Eighth Graders Take Over
Historic Courtroom
By M. D. Drysdale

The portrait of Judge John W. Rowell dwarfs the reality of Judge Brittany Flint, an eighth grader at Whitcomb High School, during a mock trial Friday at the Orange County Courthouse. A Randolph resident, Judge Rowell eventually became a legislator and the chief justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. (Herald / Tim Calabro)

One of the most famous courtroom dramas in American history was recreated last Friday in one of Vermont's most historic spaces—the handsome Orange County Courthouse in Chelsea.

One of the biggest differences was that this time, the judge was barely tall enough to look over the rail.

In an innovative class project the eighth grade history class at Whitcomb High School staged a mock version of the famous 1770 trial of British soldiers charged with murder in the Boston Massacre.

Eighth graders played the part of the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, the accused, the witnesses, the judge, and the bailiff. A team of eighth grade journalists documented the event and one of them contacted The Herald for coverage.

Seventh graders and a couple of teachers—who had not been prejudiced by taking part in the case preparation—sat in the jury box. The jury delivered the same verdict as was arrived at in 1770—the soldiers were guilty of manslaughter, not murder.

Before the mock trial, Court Clerk Emily Newman and real-life judge Pat Zimmerman addressed the eighth graders, giving them some of the courtroom's history and helping them to understand the importance of the work that goes on there every day.

Then the eighth grade bailiff called the court to order and eighth grader Brittany Flint ascended to the judge's chair, which towered over her.

The Boston Massacre mock trial was an educational project dreamed up by Joseph Andriano, a teacher-in-training who is also a real live lawyer. Andriano is spending one of his two internships in the eighth grade classroom of Marie Kittel at Whitcomb.

Each intern in the Upper Valley Teacher Institute has to create a special project in the classroom, and Andriano had been excited by attending a "Civics Summit" sponsored by the Vermont Bar Association on the topic of mock trials. He decided to give his students the benefit of his own expertise, and obtained permission from Orange County to use their courtroom.

Learning Points

The trial, he pointed out, has a lot of learning points, even though they can't all be tracked by testing.

In the words of the project's journalist, Kayla Rose, "This is really letting our class learn about the Colonists and British. We have also learned about courtroom terms."

They also learned a lot about the whole legal system. Having walked through the metal detectors at the Courthouse and entered the courtroom itself, they were "at some level intimidated," the teacher said. "They understood the gravity of the situation."

The students were given a general script to follow but they had to make up their courtroom speeches themselves, and Judge Brittany had to put together her instructions to the jury.

The students even got serious feedback on the fine points of public speaking and delivery. Three attorneys from South Royalton, Frank Berk, Jeffrey Lewis, and Ilerdon Mayer, took the students aside afterwards and gave them critique sessions.

The students were "wonderfully behaved" during the entire reënactment, Andriano said.

A recent graduate of Vermont Law School, Andriano has been clerking for the firm of Mayer & Berk in South Royalton, but discovered that lawyering was "not for me," he told The Herald.

Atty. Berk tells it slightly differently. "He went to Italy and had an epiphany," he said.

Andriano's wife, Rebecca Costellano, is already a teacher at Randolph Union High School, so he enrolled in the Teacher Institute's program.

Atty. Berk noted that he had argued his first mock trial in that same courtroom—as a Vermont Law School student in 1976. Friday's event was "a great experience," he said.

As for his former law clerk, "He'll be a great teacher," he said.