Law Practice Taken Seriously in Student Court : Lessons: Lawyers aren’t allowed, the verdict is always guilty and a sentence might be to copy dictionary pages--but justice is done at a school.

It was a stiff sentence for the 9-year-old: He was ordered to copy three pages out of a dictionary.

“I want a lawyer,” the boy told the court sponsor, Rosemary Douglas.

But she answered, “In the court system we have, lawyers are not allowed.”

The boy gave her a puzzled look.

The prohibition against lawyers wasn’t the only thing puzzling about this court. The three judges wore black robes cut from graduation gowns. The verdict has always been guilty. And the bailiff has been known to wear a Batman T-shirt while swearing in the defendant.

It is the student court at Camellia Avenue School in North Hollywood, which has meted out guilty verdicts to about a dozen youngsters for “crimes” that have included lying to a teacher, ditching class and general misbehavior. The tribunal of judges is composed of the student council’s 15 members, who take turns donning the judicial robes and deciding on their schoolmates’ punishment.

Cleaning the yard, writing apologies and copying definitions are the standard sentences, which the court calls “consequences” because they result from students’ actions. Before pronouncing the consequence, the tribunal whispers the defendant’s punishment to fourth-grade teacher Douglas, who provides an informal check on judicial powers.

Assistant Principal Shirley Gold, who started Camellia Court last November, said students facing peer judges know they can’t get away with as much as they might be able to with adults. Gold thought of the court idea as a teacher 25 years ago when she realized that the policy of slapping naughty students’ palms with a ruler didn’t work. But it wasn’t until recently, when she read an article about a similar school court in Colorado, that she thought of the idea again.

Cosetta Moore, the elementary social studies specialist for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said the court may be unique, but verifying that would be difficult because the district has about 400 elementary schools.

“Discipline is a really hard problem in school,” she said. “We don’t have gangs in our school. We have this gang mentality. We’re finding our children will band together and intimidate a child: ‘Me and my friends will get you after school.’ When children are judged by their own peers--on the right side of the law--then other children don’t see them as heroes.”

Gold and Douglas believe the court will help judges and defendants become better decision makers, forcing them to seriously consider the consequences of their actions.

“That’s why I think I and other teachers shouldn’t interfere in the judges’ decisions,” Douglas said. “It really teaches them they can be a part of what goes on in the world, not just be observers.”

Camellia Court, which is held in Douglas’ classroom, is called into session Thursdays after school when there are one or two cases, usually teacher-referred. Standing behind the teacher’s desk, the judges call on their training--a videotaped episode of “People’s Court,” a visit to Van Nuys Small Claims Court and tips from a lawyer--to ferret out the truth.

And when they can’t, well, they can sentence the plaintiff too.

Recently the tribunal did that for the first time, in the case of a sixth-grader accused of striking an 11-year-old boy on the shoulder. The plaintiff had gone to the bathroom, where the sixth-grade defendant asked him, “What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t touch him. That isn’t true at all, I swear,” the sixth-grader testified. “He just said ‘Shut up’ and I didn’t like it.”

Judge Angel Nava, 12, asked, “Why couldn’t you tell a teacher?”

The plaintiff was just as emphatic. “He hit me on the left shoulder,” he testified.

After the longest decision conference in the court’s history--five minutes--Judge Nancy Quintanilla, 11, spoke for the tribunal:

“We have decided the defendant will copy three pages of a dictionary--both sides--and the plaintiff will copy three pages of a dictionary. We have decided this because we don’t know which one is telling the truth.”

There were no stern lectures from the judges, no pleas for the mercy of the court and no cries of “I object.” The students and their witnesses went home.

“We felt sort of nervous,” Nancy, a fifth-grader, said after court adjourned. “We couldn’t just blame one. If the other one was lying, that wouldn’t be fair. We decided to give them three pages of dictionary. If we were going to give them a week of cleaning, they would say, ‘This is too easy,’ and they would do it again.”

But a clinical psychologist who helps children resolve emotional problems said sentencing both the plaintiff and defendant gives students the wrong message, one that might carry over into their adult lives.

“It’s a bad precedent to set. Anybody’s going to hesitate before becoming a plaintiff,” said Chaytor Mason, a USC professor who has studied courtroom reactions of juries, judges and witnesses. “We’re giving the wrong message to kids by saying the judges can make mistakes and cannot arrive at a decision. When the judges couldn’t decide who was guilty, they should have declared a mistrial.”

When children see the plaintiff is sentenced, they as adults may not report crimes, thinking “Why report? I’ll probably get in trouble myself,” Mason said.

Calling the student court a case of “the blind leading the blind,” Mason said he would rather see an adult, who has more experience, judge the students. He said mock trials, in which students play the roles of prosecutors, judges and defendants, are a better way of teaching youngsters how they can affect their futures--without hurting egos or encouraging a sense of rejection.

Gold, who was surprised by the sentence, agreed with many of Mason’s criticisms but said: “I don’t think this will happen again. It’s a learning experience for students. They did the best with the information they had. We wouldn’t do anything that would be detrimental to our children.”

Despite the hands-off philosophy of Douglas and Gold, adults have taken a more active role in this case. Douglas emphasized the concept of “innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt” to the student judges. But even after that, the teacher said, the youngsters--three of the “most levelheaded kids” she has ever seen--stuck to their verdict, saying they believed both boys may have been lying.

A meeting has been scheduled with an attorney to tell the student judges--along with the defendant and plaintiff--what would have happened in a real court. At that time, the convicted boys will have to turn in their definitions. The educators said the boys have not complained about their sentence, but if they do, an appeals process will be open to them.

Like their real-life counterparts, the young judges have found that administering justice is not always easy.

“The plaintiff is in my class. I see him every day,” said Becky Lupercio, 12, one of the judges in the case. “He’s going to ask me, ‘Why did you give me three pages to write?’ We have to look them in the eye and don’t smile or anything or they’ll say, ‘These are not real judges, they’re playing.’ ”

A number of school administrators and teachers have slipped in to watch the sessions, Douglas said, and those who miss sessions have inquired about cases. “They think it’s a great experiment,” she said.

Douglas said the students handle themselves with a seriousness befitting their responsibility. “The judges and . . . the students coming in, there’s rarely a smile cracked.”

For Becky and Nancy, the judicial life has exacted a physical toll. They say that more than once the decision making has caused them to rub sweaty palms over judicial robes.

“We feel this hot thing and we get embarrassed and we want to leave,” Nancy said. On the other hand, she said, “We feel like real judges, the top persons in the school.”