Cornell Law School Professor Faust Rossi looks on in the MacDonald Moot Court Room as Caroline fifth-grader Eddie Moran answers Irene Oria's question about a car accident he "witnessed," during a mock trial for Rossi's Trial Advocacy course. Oria and Jason Murtaugh, right, are third-year law students in the class. Robert Barker/University Photography
Ask a lot of 10-year-olds what they think of school, and they'll tell you in one word: "B-orrrrr-iing." But not Jane Clark's fifth-graders at Caroline Elementary School. Recently they were given a fresh way to learn about how our laws work. They were invited to act as witnesses in two simulated trials in Professor Faust Rossi's Trial Advocacy course at Cornell Law School this semester.
Clark had asked the parents of her students to help expand the children's horizons. One of the offers Clark got was from Charles Cramton, father of Ethan, 11, and Timothy, 9. Cramton, B.A. '78, J.D. '83, is dean for alumni and international affairs at the Law School, and his father, Professor Roger Cramton, teaches there.
This spring Charles Cramton came into Clark's class to discuss with the students how the American legal system works and also provided the link with Rossi, the Samuel S. Leibowitz Professor of Trial Techniques at the Law School. (Rossi, Cramton and Clark teamed up for the child witness exercise last year, too.)
Rossi sent Clark's students detailed descriptions of the two cases to be presented along with a note thanking them for their help.
"The law students rarely get a chance to practice by asking questions of witnesses other than other law students," he wrote, "so they are really looking forward to your participation. While you will have to do a bit of work learning your role," he added, "I think you will find it fun."
"It's great to be able to take advantage of some of the wonderful resources we have in our community to show students the relevance of what they are learning," said Clark, whose husband, Chris, is the Imogene Powers Johnson Senior Scientist at Cornell's Lab of Ornithology.
Clark's students took Rossi's assignment seriously and spent hours reviewing the materials on the cases and rehearsing the details with classmates, parents and siblings. "Do I have to memorize everything?" one wanted to know and was relieved to learn that he didn't. "The student attorneys' job is to elicit information when witnesses don't remember things," Rossi explained.
In the civil case, the fifth-graders were to take turns acting as witnesses to a car accident in which a driver had hit a pedestrian and was being charged with negligence. In the criminal case they were to be questioned about whether they had seen an older brother's acquaintance storing illegal drugs. Both cases were modeled on real trials but were altered to protect defendants' anonymity.
Most of the fifth-graders were relaxed when they reviewed the cases at Caroline Elementary School. But when they entered the MacDonald Moot Court Room in Myron Taylor Hall in their T-shirts, jeans and sneakers, they seemed a little intimidated by the formidable-looking oak dais, looming podiums and jury docket.
"Then Ethan Cramton spoke up and told them, 'Oh, I've done this before,' and dispelled their fears," reported Clark.
The trial brought up such relevant issues for the children as what it means to tell the truth and whether it was acceptable to lie to protect a close family member. Coincidentally President Bill Clinton's admission that he had lied under oath was making the front pages at about the time the mock trials were taking place. It had an impact, Clark said. "The students needed to be reassured that when they took an oath to tell the truth in the mock trials, it was understood by all to be a 'pretend oath.'"
In the first mock trial, one of the law students doing the cross-examining, Irene Oria, tried to prove that the child witness, Mark Sorel, had not actually seen the car accident in question because the sun would have been in his eyes at the time. She also asked questions like, "Was it upsetting to see a car accident?" to suggest that the child witness's emotional reaction might have colored his perception of the accident. In the second trial, law student Joshua Friedman attempted to show that the child witness, Timothy Cramton, would not have had a clear view of his brother's friend placing a bag of marijuana in the freezer and might have lied about what he saw out of loyalty to his brother, who was also his primary caretaker. Following each mock trial, the law students were critiqued on the fine points of their performance by Rossi and adjunct instructors.
"From an advocacy point of view, child witnesses speak too softly and are awed by formality," said Rossi. "If they're nervous they might not appear credible." He advised the law students to listen to their witnesses and to make sure that they answered with a clear "yes" or "no" -- not "uh huh" -- so that the court records would be accurate. He also cautioned the law students that judges tended to be overly protective toward child witnesses and that it was inappropriate, as well as unwise, to question them too aggressively.
Clark's students received praise from the professors and law students for being well-prepared, rarely confused and completely poised throughout both mock trials. The children themselves were thrilled with the out-of-classroom experience.
"I loved learning the case and answering the questions," said Sorel.
"I was nervous that I'd mess up," said Noël Baylor, but she added, "I didn't."
"I didn't know they had fake courts," said Eddie Moran. "It's cool."
Sorel and Baylor thought a law career sounded like fun, but Moran would only consider one, "if I don't get into an MBA program."
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