Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 26, 1994 TAG: 9411280043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She uses the Simpson case to help teach the students about law enforcement and the criminal justice system.
Floyd, a lawyer, explains legal concepts and procedures to the children: indictment, probable cause, preliminary hearing, reasonable doubt, Miranda rights and mistrial.
She points out how the legal system in Virginia is different from that of California, where Simpson is charged.
Floyd visits Forest Park at least once a month to teach the children about the legal system and urge them to avoid drugs and other criminal activities.
She's a participant in a volunteer program - sponsored by the Young Lawyers' Section of the Virginia Bar Association - that takes lawyers into 57 fourth-grade classes each month.
The program's purpose is to provide role models for the boys and girls, in addition to teaching them about the legal system, said Melissa Amos Young, a lawyer who helps oversee it.
"We want them to see that lawyers are real people just like them. We want them to see us as someone ... they might like to be," Young said.
When the program began three years ago, there were 10 classrooms and 10 lawyers. During the second year, it increased to 44 lawyers. There are 57 this year. There are similar programs in Northern Virginia, Richmond and Tidewater, but Roanoke has the largest one, said Young, a lawyer in the firm of Gentry Locke Rakes & Moore.
"We are always looking for more volunteers," Young said. "We could use them. We are stretched pretty thin."
If the volunteers were available, she said, the program could be expanded to half a dozen additional classrooms.
In the past year, Young has been chairwoman of the mentor program's oversight committee. Floyd will be chairwoman next year.
Many lawyers like to volunteer because it allows them to get out of the office. The mentors come from many law firms, small and large.
"We have someone from almost every firm in the city," Young said.
"They get a break in their work, and they like [the fact that] they are making a contribution, too," said Floyd, who also works for Gentry Locke. Some lawyers talk to their classes every two weeks.
Some prosecutors and lawyers for government agencies also serve as mentors.
The mentors take the students on field trips, such as courtroom visits during trials. Often, the presiding judges will talk with the students.
"The judges have been very cooperative, and they talk about how the courts operate and the judicial system," Floyd said. "The kids are not shy. They ask questions."
One fourth-grade class, for example, recently observed a shoplifting trial.
"They get to see what happens to people who have been charged with a crime," Floyd said.
Don Wolthuis, an assistant U.S. attorney who has participated in the program since it began, said he has plenty of work to keep him busy, but he still enjoys his time with the students.
Wolthuis has taken students on field trips, which have included the city's emergency communication center and the Police Department.
"It's a good program. The kids enjoy it," he said.
The lawyers are free to choose their topics, and they can present them in whatever way they desire.
Floyd chose the O.J. Simpson case for a recent session with the Forest Park students because she thought it would spark their interest and help them understand the federal and state court system.
She used a chart to show the similarities and differences in the court systems.
She explains details that probably are new to fourth-graders, such as the right of a defendant - but not the prosecutors - to appeal a lower-court verdict.
Each state is free to devise its own criminal justice system, she explained, as long as it doesn't violate federal and state constitutional rights.
Gov. George Allen's plan to abolish parole in Virginia also came up.
The students seemed to enjoy Floyd's presentation and asked questions after she finished.
Chiquita Robertson said she finds Floyd's presentations helpful. "I didn't know there were different kinds of courts," Robertson said.
Another student, Churrell Childress, said she found the information about juries to be the most interesting.
Some mentors show their classes a video of a mock trial. Wolthuis said some classes hold their own mock trials.
The lawyers chose fourth-graders for the program partly because they want to steer them away from trouble, Young said. The school system's Drug Abuse Resistance Education program begins in the fifth grade, and police resource officers work in the middle schools.
"We wanted to give them a message, to help serve as role models until they get into the DARE program," she said.
Young said the program probably could be expanded into the middle schools, grades six through eight, if there were enough volunteers.
The lawyers have two dozen resource speakers who are available on occasion to talk to the students. The list includes the city's judges and Mayor David Bowers, who is a lawyer.
State Sen. Brandon Bell and Al Henley, a supervisor for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, also are available to speak to the fourth-graders.
by CNB