PEQUOT LAKES — The Pequot Lakes High School Auditorium became a courtroom Tuesday morning, Sept. 22.
About 300 juniors and seniors heard attorneys argue before a three-judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals. The court hears oral arguments throughout Greater Minnesota to keep people connected to the court, and special occasions like this allow students to learn about the justice system and see the court in action.
The case heard Tuesday deals with the issue of double jeopardy. A Mahnomen County district court judge declared a mistrial after an exchange between the defendant and a witness may have been overheard by the jury.
As one student explained to his friends after:
"He's [public defender Mike McLaughlin] trying to say that it's unconstitutional, and the case is over. The girl's [Norman County Attorney Elizabeth Brainard] trying to say that it didn't count and something something. ... The girl's trying to get another trial."
The students didn't get to learn the outcome of the case. The court will issue a written opinion in the next 90 days.
They couldn't ask questions about the case during the Q&A with the judges that followed.
But some tried to better understand what they just heard.
"What's the concept of ‘sua sponte’?" asked senior Max Spartz.
Sua sponte means a judge did something without a motion or request from the prosecution or defense.
"So what they're saying is, neither of the lawyers asked the court for a mistrial," presiding Judge Elise Larson said.
Others wanted to learn more about the job.
"What's the decision-making process that you guys go through to actually figure out a general consensus about a case?" asked senior Kate Arellano.
Larson explained the Court of Appeals is an "error-correcting court," looking for mistakes that may have been made at the district court level. Both sides write briefs, or "really long papers," and the appellant gets to rebut, just like in oral arguments.
The judge's staff read the briefs and prepare bench memos, making a high-level recommendation of how they think the case should be resolved.
"Usually, we'll come with some prepared questions that we want to ask the lawyers, 'cause the purpose of oral argument is really to get some clarification on the arguments and what the parties think," Larson said. " ... In a normal case, we would immediately go in a back room behind our courthouse, and we would sit, and we would make a decision about how we were going to decide the case."
A couple of students reminded the judges that they were dealing with high schoolers.
"Do you guys listen to any pre-game music? Like, pre-court case music?" asked senior Noah Stewart.
Judge Rachel Bond listens to classical music ("I'm just going to own the fact that I'm sort of an old person"). Larson does not, but she did listen to a lot of Hamilton while preparing for interviews to become a judge. And Judge Keala Ede said these days, he sometimes listens to nothing in the car before work, but — to the delight of the students — when he was a public defender, he'd listen to DMX before closing arguments.
Seniors Cash Nivarel and Nick Beier said it was eye-opening to see the court in action. Parts of it defied their expectations.
"I saw the two attorneys talk after the thing, and I was like, ‘Shouldn't they be like fist fighting or something? Shouldn't they be hating each other's guts?'" Nivarel said. "I guess not."
"Even some of the lawyers, they seemed nervous, like stutters," Beier said. "... Just didn't realize how human everybody else is."
Larson, who's from Bagley, said this is her favorite part of being a judge.
"I love showing people who are not lawyers what it is that we do, getting to talk to people about the importance of our justice system," she said.
