Updated: Tuesday, Feb. 29, 2000 at 01:31 CST

Learning realities of life in court; middle school students observe system
at work
By Gabrielle Crist
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH -- On any given day in the Tarrant County Justice Center,
prosecutors present crime scene photos, someone details a rape or beating
and a victim's family mourns its loss.

In many cases, a dozen or so middle school students sit in the courtroom,
catching a real- life glimpse of the criminal justice system.

Educators, parents and attorneys agree that students should watch a trial to
see how the system really works and how it differs from TV crime shows. What
they don't agree about is how young those students should be and what
details they ought to see.

In many trials, the crime scene photos are shocking, and although they
usually are presented for only jurors to see, it's possible for someone in
the audience to catch a glimpse. Even if students don't see the pictures,
they could hear testimony that often describes the photos or the crime in
great detail.

College and high school students can handle a violent- crime trial, some
prosecutors said. And while parents should decide whether their younger
children can attend a trial, some prosecutors wonder if there's any benefit
to exposing 13- and 14-year-old students to gruesome details of a crime.

Probably not, said Thomas Van Hoose, a clinical assistant professor of
psychiatry at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas.
Because students attend only a few hours of a trial, they don't have enough
time to learn the difference between television and reality, or even how the
criminal justice system works, he said.

"You're not going to get a lesson that complex in a two- hour slice right in
the middle of something," Van Hoose said.

In addition, Van Hoose said, each child reacts to a trial differently, and
teachers run the risk of exposing the wrong child to the wrong details.

For example, he said, a student exposed to domestic violence at home could
react emotionally after attending a murder trial involving domestic
violence.

"I have some real concerns," said Van Hoose, who also is in private
practice.

Assistant District Attorney Sharon Johnson shares Van Hoose's concerns and
said she worries that some students will be traumatized.

"Maybe 17 are fine with it, but then maybe there's three that just can't
cope with what they're hearing," Johnson said. "You don't know what's
happening in their family. You don't know what's going on at home."

Some students shouldn't watch violent-crime trials, and there are trials
that no children should watch, supporters of the courthouse field trips
concurred. But generally speaking, they said, once children are in eighth
grade, they do not need to be guarded from reality.

Besides, some parents and teachers said, students see more graphic violence
on television. At least when they watch a trial, they see what really
happens when someone loses a mother, brother or friend, they said.

Pam Fenton's 13-year-old son watched part of a December domestic violence
murder trial and had no adverse emotional reaction to it, she said.

"We live in a horrible world in a horrible time, and to shield your child I
don't think does any good," said Fenton, whose son is an eighth-grader at
Wedgwood Middle School. "Let them see that, yes, these bad people are going
to prison."

Jennifer Mattingly, an assistant principal at Huffines Middle School in
Lewisville, said her students usually watch murder trials when they visit
the Tarrant County Justice Center, but she tries to make sure the details
are not too gruesome.

Like other teachers, Mattingly said she doesn't take her students to trials
in sexual assault cases involving children, but in October, they did watch a
portion of an aggravated sexual assault trial.

"It was absolutely a phenomenal experience. They talked about it for days,"
Mattingly said.

As she does before each parent-approved field trip to the courthouse,
Mattingly prepared the students for what they might see or hear and told
them they could leave the courtroom if they got uncomfortable.

"I don't ever want to put a kid in a situation where they're uncomfortable,"
Mattingly said. Two female students did leave the sexual assault trial,
Mattingly said, and were taken to another trial.

Mattingly said she has taken about 1,000 students to the courthouse in
recent years. Although a handful of parents "think it's awful," most support
the field trips, she said.

"It's always been a real positive experience," said Mattingly, adding that
she, too, has benefited from the field trips. "I have a totally different
insight now than I did before."

State District Judge Scott Wisch agreed that students can benefit from
watching a trial, but said they don't need to see and hear every gory detail
to learn from the experience.

This month, Wisch presided over an aggravated assault trial in which a man
had cut his ex- girlfriend's throat. As in most trials, the majority of the
testimony was relatively unemotional.

But when prosecutors got ready to call the victim to the stand and introduce
grisly photos of her injuries, Wisch ordered those younger than age 14 to
leave the courtroom.

"There was going to be pictures of someone with their throat cut ear to
ear," Wisch said.

But if 14-year-olds can be certified to stand trial as adults, they should
be able to watch a trial, said Cindy Randolph, an eighth-grade honors
reading teacher at Wedgwood Middle School.

"It's only fair, it's only right, that they should know what the
consequences are," Randolph said, adding that she doesn't take her seventh-
grade students to trials.

She said she wants her students to know they can change the world, but they
can't if they don't see the world's wrongs.

"It's hard to improve something you don't understand," Randolph said. "I
think it's way better to be aware."

She conceded that students could learn the same lesson watching a nonviolent
trial, but they want to see murder trials.

"That's just reality," Randolph said.

John Woods, a 15-year-old in Randolph's class, said he wasn't upset after
watching a couple of hours of testimony in the December domestic violence
murder case. He even caught a glimpse of an autopsy photo that showed the
victim's bullet wounds, he said.

Woods said the trial taught him that there are "families that get ruined" by
crime. He was glad to watch a murder trial instead of a nonviolent case, he
said, because that "made it more exciting, because this guy's life is at
stake."

Most boys his age would probably feel the same, "usually because they want
to see blood," he said.

But some students, particularly those younger than 13, aren't ready to watch
a violent- crime trial, Woods said.

"It might upset some kids," Woods said. "I'm quite sure it would."

Even if it didn't, Johnson said, young teens have plenty of time to learn
that the world is a violent place.

"I'd like to think that kids are still kids and they don't need to hear the
graphic details," Johnson said. "This isn't doing a great deal to add to
their sense of security in the world."


Gabrielle Crist, (817) 390-7662
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