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Local students tour courts, jail as a part of Street Law program
BENJAMIN WHITE
Associate Editor
Published: November 30, 2012
Local high schoolers spent November 15 seeing Summit County’s legal workings firsthand as they visited different courts, met judges and ate prison lunches as a part of Justice Day, an annual supplement to the Akron Bar Association’s Street Law program.
Students toured the Juvenile Justice Center, the Seiberling Federal Building, the common pleas court and the county jail, where two prisoners addressed the group of teens.
“It’s the reality,” said Judge Katarina Cook of Akron Municipal Court and chair of the ABA’s Street Law Committee. “You may watch stuff on TV, but that’s not real. What’s real is what’s right here, downtown.”
About 35 high school students from Firestone, Copley, Tallmadge and St. Vincent/St. Mary participated in the free trip sponsored by the Akron Bar Foundation. Though only 10 schools throughout Summit County currently offer the Street Law curriculum, Judge Cook said the Akron Bar Association extended the offer to participate in Justice Day to all Summit County high schools, according to Judge Cook.
Jaclyn McGuire, the ABA Street Law Committee intern and law student at The University of Akron, organized the trip, and fellow UA law students Laurie Boveington and Patrick Hakos served as chaperones.
The group met and ate breakfast at the Juvenile Justice Center before visiting the court of Judge Sara Lioli of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Ohio.
Judge Lioli offered the students seats in her courtroom and federal court pins for correct answers to questions about the federal government. She then introduced Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Bulford and Assistant Federal Public Defender Carlos Warner, who explained their roles in the courtroom and gave advice about possible careers in law.
“I was making a lot of money, but I was miserable,” said Bulford of his time in private practice.
As a young lawyer, Bulford took a pay cut to work as a state prosecutor, where he said he made more in a two-week vacation than he had the entire year, thanks to a lucrative personal injury judgment. After eventually making the leap to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Bulford fought organized crime and in 2006 successfully prosecuted drug runners very high in a Mexican cartel.
Warner, who graduated from UA Law, also felt unfulfilled in his days of private practice. “One of the reasons I love going to work every day is that I love defending the Constitution,” he said.
Judge Lioli agreed. “We are so passionate,” she said. “It is truly a privilege to do what we do.”
The students proceeded to the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, where Judge Cook and Judge Lynne Callahan of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas traced the path of a felony charge through municipal and county courts. Judges Cook and Callahan, who had worked together at the Akron Municipal Court and as coaches of the St. Hilary Middle School mock trial program, used the recent high-profile case of “Craigslist Killer” Brogan Rafferty as an example.
The group visited the Summit County Jail next, receiving words of advice from two inmates and prison staff. Though they were not allowed into the cellblocks, the students seemed to enjoy the tour more than the standard bologna sandwich lunches provided by the jail. Deputy John Barrickman arranged the visit and even let the students handle tasers.
Allison Palunas, a junior at Firestone High School, said the jail visit was the highlight of the trip.
“It was interesting. I learned that it sucks to be in jail,” she said. “The court system is really complicated. The best part was listening to the inmates talking about their experiences.”
From there, the group revisited the Juvenile Justice Center to hear from Magistrate Rita Rochford, who presides over the Citizens Review Board, which reviews cases of children placed in the custody of the Summit County Children’s Services Board.
Magistrate Rochford explained her daily duties to the dwindling group of teens, some of which had to leave for sports practices and other responsibilities.
“I don’t think most adults appreciate how unique it is, what we do here,” she said.
She described the Teen Court program, which gives teenaged volunteers training and the opportunity to issue sanctions in juvenile sentencing hearings. Magistrate Rochford compared her sentencing duties to making healthcare decisions for loved ones: sometimes hospice is the right choice, and sometimes an outpatient program at a place like Edwin Shaw Rehabilitation Institute fits better, she said.
Magistrate Rochford’s husband Bernie, the executive vice president of Oriana House, Inc. spoke next, highlighting the unique programs available through the nonprofit community corrections agency.
“If Summit County did what most counties do, it would have a jail about twice the size,” he said.
Rochford bemoaned ineffective corrections strategies like automatically throwing low-level offenders in jail or shock and awe prevention programs popularized by the “Scared Straight” television show.
“We don’t waste our time on things that the research says doesn’t work,” he said. “As a community, Summit County really has put together a lot of good resources for the offender population, and we’ve seen some really good results at lowering our recidivism rates.”
He said that Summit County Jail offers 690 beds and generally fills about 640 of them. The county jail serving similar-sized Dayton boasts more than 900 beds and often enters contracts with other counties to obtain more cells for its inmates.
“That’s a lot of money going to a resource that doesn’t get many results,” Rochford said.
Jaclyn McGuire, a second-year JD/MBA student at The University of Akron School of Law, organized the trip and led the students around Akron. She said she has served as an intern under Judge Cook and the Akron Bar Association for about seven weeks. McGuire said her favorite part of the trip was watching the students learn.
“They were so excited, asked such great questions, participated the entire time, and not one person complained when our bus went missing for about 20 minutes,” she said.
The Akron Bar Foundation funds Justice Day, which the ABA started in 2010. Every other year, local high schools are encouraged to send up to five students from each school to Columbus, where the students meet state representatives and tour the Ohio Supreme Court and other buildings in the capitol.
The Street Law program is taught at 10 area schools, though it is offered to every high school in the county. The list of schools offering the curriculum varies from year to year based on interest, funding and scheduling, according to Judge Cook. The bar foundation also sponsors a junior street law program for Summit County third graders that uses fairy tales as a backdrop for simple mock trials.
“We’re constantly trying to get more schools involved,” she said.
Judge Cook, who attended Firestone before it offered a Street Law class, said she thought a tort was a type of pastry when she graduated, and she believes the program gives students a necessary understanding of an often-confusing subject.
“It teaches you about the nuts and bolts,” she said. “What happens if you’re out there and stopped by the police?”