To all officers involved with Olathe Youth Court, or for students who are interested in becoming a student attorney, we have been discussing the importance of preparation at our recent Youth Court CLE (Continuing Legal Education) meetings at the NLSC. 

Recently at our November 28, 2007 meeting, we discussed questioning, and what questions should be asked during direct and cross examination during a sanctions hearing.  In order to help you, you can download a copy of the Jury Deliberation Form for Sanctions Hearing that each jury completes in order to determine what sanctions they will assign to the student defendants.

As Kory pointed out, this form can be very useful to the student attorneys, because you can go through each question that the jury needs to answer on the Deliberation Form to help you write your questions. Lawyers certainly want to make sure that the jury will be able to understand the case and be able to answer each of the questions on the Deliberation Form.

Another big topic at the meeting was writing Stipulated Facts. As review to those in attendance, or to fill everyone in that couldn’t make the meeting – we discussed that the stipulated facts should be:

• Written ahead of time
• Agreed upon by the prosecution and defense attorneys
• Explained and agreed upon by the student defendant before they are read in court
• Written in a way that deals with each element of the law, but that are specific to the particular case

Let’s look at an example for a charge of Criminal Damage to Property.  The first item on the law states:

1) That ________________ was the owner of (had an interest as a ______________ in) the property described as __________;

  If we simply filled in the blanks, it could sound a bit confusing, like this:

“That Billy was the owner of (had an interest as a _______ in) the property described as sneakers;

Rather, it would be better to state it this way:

 ”That Billy was the owner of a pair of Nike Sneakers”

The other common item that comes up frequently is point 4:

4) That the property was damaged to the extent of less than three hundred dollars…

As discussed in the meeting, it is often beneficial to the defense to only stipulate the actual dollar amount rather than making the damage sound worse by using the “three hundred dollars” from the law.  Lets assume that the sneakers were damaged to the point that they must be replaced completely, and that the cost would be $47. In this case, you might write as part of the Stipulated Facts:

“That the sneakers were damaged to the extent of $47″

These are just a few good points from the 11/28/07 meeting.  As an effort to make your preparations easier for questioning and stipulated facts, you can find documents such as the Stipulated Facts, the Jury Deliberation Form for Sanctions Hearing and many others (including copies of all LAWS) by visiting our Youth Court Documents page here on the Student Development Website.

We hope to see everyone at our monthly meetings, and we hope that you find these resources helpful.  Have something to add?  Feel free to send a comment!

Posted on December 3rd, 2007 by Reflections
Filed under: Youth Court Notes