ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996 TAG: 9604110059
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOANNE POINDEXTER STAFF WRITER BEDFORD
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 12, 1996.
Bedford Middle School students gave a fictitious character a 5
1/2-month sentence and a $1,500 fine during a mock trial Wednesday. A
story in Thursday's paper gave the wrong sentence.
KATIE CHARLES received two life sentences from a group of eighth-graders at Bedford Middle School for a drunken-driving incident. Good thing, for her sake, that she and her trial weren't real.
Katie Charles was on trial twice Wednesday. And both times she was convicted on a manslaughter charge and sentenced to jail.
The fictitious Charles had been charged with driving under the influence and manslaughter in the first degree for being at the wheel of a car that collided with another, killing a passenger in the second car. According to testimony, Charles, 17, had had a drink and was driving down the wrong lane with no lights on early in the morning when the accident happened.
Attorneys, witnesses and juries during the two trials were middle school students. Most had never been to court before, but all of them have been studying the court system with four Bedford County lawyers under a Virginia YMCA program to help students develop an understanding and appreciation for the law.
Students Dale Holstein and Kevin Kasey said the mock trial taught them that legal work is hard. But, they said, if they come back to court, it will not be for committing a crime.
Holstein, the prosecutor sporting a small ruby earring in his left ear and tennis shoes with his sport coat, said he planned to return to court someday as a real lawyer.
Although knocking off the head of the gavel brought laughter from his classmates, Kasey took his bailiff job seriously - commanding the audience to stand for the judge, leading the jury to its deliberations room and passing the verdict to the judge.
"It's hard standing in front of a crowd," said Kasey, who wants to become a singer and stay out of the courtroom.
The mock trial, he said, showed how there can be misunderstandings in how people interpret evidence.
Defense attorney Brandy Leftwich said even though her client was found guilty, she learned that "you have to find a lot of avenues to get a person off."
"I find some innocent people go to jail because of the way the case is prepared and the evidence," Leftwich said.
She and Sanetra Alexander, a prosecutor, said they were unaware of the amount of work it takes to get a case to court.
Real lawyers working with the eighth-graders praised them for how they handled the case, which the students selected.
Steven Grant, one of the Bedford lawyers in the program, said he thought the students "will understand a whole lot better how the system works" and the dangers of drinking and driving.
Unfortunately, said Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge Philip Wallace, most young people he sees in court are not coming to learn something constructive.
The Charles case, he told the students, shows how easy it is to turn a vehicle into a weapon if your "faculties are impaired." Also, it points out "pertinent topics to your age group" - the dangers of driving without buckled safety belts and not paying attention when driving, he said.
But after giving suggestions on court demeanor and protocol, Wallace assured the student lawyers, jurors and witnesses that they shouldn't be intimidated by coming to court. Because of the seriousness of what takes place, "even seasoned attorneys get nervous,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. Attorney-for-a-day Dale Holstein,by CNB13, shows a jury of his classmates a diagram of the fictitious
accident that led to the conviction of a woman on trial at Bedford
Middle School. color.