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‘The game is worth playing’: Scattergood students learn through mock trial
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · March 19, 2015
In a mock crime scene, Scattergood Friends students collected DNA samples and sent them off to a lab.
Wait — scratch that last part.
They walked samples from the art building, where the “murder” took place, to the science building, where they tested the DNA on their own machines.
Yep, Scattergood can test DNA samples.
A $5,000 grant from Toshiba helped pay for the equipment, which replicates and sequences DNA.
It does not map the entire genome, but shows enough of its composition to compare it to samples collected from possible suspects, biology teacher Michael Severino-Patterson said.
These tests started a month ago. The “murder” was Feb. 12. And as cool as the students thought this technology would be toward the investigation, the next four weeks taught them that they need more than DNA when they go to trial.
Students in Advanced Biology, geometry and government classes tackled the crime scene, interviewed suspects, studied footprints to determine the height of the murderer and more. Then they broke into two groups: prosecution and defense.
Armed with data, they went head to head in a mock trial on March 12. The victim: Academic Dean Louis Herbst had been stabbed four times. The chief suspect: Director of Communications and Giving Jody Caldwell, Herbst’s neighbor, charged with second-degree murder.
The prosecution said Herbst’s incessant loud music pushed the otherwise patient Caldwell to snap, prompting her to kill him when he was alone working in the art room. The prosecution said it would show how Caldwell grew more and more agitated in the time leading up to the murder, and a suspicious 15-minute gap around the time in question where no one can account for Caldwell’s whereabouts.
The defense said it would argue that the evidence is circumstantial. DNA or no, everyone on campus uses the art room. And Herbst has a habit of making enemies with his peers, so there’s a long list of people with motive — and opportunity — to off this guy.
Government teacher Stephanie Sheikholeslami would later reveal that the staff meant for Caldwell to be found guilty. However, the three-man jury said the weight of the evidence presented at trial led them to conclude Caldwell was not guilty.
At that pronouncement, a loud gasp sounded from the prosecution.
After a pause, applause arose from the student body as the defense team shared high-fives.
“We were stunned and amazed by the … assuredness” of the students on both sides of the trial, poet-in-residence Bruce Whiteman said of he and fellow judges/jurors Adam Hansen and Dan Treadway. “The teamwork was impressive.”
Scattergood staff arranged the activity with the help of Marc Laurie, a special investigator in Minnesota whose daughter, Maddie, attends the school. She and five others made up the prosecution.
“It’s been awesome because (this is an) experience I wouldn’t have gained at any other school,” Maddie Laurie, a senior, said. “The most important thing I’ve learned is not to make assumptions before all the evidence is collected … if you write a leading or biased statement and give it to the prosecution, you aren’t actually giving them facts, but a biased opinion.”
Students on either side of the case both admitted uncertainty before the trial.
“I thought Jody definitely did it,” defense team member Emmey Bassuk, a junior, said. “This opened my eyes. If the defendant actually did it, how hard it would be to stand behind them.”
Senior Anna Zakelj, a member of the prosecution, said she learned that DNA sampling is “not 100 percent perfect.”
“A lot went wrong, but I think we got the correct results,” she said.
Despite the doubts and missing information, the students felt the process for determining someone’s guilt or innocence was good and getting better with improved technology and technique.
“The game is worth playing,” senior Brias Galvin Sotelo said.
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