendants black and why else do so many of the cases involve gun violence?

His stays here have been so short that he has yet to see the outcome of a trial.

“It’s like going to the pictures and coming out halfway through,” he said mournfully. “The nearest I got was when the judge was summing up.”

Dozens of times over the years, he has given fellow court-watchers his address and asked them to write him the verdict.

No one ever has.

He also marvels at the informality of the American judiciary.

“In England, there’s a terrible class system, and the legal profession is very elitist,” he said.

British lawyers indulge more heavily in legalese than their American counterparts, wear robes to distinguish them from the masses and use a private courthouse entrance, he said.

“Here,” Phelps said in near-disbelief, “the prisoners are dressed the same as the attorneys.”

In England, spectators are expected to bow to the judge in respect upon entering and leaving the courtroom.

“Here, you go to the loo and you could be washing your hands next to the D.A.,” he said.

In England, he wouldn’t even think of addressing a lawyer, what with his equivalent of an eighth-grade education and his cockney accent. Here, he shoots the breeze with attorneys in the hallways.

During the hour and a half noon recess, he strikes out for the “pedestrian precinct,” as he calls the Third Street Promenade, where he “hangs out with bums.”

His family says they’re not worried about his excursions.

Although Phelps and his wife, Gladys, now live in peaceful confines, where they own a chain of souvenir shops, he grew up in a tough London quarter.

“He’s actually a fierce and wily guy,” said his son, Nigel.

Last week, the rape trial Phelps had been following was suddenly postponed until this week--after he was scheduled to fly back to England on Saturday.

Phelps sighed heavily and jotted down his address and phone number for another spectator.

“You will write, then, won’t you?” he asked. “You promise?”