MEDIA ADVISORY February 1, 2001 CONTACT: Russell Lovell, (515) 271-1806 FIRST-YEAR LAW STUDENTS TO GET PREVIEW OF LIFE AFTER LAW SCHOOL BY OBSERVING ACTUAL TRIAL Textbooks will jump to life Feb. 5-9 when first-year students at Drake Law School take a break from their regular class schedule and observe — from start to finish, from jury selection through jury verdict — an actual criminal trial held in the court room of the Neal and Bea Smith Law Center, 24th Street and University Avenue. Coordinated by professor Russell E. Lovell, the practicum is a unique academic program that provides students with an important and innovative experiential learning opportunity. "Drake is the only law school in the country that does this," Lovell said. "Many law schools regularly host an appellate court argument on campus, lasting 30 minutes or an hour. Most law schools have moot court experiences in which the students simulate (or act out) a court room experience. But actual trials take days, not minutes, and none but Drake has made the commitment to build an educational experience based on an actual jury trial. "The faculty cancels a week of classes so students can observe the entire trial, and, through small group discussions with seasoned attorneys and judges and faculty and other presentations, dissect what has happened in the court room. It is an experience that truly integrates ‘law in the books’ with ‘law in action.’" The case that the law students will observe is State v. Willis. Clarence Willis is charged with armed robbery of the Greyhound Bus Station in downtown Des Moines on June 16, 2000. Polk County District Court Judge Robert Wilson will preside over the trial. Jaki Livingston, a 1993 graduate of Drake Law School, is the prosecuting attorney. Ron Wheeler is defense counsel. "Eye witness testimony is critical to the case," Lovell said, "and the defense will attempt to attack it as unreliable." Dealing with substantive and procedural questions of law by observing a trial is very different from the Socratic method of learning in the classroom, according to Lovell. "In the classroom, students learn about the law in segments — procedure, evidence, constitutional law and so on," Lovell said. "When they become lawyers, all those segments have to be reintegrated into the whole when they take on a case. Watching an actual trial will show students how lawyers use procedure and evidence and present their case to the jury." Students, assigned to small groups led by veteran attorneys, judges, and members of the law faculty — all volunteering their time — will rotate between watching the trial live in the clinic's court room and observing it on closed-circuit television from several conference rooms throughout the clinic. An intricate, unobtrusive camera system was installed in the court room when it was built in 1994. Students will participate in both large and small group sessions that will provide on-the-spot commentary. Discussion of the events in the court room, with a special focus on jury selection, evidence, litigation practice, professionalism and procedure — as well as the criminal law involved in the case — will occur. The reliability of eyewitness identification testimony will be probed extensively in one session; another likely will include observation of a PBS Front Line video titled "What Jennifer Saw." Once the jury's verdict is announced, the practicum will conclude with two debriefing sessions. The first will be held with the lawyers who actually tried the case; the second will be with the jurors who decided the case. "These sessions have enabled students and faculty to question the lawyers as to their strategies and to inquire of the jurors as to the rationale for their decision and the effectiveness of the lawyer's presentations," Lovell said. "In our past three trial practicums, the debriefing sessions with the jurors have been exceptional. These sessions confirmed the conscientiousness with which the jurors approached their deliberations, reaffirming the students' confidence in the legitimacy of this key American institution." Lovell said he has gotten tremendous help and cooperation from Chief Judge Arthur Gamble and his colleagues on the Polk County District Court bench, court administration, Polk County Attorney John Sarcone and his staff, defense attorneys and other members of the legal community in coordinating the practicum. "Support for this project comes from their genuine interest in providing future lawyers an educational experience that helps them understand exactly how the law works," he added. "They fully appreciate that law, in its application, includes a critical human dynamic. They never had this kind of opportunity when they were in law school, and they know it is an experience that cannot be duplicated in the classroom."