Heating & A/C in the Courtroom
The courtroom is where disputes small & big are decided. It is where the guilt or innocence of a lady is determined & where the judge, the jury, the bailiff, the court reporter, the plaintiff, the defendant, a slew of lawyers & witnesses may have to stand for many minutes. The courtroom scenes in the 1962 epic film “To Kill a Mockingbird”, gives a glimpse of courtrooms before Heating & A/C, and people are fanning themselves with paper fans, beads of sweat are on people’s foreheads, & there is even a “pot-belly” stove used to heat the courtroom during winter. The issue of courtroom Heating & A/C has caught the attention of the federal government. A 73-page report released by the Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) in 2018 is titled: Prototype Courthouse Building Energy Model: Building & System Characteristics, then section 3 of the report is dedicated to courthouse Heating & A/C plan characteristics. Heating source & heating equipment, cooling plan types, & air handling unit types are topics covered. There are many reasons why maintaining a comfortable courtroom environment is crucial other than the comfort of those attending the legal proceedings. One is preventing incidents appreciate what happened in an IN courtroom where a superior court judge discovered mold on the American flag in the witness stand caused by excess humidity. The Covid-19 pandemic has added to the urgency of having clean air at court proceedings. A failure to resolve those issues can bring the wheels of justice to a grinding halt. Finally, an crucial verdict could be overturned if a clever defense can prove that the courtroom’s Heating & A/C plan prevented a honorabletrial. There may already be a precedent for just that situation.