A courtroom is the enclosed space in which courts of law are held in front of a judge. A number of courtrooms, which may also be known as "courts", may be housed in a courthouse. In recent years, courtrooms have been equipped with audiovisual technology to permit everyone present to clearly hear testimony and see exhibits. By country United States The judge generally sits behind a raised desk, known as the bench. Behind the judge are the great seal of the jurisdiction and the flags of the appropriate federal and state governments. Judges usually wear a plain black robe (a requirement in many jurisdictions). An exception was the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who broke tradition by adorning his robe with four gold stripes on each sleeve. (Rehnquist reportedly said that he had been inspired to add the stripes by his having seen such stripes worn by the character of the judge, in a local production of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operatic spoof of English jurisprudence, Trial by Jury.) Adjacent to the bench are the witness stand and the desks where the court clerk and the court reporter sit. The courtroom is divided into two parts by a barrier known as the bar. The bar may be an actual railing, or an imaginary barrier. The bailiff stands (or sits) against one wall and keeps order in the courtroom. On one side is the judge's bench, the tables for the plaintiff, the defendant, and their respective counsel, and a separate group of seats known as the jury box where the jury sits. Apart from the parties to the case and any witnesses, only the lawyers can literally pass the bar (court personnel and jury members usually enter through separate doors), and this is the reason why the term the bar has come to refer to the legal profession as a whole (see bar association). There is usually a podium or lectern between the two tables where the lawyers may stand when they argue their case before the judge. In the British Commonwealth (and many other countries), a courtroom used for trials of criminal cases often has a dock: a space exclusively reserved for seating a criminal defendant. It is marked off with a barrier, like the jury box and the witness stand. As late as the 1970s, some American courtrooms also had docks, but they gradually fell