Offenders Aren’t the Only Ones Taught a Lesson

The six student jurors fired questions at a teen caught with marijuana during Irvine High School’s first Peer Court.

Did you have intentions of smoking the marijuana? What’s your curfew like? Have you learned anything from all this?

After the final question, the panel filed out of the room to deliberate a punishment.

The decision: 20 hours of community service, stay away from drug dealers and users and serve as a Peer Court juror.

Since its introduction in Orange County three years ago, Peer Court has become a popular alternative to Juvenile Court for first-time offenders, and it now has programs at 12 high schools.

Supporters say the diversion program, which was created to counter probation department cutbacks after the county’s bankruptcy, uses positive peer pressure to discourage teens from repeating offenses and gives jurors and student audiences an up-close look at the judicial system.

“We are working toward the goal of stopping kids on their first offense,” said Municipal Judge Luis A. Rodriguez, who presides over Western High School’s Peer Court in Anaheim. “It also educates the kids who are there watching. They might see themselves in that position and think twice about committing an offense.”

Peer Court is on par with the national 80% success rate for teen courts, said Gwen Vieau, Peer Court coordinator for the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Orange County, which helped Peer Court get its start locally.

Peer Court heard 412 misdemeanor and nonviolent felony cases between October 1995 and December 1996, said Rod Speer, spokesman for the Orange County Probation Department. Of those cases, 78% of the juveniles satisfactorily completed or are still finishing their punishments, Speer said.

Additionally, Peer Court’s no-show rate is about 10%, compared with Juvenile Court’s 25% figure, Vieau said.

Twice a week, Peer Court turns high school multipurpose rooms into courtrooms with a judge, probation officer, two attorneys--all of whom volunteer their services--and student jurors.

The program is funded by a $94,700 federal grant administered through the governor’s office of criminal justice planning and relies heavily on volunteers.

The teens in the program have admitted guilt to police but have not been convicted in an actual court. Student juries are responsible for recommending one or more punishments, which can include apologizing to victims if they exist, performing community service work and simply obeying a curfew on school nights and weekends.

Peer Court teens are usually nonviolent, first-time offenders and are screened carefully so they won’t get into deeper trouble with the law, Vieau said. The crimes they have committed range from vandalism, petty theft, and possession of marijuana or alcohol to assault. Most of the crimes are not committed on school grounds.

The judge hands down the final punishment but takes into account the student jury recommendation. The judge can stiffen the punishment, which will be supervised by volunteer probation officers or by members of the Orange County Bar Foundation.

The teens have up to six months in which to complete their punishment.

A program like Peer Court can be an effective tool for embarrassing troubled teens into “turning a new leaf,” said W. Garrett Capune, chairman of the Cal State Fullerton criminal justice program, who discusses the program with his students.

“The risk in having a person go to real court is having them be labeled and stigmatized as a criminal, and then they start acting like one,” Capune said. “The person for whom it’s [the program] going to have an impact is someone who is not lost yet.”

University students are not the only ones who learn from the program. It also has become a popular learning tool in high schools because the teens involved get a realistic sense of the legal system, said Irvine High School Assistant Principal Harry Meader.

“If you observe the faces of the jurors and the role they took on, you see the reason for the court,” he said.

Kelly Morrissey, 18, of Irvine said she was surprised Peer Court was run like a real courtroom.

“I thought it was pretty neat because I’ve never actually seen how a courtroom works,” Morrissey said.

But Morrissey and Josh Buss, 18, also of Irvine, said they would have liked to see a more calculated method of picking jurors, rather than the judge pointing at any student who raised a hand.

“The judge just picked them randomly,” Buss said. “Usually, when you select a jury, the attorney gets to ask questions, and it ends up being a jury of your peers. I’m not sure the juries were very representative of the school.”

But most students agreed that teens make better jurors because they can empathize with other teens’ problems.

Neilson Serrano, 16, who served as a juror in one case at Esperanza High School in Anaheim, said he could relate to those who face punishment because he, too, is a teenager.

“You have to put yourself in his shoes,” said Serrano, of Yorba Linda. “You have to pick the right punishment--not too light, not too strong.”