The bailiff held his face expressionless for as long as he could, but during the defense’s closing arguments, he was like a parent watching the last seconds of his kid’s champion- ship game. Yes! Nooooo! Yes!
The defense attorney was a 15-year-old from Kailua High School. The attorney arguing for the prosecution was a teen, too, as were the witnesses and the defendant. The judge was University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law faculty member Dale Lee, and the bailiff so in touch with his parental feelings was a third-year law student.
The mock trial was the culmination of a week of intensive study mixed with moments of fun for 15 public school students selected for the Hawaii High School Law and Justice Summer Program. This is the second year the UH law school offered the all-expenses-paid program for teens to study the basics of law and get a taste of what a career in the field might be like.
“We wanted to demystify the legal system and government in general for them,” said Sarah Nishioka, a third-year law student who helped run the program. In a week’s time, the kids went from knowing almost nothing about the law to trying a case in the koa-paneled mock trial room at the law school. “They absorb legal concepts so quickly, and they love arguing,” Nishioka said.
Everything was provided at no cost to the students, from books and pens to meals and snacks, even shuttle bus transportation to the UH campus from Waipahu and Kailua through the law school and a Student Equity Excellence and Diversity grant. The students met with the governor and Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald, watched trials in progress and prepared to try a criminal case on their last day of class.
Matt Sylva, the third-year law student who played the role of the bailiff during the mock trial, helped train the students in public speaking. You know how most students — most adults, too — hate to give speeches? Sylva started them out with just standing up and saying their names. By the end of the week, they were giving testimony and questioning witnesses.
Drew David’s — yes, he spells his name with an apostrophe — made the closing arguments for the defense. He came to the program with no relevant experience and won praise from the judge.
“Your arguments were terrific,” Lee told him after the trial.
“I heard about the program and threw myself into it,” said David’s, 15. He plans a career in medicine and hopes to attend the Air Force Academy. “But studying the law can definitely help me in both,” he said.
Coe Treverrow, 15, a rising sophomore at the UH Lab School, was one of the lawyers for the defense. He threw out objections with a kind of passionate glee. The judge sustained many of them, but when Treverrow was overruled, his face registered his disappointment in a way that made the judge smile.
“It’s good to be passionate about your argument,” Lee told him. It was clear Treverrow was having fun.
“Oh, absolutely,” he said. “This has increased my interest in the field tenfold.”
Lee found the defendant not guilty on all charges, but had words of high praise for all the students.
“There are lawyers who can’t do what you’ve just done,” he said. “When I was a young prosecutor, the first time I had to argue in court, I was so scared I thought everyone in that courtroom could hear my heart pounding. I couldn’t hear anyone’s heart pounding today, which was really great.”
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Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
