Without giving details of this case, it is district court, civil, small town venue where evryone knows everyone in WA state jurisdiction. Judge is called in from out of town because local judge like everyone else knows everyone and has conflicts of interest. The petitioner brought 8-10 people to sit in court on her side. These people did not testify and in fact offered no testimony or intention to testify or even any pertinence in the case. They did provide plenty of hostile glares at the respondent who was alone in the courtroom. How might a judge interpret a reason as to why these people were there, please?

Generally, a judge will question an entourage seated at the table of either party.Those tables are reserved for the parties to the suit and their legal teams. A judge could force those not associated with the legal time to sit in the gallery. Or they could simply ignore them.

Scott raised a good question, where exactly were they seated?

Judge may order them out, He may order them not to try and scare the one party.
If he believed the one party brought them on purpose in order to scare the other side, he may even listen to motions for a summary judgement against the party doing this, but at best it would make anything that side say under a closer look at if they could be lies.

It will almost always hurt the party bringing the people in.

Small courtroom. The case was tried as final case of the day. Everyone else associated with earlier cases had left. They were seated in the audience not at the testifying desks.

Sound like it already happened, so what did the judge do? Each judge may do something, or do nothing.

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Originally Posted by Copper8man

They were seated in the audience not at the testifying desks.

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Ahh, that makes a BIG difference. A fact you should have given initially. Unless they created a disturbance, the judge is likely to do nothing about it.

So the question now becomes why did you ask and what do you want to do about it?

Hello, Scottgem. Thank you. Yes. I intentionally wanted to provide nothing that I feared may slant any responses. I was wondering if this entourage was seen by others as a form of intimidation or if it is seen as a show of support or seen as perfectly nothing and innocent and/or common practice. I am gathering multitudinous evidence really for a case of witness intimidation and wasn't sure if this small moment should be included or if I am just seeing everything as a nail because I have a hammer in my hand. You might know how that is... Hoped for unbiased views, wasn't exactly sure how much info to give or not give. Conclusion?

Again, if the other attorney see's it as a threat, he can ask the judge to have them removed.
If the judge feels it is interfering with the case, he can have them removed or warned.

It is again up to the judge.

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Originally Posted by Copper8man

. I intentionally wanted to provide nothing that I feared may slant any responses.

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Yes but WHERE they were seated is a key issue. You made it seem that they were seated at the plaintiff's table. Had you said they were seated in the gallery my answer would have been different.

So no I would not bother including this. Unless you can show that threats where made you aren't going to win a case of intimidation.