Lush palm trees surround a salmon-colored edifice with ornate white-crown molding on the boarder.

At the Supreme Court building of Nassau, Bahamas, its pastel pink walls served as an unbefitting backdrop of one of the most brutal and high profile murder trials in Bahamian history.

In 2002, Mario Miller, the son the Minister of Trade and Industry Leslie Miller, was found stabbed to death 20 times. Two brothers, Ryan and Ricardo Miller (unrelated to Mario), are accused of his murder after a disagreement broke out concerning a cocaine sale.

On Jan. 18, while most Semester at Sea students were basking in the impeccable sunny weather at the Atlantis on Paradise Island or on the beach in Nassau, I was waiting for the second day of the Mario Miller murder trial to begin.

The Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas (ZNS), a government-run news organization, covered the story extensively. Bahamian journalist Vonique Toote was assigned to cover the case and I shadowed her for the day.

Ryan and Ricardo Miller were being tried for the murder of Mario. They are accused of brutally stabbing Mario over what Vonique calls, a "drug deal gone bad."

The inside of the courtroom had key lime green walls and white crown molding. The two brothers were sitting in what looked like to be a small cage with bars that appeared as though they were painted a creme color, but the paint was chipping off, revealing a black facade. They sat in a square-shaped enclosure with bars closing them in, as if they were in a tiny prison.

I found it interesting that the prisoners were not sitting with their lawyers, but instead in this cage structure in the dead center of the room for everyone to see. The building was very primitive looking and the cage seemed prehistoric and almost a bit silly. The lawyers sat in two rows in front of the men and were dressed uniformly in black robes and white wigs.

During the proceedings, only two witnesses were called to the stand. The first was a crime scene technician who conducted a luminal test, which confirmed the presence of blood, assumed to be Mario's, on the inside of a vehicle belonging to Ryan and Ricardo.

The second witness was a friend of the defendants who confirmed that they were in fact involved in a drug deal with Mario and he did corroborate the story that the sale went bad, although his testimony conflicted with the series of events established by the authorities.

Throughout both testimonies, it appeared as though the defendants had been found guilty of the crime already and that they were present to prove their innocence. As an American citizen, I kept thinking about the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven with regard to this trial. I found myself wondering several times whether or not this is the case in the Bahamas.

Although I did not get a chance to see the conclusion of the trial, I was able to observe the vast differences between the Bahamian and American judicial systems.

Three days prior to the trial, I arrived in Nassau and was amazed by the kind people and thriving scenery. Nassau and Paradise Island are major tourist destinations for people all over the world. But many tourists don't know or care to know the logistics behind its government and legal system.

After leaving the trial, the ZNS chauffeur, Lyndon, drove us back to the office where Vonique quickly wrote a radio and TV segment just before deadline. Once we finished, I began talking with him about island life. When I told him I had not had not tried traditional Bahamian food or interacted with the local people, he decided to show me the area.

We drove to a dock where small, multihued wooden huts cluttered the boardwalk. The local people sat on short tables playing cards while drinking Kalik beer and singing blissfully. I had never seen anything like that -- people relaxing and hanging out together in front of nearly every food shack. I was the only non-local in the area, and when I stepped out of the car, I initially felt extremely uncomfortable and overdressed in my court clothes: dress pants and white blazer. But the people invited me to sit down with them.

Lyndon then ordered me a conch salad, a popular dish in the area.

The fisherman pulled the conch out of the shell's large pink interior and showed me the live conch squirming in his hand. He started peeling off the outer layers of skin and held up a thin piece of cartilage, the conch's spine, and asked me if I wanted it. I said no thank you, and he popped it in his mouth and said, "You don't know what you're missing little girl."

As he was cutting up the rest of the conch, it reminded me of a Japanese sushi chef. You could tell the man had been doing this for years as he artfully chopped vegetables faster than any professional chef.

He held an orange about three feet above the conch and squeezed the orange onto it, getting an incredible amount of juice out of the orange. The taste was incredible. The conch meat was tender and flavorful. While I was initially hesitant to try raw conch, something I've never heard of or seen in the U.S., I am now exceedingly glad that I did.

While I have traveled throughout several parts of the world, I have yet to encounter a place where the people are as kind and hospitable as they are in the Bahamas.

I've found that it is often difficult for travelers to choose between the pleasures of contented and favorite travel spots and the excitement of new places and divergent cultural experiences.

My visit to the Bahamas was short and more or less an intended vacation, but the culture and people left an impression on me that I won't soon forget.