JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas –
Members from the U.S. Army Medical Command Office of the Staff Judge Advocate and the 502nd Air Base Wing Magistrate Court and Debarments Office, both at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, used a creative, yet educational, way to teach schoolchildren about the law during a May 1 visit to Fort Sam Houston Elementary School.
The two JBSA legal offices worked together to hold a mock trial based on the fable “The Three Little Pigs” for fifth graders in the elementary school’s cafeteria. Characters in the mock trial were played by attorneys and staff members from both MEDCOM Office of Staff Judge Advocate and 502nd ABW Magistrate Court and Debarments Office.
Lt. Col. Wendy Cox, MEDCOM deputy staff judge advocate, said the mock trial was about B.B. Wolf, aka the Big Bad Wolf, suing Mrs. Pig, one of The Three Little Pigs, when he tried to enter through the chimney of her home while she was boiling water in a cauldron.
“He (B.B. Wolf) was saying that Mrs. Pig intended to injure him or boil him in the cauldron when he went down the chimney,” Cox said.
But during the mock trial, Mrs. Pig argued she was boiling apples in the cauldron to make an apple pie when the wolf came down the chimney, forcibly entering her home, and she was protecting her home and life since B.B. Wolf had also eaten two of her brothers.
B.B. Wolf was played by Jeff Frantz, MEDCOM Office of Staff Judge Advocate contract and fiscal law paralegal. Frantz donned a wolf mask with claws for his role. Adorned with a pig mask and blonde wig, Airman Savannah Perez, 502nd Force Support Group military justice paralegal, took on the role of Mrs. Pig.
Other characters in the mock trial included the plaintiff’s attorney, Heather Morlang, MEDCOM Office of Staff Judge Advocate administrative law attorney; defense attorney, Eugene Smith, MEDCOM Office of Staff Judge Advocate contract law attorney; judge, Mary Leavitt, MEDCOM Office of Staff Judge Advocate fiscal law attorney; witness, 1st Lt. Stephen Bergren, 502nd ABW Magistrate Court and Debarments Office deputy chief; and jury foreman, Jack Nichols, MEDCOM Office of Staff Judge Advocate recovery attorney.
A jury consisted of 12 fifth graders selected by Scott Stuller, Fort Sam Houston Elementary assistant principal.
Both B.B. Wolf and Mrs. Pig took the witness stand with both of their attorneys questioning them, with B.B. Wolf’s attorney, Morlang, cross-examining Mrs. Pig. The witness, a businessman, who knew Mrs. Pig, also took the stand and was questioned by Mrs. Pig’s attorney, Smith.
During the mock trial proceedings, the students reacted to the testimony of both B.B. Wolf and Mrs. Pig, with some students favoring the plaintiff and other students the defendant. After closing statements from both the plaintiff and defense attorneys, the jury was led into a separate room to decide whether Mrs. Pig intentionally tried to injure or boil B.B. Wolf.
While the jury was deliberating, both Cox and Nichols took questions from students and explained to them how the legal and court system works.
Then the jury came out from their deliberation. When the judge asked the jury they had reached a verdict, the jury answered yes and they found Mrs. Pig had not tried to intentionally injure or boil the wolf, which was greeted by cheers from students who sided with the pig.
After the verdict was announced, Cox and the rest of the JBSA legal members who participated in the mock trial took more questions from the children.
Cox said the students were curious about the law and the legal process.
“I think it’s good to show kids at this age that the law can be fun,” Cox said. “But it’s also very interesting for me to see their minds working, the creative thinking and processing it at such a young age. I think it was their appreciation for the people performing and the law itself. They were very curious about it. To me that’s more the joy of it, the curiosity in the process.”
Nichols said the mock trial was taken from a script written by the American Bar Association, which also has mock trial scripts based on other fairy tales for elementary school children.
The idea for holding the mock trial came from Nichols, who said he got the idea while working in the legal office at Fort Dix, N.J., where they held a mock trial each year at the post’s elementary school.
The plan for holding a mock trial at Fort Sam Houston Elementary School started earlier this year when Cox and Nichols met with Dr. Joseph Cerna, Fort Sam Houston Elementary School principal.
“I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce some concepts of the law to the kids,” Nichols said. “I think it went very well. We had lots of very good questions from the kids. It showed how attentive and interested they were. We had fun doing it but to see how they reacted to that was even better.”
Cerna said the mock trial was scheduled for May 1 because it is Law Day, a national day which observes the rule of law and its contributions to the freedoms Americans have. He said the fifth grade teachers use the mock trial as one of the teaching tools for educating students about the legal process, the judicial system and the importance and significance of Law Day.
“We want them to become familiar with the legal process,” Cerna said. “It is perfectly aligned with the knowledge and skills taught in fifth grade social studies.”
By observing the mock trial, Cerna said the students were engaged in the process.
“There were some well thought out questions,” he said. “The questions were relevant to the learning experience. It was very entertaining.”
Perez said she wanted to play the role of Mrs. Pig in the mock trial because she likes The Three Little Pigs story and she thought it would be exiting for the children to see.
“It was pretty fun,” Perez said. “I thought it was pretty funny with them bringing in a lot of students and having some of the students on my side and some on the wolf’s side. He (B.B. Wolf) would try to get his students to be loud and I would turn to the students to my right and say, ‘I didn’t do it,’ to get them to be loud like the students on the wolf’s side.”