JUVENILE JUSTICE : Students Receive a Hands-On Lesson on Legal System

Hundreds of people have argued before San Fernando Municipal Judge Marilyn L. Hoffman, but this was the first whose head was shaved except for a fringe of bleached blond hair that stuck straight up in spiked tufts.

Erik Malott, who also wore Army boots and a silver ring through his nose and played with a bicycle chain during the proceedings, ardently argued his client’s innocence Tuesday before the judge as part of a mock trial by students at the Center for Adolescent/Adult Remedial Education Services in Van Nuys.

The mock trial was conceived as an entertaining way to inform the center’s 75 students of how the judicial system works, said director Laverne Weisser. The students, former dropouts who are 13 to 18 years old, attend a remedial program sponsored by the Los Angeles Unified School District for four hours a day, five days a week to earn credits toward a high school diploma, Weisser said.

“The students have been very concerned with the fairness of the judicial system,” she said.

For the last five weeks, they have been preparing for the lesson with the help of three attorneys who volunteered their time.

But on Tuesday, Malott’s attire wasn’t the only unconventional aspect of the mock trial of two 18-year-old men charged in the drive-by shooting of a 6-year-old girl.

“Your honor, my client has failed to appear,” said Astrid Barber, 17, of Studio City, the lawyer for one the defendants.

“So have the district attorney and several witnesses,” said Gordon P. Levy, a deputy district attorney based in San Fernando who was counseling the prosecution in the mock case.

In a real court, the absences would have resulted in postponement of the proceedings. But the center’s teachers are accustomed to poor attendance and have learned to work around the problem, Weisser said. Other students simply stepped in for some of the absent players. But only one defendant wound up being tried.

The defense team headed by Barber and Malott, 18, of Van Nuys caught the unsophisticated witnesses making contradictory statements. John Michael Lee, a deputy public defender based in San Fernando, whispered advice to the team during the hourlong trial.

Scott Kadik, 15, of Sylmar, a member of the defense team, played the role of Sherlock Holmes, a police officer assigned to the case. He testified that witness Michelle Baker, 15, of Van Nuys, told him in an interview that she did not see the faces of the two men who drove up in a blue Chevrolet with the vanity license plate “U SHOOT.”

Baker testified that she was able to see the men’s faces.

The discrepancy between Holmes’ testimony and Baker’s story was the decisive factor in the jury’s decision, said jury foreman Deshyda Reddick, 17, of North Hollywood.

The eight-person jury, four members short because of absences, found the defendant not guilty of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Prosecutor Santo D’Arienzo, 17, of Reseda had been unable in his closing argument to overcome Baker’s lack of credibility and show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime, said James R. Bruns, an attorney with the Alternate Defense Counsel who counseled the jury.

When the verdict was announced, Malott and Barber jumped up and down--something that might not have been tolerated in a real courtroom. Then Malott was given permission to try on the judge’s black robe.

Turning to his friends, Malott displayed the robe, whose sleeves were far too short, and said: “This is how the judge would look in ‘Road Warrior,’ ” a movie about the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.