Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Inmates await their court appearances in the Allegheny County Courthouse bullpen, a noisy and cramped space.

It's your day in court. At least that's what the jail guard said when he woke you at 06:00 hours. Your trial date was rescheduled for today. The judge and prosecutor are ready to roll. Your lawyer should be waiting a few blocks away at the criminal courthouse to debrief you.

		Slideshow: Waiting to go before the judge Take a slideshow tour across the Bridge of Sighs and into the infamous bullpen, guided by Capt. Donna J. Best and Sgt. James D. Nelson of the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office. What do you think? Please send your comments on this series, for possible posting on a Readers Forum page, to postscript@post-gazette.com. Be sure to include your full name and hometown.

You may pick a jury for your trial or waive that right. You'll do less time if you take a plea deal. But you might also spend the whole morning waiting and never get called up to court. That's what happened last time.

In your cramped jail cell, you change out of your Allegheny County Jail "reds" and into your cleanest, neatest civilian clothes. The guards handcuff and shackle 10 of you and load you into a sheriff's department transport van. As many as 120 inmates take this short ride to court each week. The criminal court handles nearly 19,000 cases a year.

The wagon deposits the group of you in a loading area attached to the old county jail, which is now the Family Court building. A deputy leads you in and down a long, echoing hallway to a holding cell with a bunch of stainless steel benches and tables. They're metal, a deputy says, because it's easier to clean if someone soils them and nobody can carve their initials or curse words on them.

On the other side of the holding cell wall is a row of toilets.

Recently, a defendant stood on one of these toilet seats, popped out a ceiling tile and tried to tunnel out of the building. Before he could make headway, the guy hit brick.

You wait. You can look for a spot on the floor to sleep, rifle through your legal documents or read a Bible. Most people just sit.

You wait until a deputy calls your name and leads you out.

Handcuffed in pairs, you cross Pittsburgh's "Bridge of Sighs." This might be a sightseeing treat if you're on the outside, but it's no treat at all from the side you're viewing it, a sergeant says.

Across the bridge is the courthouse's cramped bullpen. There's also a small cage with a bench where up to four attorneys and four prisoners confer.

Meantime, you and a bunch of other prisoners stand, sit, squat behind the bars in the bullpen. Tempers rise. You cup your nose in your shirt to lessen the stench of body odor. Until they tell you otherwise, your job is to wait.

Experience what it's like to get arrested, go to jail, face charges, and, finally, get your day in court by viewing the multimedia components of this report.