Janae Randolph waited nervously with her boyfriend outside a wood-paneled courtroom at the Contra Costa County courthouse in Martinez, California. She scanned the increasingly crowded hallway for somebody official-looking — maybe a public defender, she hoped — who would explain why they’d been summoned after receiving an eviction notice at their Concord apartment.
The bailiff motioned Randolph toward the defendant’s chair. Then suddenly, their names were called and a trial started. The couple found themselves seated alone, across from their landlord’s attorney at a separate table. Before them, a black-robed commissioner perched on the judge’s bench began asking pointed questions about their missed rent payments.
She answered carefully the questions from the commissioner, who oversees eviction cases, even though she didn’t fully understand what was happening. “You don’t want to make her upset, or say the wrong thing,” Randolph said. “So I felt like I just had to go with it, against my own judgment.”
