CHARLOTTE, N.C. — It feels a whole lot like Charlotte's own answer to "The People's Court."
By the time Judge Theo Nixon took the bench this morning, Courtroom 4330 was packed with people who'd brought their own personal disputes to court.
It happens once every other week, and Judge Nixon starts by telling everyone what he expects of them.
"It's our hope that bringing the parties together will promote communication, reconciliation," Nixon says.
Nixon also hopes that he will be able to take care of many of the minor cases that would otherwise slow down proceedings in other courtrooms, and he follows up with instructions that are unique to that courtroom.
"When your name is called, please step outside with the mediators and try to resolve the differences," Nixon says.
Soon after, those mediators start calling out names, and victims and defendants meet them and walk out of the courtroom for a mediation meeting somewhere else.
If the mediation doesn't work, Nixon tells them, they can still go to trial. But more often than not, it does.
Seven months after he broke his cousin's windshield, Trave Sturdivant agreed to pay, and the prosecutor agreed to dismiss the charges.
"I did that, so I'll pay for it -- it's taken care of," Sturdivant says.
His cousin wonders why it had to come to this at all.
"It's been going on since last August. All he had to do was pay me the $250 ... without even coming here," Reginald Anthony said. And that's exactly how Judge Nixon hopes people see his new courtroom.
"Hopefully, everybody walks out of here feeling like they've been heard and the matter has been resolved," he says.
And he hopes that the process of working with a mediator will help people resolve any future disputes without having to go to court, where judges and prosecutors have many more serious issues to deal with.
"We have all of our DWI cases, all of our larceny cases, all of our repeat offenders, we're able to concentrate on those cases," said prosecutor Bruce Lillie.