NEW PALESTINE — Students from New Palestine High School’s “We the People” class and debate club were some of 300 students from the state of Indiana who recently received an in-person lesson about how things work in the Indiana Supreme Court.
The court normally holds oral arguments at the Statehouse in Indianapolis and occasionally schedules arguments outside the capital. Traveling oral arguments allow students, press and the public the opportunity to see the work of the court in a venue other than the courtroom at the Statehouse.
The Indiana Supreme Court visited the University of Indianapolis last week and held oral argument in Keller J. Mellowitz v. Ball State University, Board of Trustees of Ball State University, and State of Indiana, a civil case concerning a pandemic-related class action lawsuits.
“We the People,” NPHS teacher Gina Iacobucci took her students to watch the oral arguments including seniors Jack Rossell, Carinne Strubbe and Lillie Poag. The three actually had the chance to not only attend the session but ask the Supreme Court judges questions after the students sat through the arguments.
“I asked what was the hardest part about transitioning from a lawyer to a judge,” Jack said.
He found out it’s easier, the judges said, to select cases as a lawyer, while judges must handle the cases before them regardless of how they feel about a case.
“We had a bailiff and he said ‘all rise,’ and things like that, so I don’t think having this in an auditorium took away from the experience at all,” Jack said. “It really felt like a courtroom to me.”
The students who love learning about the U.S. Constitution and how the court system, particularly the Indiana Supreme Court works in their “We the People” class enjoyed seeing things they’ve learned about unfold during the oral arguments.
“To me it felt like we heard the beginning of an argument,” Carinne said. “It felt like something that needed to be evaluated more in-depth.”
For Lillie, it was about seeing how the lawyers, the district attorney and the judges actually perform their duties in the courtroom setting.
“I wanted to see how things work in a real court, how things went down and how they would pursue a case like that,” Lillie said. “It was interesting to see.”
Iacobucci noted she had as much fun at the hearing as her students getting a chance to see an oral argument at the highest level in the state.
“They’ve only done something like this a couple of dozen times since 1991, so it was a big deal for our class to go see it,” she said. “The whole thing about ‘We the People,’ is, it’s the same thing as in D.C. government … We try to make seem everything very authentic.”
The NPHS “We the People” debate team, which the three students were a part of, took 4th place at state earlier this year as the students participated in simulated congressional-type hearings sharing their constitutional knowledge about topics.
“This visit for our class made to Indianapolis, it was especially interesting because the way the lawyers were presenting their arguments to the court was very similar how the students had to present their arguments to our judges in the competition,” Iacobucci said.
Jack noted he plans to study law in college and become a lawyer while Lillie wants to also go into pre-law and learn more about working for national security as well as study musical theater. She asked the judges about the difference in making decisions based on state and federal laws while Carinne, who plans to go into neuroscience, asked the judges about making decisions on vaguely worded laws versus ones that are more specific.
While studying law is not in Carinne’s future, she said watching an ISC oral argument was actually kind of fascinating.
“I don’t know if I have the patience to pursue law as a career, but it’s something I will always continue to research and continually try to expand my knowledge on so I can understand the complexities and workings of our government,” Carinne said.
EH students hear Indiana Appeals Court case at EHHS
New Palestine students were not the only ones who got to experience the wheels of justice recently. Late last week, Eastern Hancock High School juniors and seniors got to watch, in-person, a law-and-order-type event as the Indiana Court of Appeals brought a live case to their auditorium through the state’s Appeals on Wheels program. That’s where students had a chance to listen to an appeals case and afterwards ask the judges questions about their jobs.
