James M. Redwine

rule of law

The Name Game

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Mt. Vernon High School
North Posey High School

On Monday, April 10, 2017 in the Posey Circuit Court a jury composed of attorneys from the Posey County Bar Association decided, that is declared, whether North Posey High School or Mt. Vernon High School or neither of them won the exclusive right to name the newly discovered planets of the dwarf star named Trappist-1. The Mock Trial was the centerpiece of the annual Posey County Law Day celebration during which America contrasts the role law plays in protecting our rights with systems where individual liberties are not paramount.

North Posey (A.K.A. Muhammad High School) student attorneys Zack Goebel and Veronica Inkenbrandt pitted themselves against Mt. Vernon (A.K.A. Peacock Throne High School) student lawyers Shane Vantlin and Ashley Ford. The case began when both fictional schools individually claimed to have developed a fund raising plan based on auctioning off the rights to name the seven newly found planets of Trappist-1, which are only 235 trillion miles from Earth. Each school claimed it thought of the scheme first but that the other high school purloined the plan.

Mr. Mike Kuhn and Ms. Michele Parrish are the advisors to the North Posey students who include the following participants and their roles as members of the two fictional private schools in Posey County, Indiana:

Hannah Braun – Sarah Jones, School Board President of Muhammad High School;
Ryan Daughtery – Jaime David, Edward Jones advisor;
Isaac Mayer – Akmed Barnes, Muhammad High School senior;
Josh Wiggins – Walter Cronkite, Science Reporter;
Lexi Fifer – Hagar Shunley, junior at Muhammad High School;
Jade Hill and Ethan Morlock, Alternates.

Mt. Vernon’s advisors are Ms. Lucy Steinhart and Mr. Tim Alcorn. Their students are:

Austin Bethel – Ibrehim Smith, School Board President of Peacock Throne High School;
Whitney Schaefer – Baretta Fife, Internal Revenue Agent;
Adam Duckworth – Julian Assange, Hacker;
Corinna Lambright – Rasheema Ellis, Morgan Stanley Financial Advisor;
Wade Ripple – Abdul Parker; senior at Peacock Throne High School; and,

If you want to know how the students and the Posey County Bar Association celebrated the Rule of Law over military might, you are welcome to tune in here next week.

Coming Soon to a Courtroom Near You

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On April 10, 2017 in the courtroom of the Posey Circuit Court the Posey County Bar Association and teachers and students from Mt. Vernon High School and North Posey High School will celebrate the Rule of Law. Law Day was established as a response to the Soviet Union’s military display on May Day.

This will be the thirty-fourth straight year the Bar and the schools have joined in the presentation of a Mock Trial in which the teachers guide their students in a jury trial. From 1984 until New Harmony High School closed the three schools rotated portraying the court personnel and each of two sides to a fictional case. Now the Bar Association provides the judge, Superior Court Judge Brent Almon, and the jury composed of attorneys.

The two high schools select students who enact the roles of witnesses called to testify by student attorneys who also argue their cases to the jury. The jury of practicing lawyers decides the outcome from which there is no appeal.

Over the years over a thousand Posey County students have learned by actual doing how their legal system works. Some of the student attorneys have gone on to become actual members of the Bar.

The Mock Trial is open to the public and will begin at 8:30 am on April 10. While cameras and recording devices are usually prohibited in Indiana courts, anyone who wishes to attend is welcome to take photographs and record the proceedings.

Next week the Mock Trial case and the names of the participants from the two high schools will be divulged.

Photo Taken by Rodney Fetcher

Judges and Politics

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In 2000 the Florida Supreme Court gave the presidency to Democrat Al Gore. Five judges on the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Florida court and gave the presidency to Republican George W. Bush.

Bush won by two electoral votes. Gore barely won the popular vote. Three of the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court who dissented, John Stevens, David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, wrote:

“Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.”

Judges may make mistakes. Judges may be ignorant or lazy or may have any number of faults. The one characteristic judges must not have is a public perception of prejudice for or against persons or beliefs.

The only thing judges must bring to their role in our government is the ability to engender public confidence in the integrity of their decisions. We may, and I often do, disagree with judicial decisions (by other judges of course). However, if we have confidence the judges acted impartially, we can accept even bad rulings and move on.

That is why Canon 4 of the Code of Judicial Conduct which all judges should follow requires:

“A Judge or candidate for Judicial Office Shall not Engage in Political or Campaign Activity that is Inconsistent with the Independence, Integrity, or Impartiality of the Judiciary.”

The Code also prohibits a judge from publicly, e.g. in a newspaper column, endorsing or opposing a candidate for public office.

These ethical proscriptions come to mind as I am currently engaged in helping to teach an internet course to judges for the National Judicial College. Judges from several states are participating as students or faculty. As with much of the judicial education in which I have been involved, in this course there is a great deal of side banter about many topics. In this current presidential campaign cycle politics is unavoidable. But unlike non-judicial conversations where my friends and family do not hesitate to state that one candidate is less than desired while the other must be elected, with judges I am reminded of the attitude Romeo’s friend, Mercutio had.

You may recall that in William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet the two families, Romeo’s Montagues and Juliet’s Capulets, were constantly feuding. In Act III, scene 1 Mercutio is stabbed by Juliet’s relative, Tybalt. As Mercutio lies dying he curses both sides by calling for, “A plague on both of your houses”. That pretty well sums up the ethical positions of my judicial colleagues.