A Taste of the System - First Nation students at DFC experience Canadian courts first hand
From The Chronicle Journal
A Taste of the System
KRIS KETONEN - 03/04/2010
A group of Dennis Franklin Cromarty (DFC) students has a better understanding of the Canadian justice system after working their way through a mock jury trial this week.
Twenty-eight students were at Superior Court – many of them filling the roles of defence and prosecution, the accused and the jury – as they decided the fate of a young man accused of assault and theft.
The mock charges stemmed from an incident in which a 15-year-old male was beaten and had his shoes and hat stolen.
Justice Terrence Platana presided over the case.
In the end, the jury couldn‘t come to a decision as to whether the accused was guilty or not. Nevertheless, it was a valuable experience, said Claudia Belda, Aboriginal programs manager with the Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN), which organized the production.
“(We hope) they‘ll get something out of it, especially since a lot of them have already been involved in court,” she said after the mock trial ended. “This may have been just like a fun little thing . . . but that‘s information they‘re really going to use later on.
“A lot of them . . . go through the system, and I think it‘s important for them to have a little more education about it, because it actually makes it easier for them to go through it.”
Belda said youth may sometimes just plead guilty to “get it over with,” but the system isn‘t actually that complicated.
“If they‘re really not guilty, they should stick to what they think is right,” she said.
The OJEN prepared an exhaustive package for the students, which included the facts of the case, witness statements, information about the justice system and process, and tips on things like how to be a good witness.
Platana, too, kept the students involved, asking them questions about what they‘d seen and heard while the jury deliberated.
He polled the students in the audience about whether they‘d find the accused guilty, and brought up some of his own concerns with the evidence and statements made during the trial.
And after the jury came back without a verdict, he offered his take. Platana said he would have found the accused not guilty, mainly due to concerns about the description provided, or lack thereof. However, Platana said, if the accused was found guilty by the jury, he‘d have likely been given a conditional release. Platana went into some detail about why those decisions were made, as well.
Belda said she believed the students learned a lot through the mock trial.
“A lot of them did have questions about what happens to them when they go to court for bail or things like that, that they weren‘t very sure about,” she said. “Some have actually gone through the process, but never actually understood why things happened the way they did.
“I really do think they understand that a lot better now.”
The DFC students – all in either Grade 9 or Grade 12 at the school – continued learning about the justice system, when they took part in a sentencing circle Wednesday, which Belda said will let them compare the Canadian system with traditional justice.