Darth Vader Peeved As Kids Find Him Guilty

At 12:09 p.m. Thursday in Courtroom 44 of the Ventura County Courthouse, Darth “E” Vader was found guilty on numerous counts of spaceship theft and intergalactic speeding by a jury of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders from Oxnard’s Norman Brekke Elementary School.

At that point, the black-helmeted villain of “Star Wars” stood and began to breathe heavily while waving a light saber in a threatening manner.

The judge called for order in the courtroom.

“Sit down, Lord Vader, or you’ll be ejected,” said the judge sternly.

It was all a joke, of course: the latest in a series of mock trials staged by court administrative personnel to teach justice system basics to elementary school children.

“We want them to learn at a very young age the importance of law in our society,” said court deputy executive officer Margie Borjon-Miller, who directs the program. “It puts them in direct contact with the justice system.”

On the advice of his attorney, Vader never took the witness stand in his own behalf as he was tried and convicted for the theft of an X-wing fighter plane from Luke Skywalker and three additional counts of Milky Way traffic violations.

“At one point, I clocked the perpetrator at 120,000 mph in a 100,000 mph zone,” testified Officer Blue, an interplanetary traffic control officer.

In a surprise tactic, Vader’s attorney accused Skywalker of trying to frame Vader. Princess Leia, however, testified that Skywalker was nowhere near the scene of the crime.

“Luke was off in a galaxy far, far away at the time,” said Her Highness.

The jury was made up of 12 of the 60 students who attended the mock trial. They left their jury box seats and met in an anteroom.

In less than a minute, student Nelson Lopez had volunteered to be jury foreman. In the interests of time, a show of jurists’ hands was immediately called for by court officer Tonna Siela, who said that in this case, “majority rules.”

The majority did, 9 to 3 in favor of conviction. One student voiced doubts, saying that Princess Leia’s testimony wasn’t very credible.

The verdict announced, Superior Court Judge Vincent J. O’Neill, who had earlier visited the school as part of the court’s “Taking the Courthouse to the Schoolroom” program, took questions from the audience of 10-, 11- and 12-year-olds.

The questions reflected both innocence of youth and the grittiness of real life.

“Are these guys real lawyers and judges?” O’Neill was asked.

No, he said, most were staff from the court executive’s office who thought up the trial, wrote the script and acted the parts.

“Is it worse to be treated as an adult or a kid in court?” asked Jesus Trejo, a sixth-grader.

“Much worse to be treated as an adult,” O’Neill answered.

“Where do people that get killed by an electric chair go? Here?”

“No, that’s up in San Quentin, near San Francisco,” O’Neill said. And in California, he added, it’s lethal injection.

“If your parents both go to jail, where do kids go?” asked Jesus.

O’Neill tried to give a short answer to a complex question, which, he said, could be a foster home.

O’Neill was asked why Darth Vader didn’t have to talk and why the judge couldn’t force Darth “E” Vader to take off his mask.

The dark figure had refused to comply.

“I guess that’s his real face,” said O’Neill, for once trumped by a force he couldn’t budge.