LAW WISE
OCTOBER 2010
Greetings from the Kansas Supreme Court and the Kansas Bar Association (KBA). Welcome to this edition of
Law Wise and the second edition of the 2010-2011 school year. The theme of October’s edition is 19th & 26th Amendment
Ratification.
IN THIS ISSUE
Welcome......................................................... 1
Calendar of Events........................................... 1
High School Mock Trial
Grows Young Lawyers.................................. 2
Technology for Teachers.................................. 3
Suffragist Susan B. Anthony’s
Petition to the 43rd Congress....................... 4
19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
Women’s Right to Vote (1920)...................... 4
The 26th Amendment...................................... 5
Biography of the newest Supreme Court Justice;
Justice Elena Kagan...................................... 5
Nominating People to the Supreme Court –
Yesterday and Today..................................... 5
Kansas Courts Video Available......................... 6
Resources for Law-Related Education.............. 6
Ca
l e n d a r
Jan. 29, 2011
o f
Eve
n t s
ansas Day –
K
Sesquicentennial
March 12, 2011Regional Mock Trial (Olathe
and Wichita)
April 2, 2011
State Mock Trial (Olathe)
May 4-8, 2011National Mock Trial
Competition (Phoenix, AZ)
Welcome
W
ith elections just around the corner, this issue of Law Wise highlights the ratification of the 19th and 26th amendments to the Constitution. Women’s suffrage celebrates its 90th anniversary this year. We
have included information related to Susan B. Anthony’s fight for the right
to vote along with information related to the passage of the 19th amendment and links to two different lesson plans centering on the 19th amendment. Additionally, there are links to two lesson plans focusing on the
26th amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18.
Our feature article this month is from John Steere, the Mock Trial coach
for The Independent School in Wichita. The article covers his trip with
his students to the national competition, as well as information about the
value and benefits of the mock trial program generally.
This month you will also find a brief biography of Elena Kagan, the
newest United States Supreme Court Justice. Scott Shipman has provided
an introduction to a Street Law lesson plan that centers around Supreme
Court nominations. n
2010 Mock Trial State Champions
Front Row left to right: Maggie Hylton, Milan Kumar, Jennifer Steere, Emily
Ramseyer, Anya Pierson, Mariya Chulichikova.
Back Row: John Steere, Jordan Speed
2 LAW WISE | OCTOBER 2010
High School Mock Trial Grows Young Lawyers
by John Steere
Nothing is more rewarding for a teacher than to see students
reach goals they didn’t believe were attainable. Although I love
teaching, my most rewarding moments as a teacher last year
came in the courtroom, not the class room. Those moments
came as our school’s mock trial team won the Kansas State
Mock Trial tournament and then represented Kansas at the
Mock Trial National Championship in Philadelphia. My students had an incredible experience at the tournament. Even
though they had to work very hard outside of class to get ready
and the competition was very intense, they remember it as the
highlight of their year. Just a few days ago in a speech to the
student body, our team captain identified the national mock
trial tournament as his most memorable high school experience. My students and I are very grateful to the Kansas Bar Association for making the mock trial program possible in Kansas.
Anyone who took a trial advocacy class in law school would
be familiar with how the high school mock trial competition
works. The competitors are provided with a case packet containing background facts, six witness statements, pleadings,
photos, diagrams and other exhibits. Each team has at least
three members who act as lawyers. Each lawyer is required
to do at least one direct examination and one cross examination in each trial. The student-lawyers must present opening
and closing statements, introduce and use exhibits, make and
respond to evidentiary objections, and analyze and appropriately use the jury instructions. Other students act as witnesses.
They must memorize the witness statements and be able to
testify accurately and in character without notes and stand
up to sometimes intense cross examination. Each team must
be prepared to present both sides of the case, so each lawyer
must be prepared to direct and cross two witnesses. By the
time a team gets through the state tournament they will have
participated in eighteen hours of trial over three days.
Given the challenges of learning the packet, learning the legal theory and finding practice time, the trials conducted by
high school mock trial students are remarkably good. I am always tickled and proud to hear lawyers and judges marvel at
the students’ command of the courtroom and the law. “Wow”
is a pretty frequent comment from first-time judges.
The Mock Trial Program could not exist without the support
of Kansas lawyers. The KBA sponsors and runs the tournament. District Court judges in Johnson and Sedgwick County
allow the competition to use their courtrooms. In addition,
lawyers and judges act as the trial judges and serve on the
three-person panels that score and judge each round. The case
is often complex. The national case packet last year was nearly
70 pages long. While the format is similar to a mock trial in a
law school trial advocacy class, high school mock trial competitors don’t have the benefit of having taken a course in trial
advocacy or evidence. Thus, attorneys who are willing to help
coach and train the student-lawyers are an essential component of the mock trial program.
The High School Mock Trial Program provides tremendous
benefits to the students who participate. Through mock trial,
students become much more effective speakers. They gain
confidence to speak in public without a script. The studentlawyers become much more analytical and precise thinkers. It
only takes a few experiences of having a poorly worded cross
question blow up in one’s face or seeing a witness run away
with an open-ended question to teach young mock trial lawyers the importance of clarity. The students develop poise and
tenacity when faced on one side with a difficult witness supported by a lawyer with a hair-trigger tendency to object and
faced on the other by a judge who expects clear, succinct and
prompt responses to objections. All of the competitors become
more logical thinkers. Most importantly, they learn the concept
of professionalism.
The Mock Trial Program also benefits the Kansas legal community. All of the students who compete gain valuable insight
into the reality of the legal profession and come away with
increased respect for the legal system and lawyers. The students learn intimately that the adversarial process is designed
to ensure fairness, because that concept is at the core of the
jury instructions and rules of evidence and procedure that they
must study and apply. As well, the program brings the students
into close contact with many members of the bar, which helps
to dispel the stereotyped image of lawyers that they have often
picked up from the media. They become closely acquainted
with the lawyers in their community who coach them. They
see the dedication of the young lawyers who run the tournament. They argue their cases in front of prominent lawyers and
judges who have given up their Saturday because of their interest in the Mock Trial program and who stay around after the
trial to give them advise and feedback.
Students who participate in mock trial don’t tell lawyer jokes.
Every student I have coached in mock trial has come away
with a greater respect for both lawyers and the legal process.
If you ask the students why they participate and spend long
hours preparing for competition, however, they won’t talk
about how it makes them stronger students or more respectful
of the legal system. Their answer is almost always “because it
is fun.” That is why working with mock trial students is so rewarding for teachers and attorney-coaches. The students have
an infectious enthusiasm. They love the challenge. They genuinely enjoy testing their wits and skills against their peers. They
also genuinely enjoy the opportunity to work with real lawyers
and judges before trial and to get their feedback and advice
during the competition.
Unfortunately, the level of participation in mock trial in Kansas is much lower than in many other states. While many of the
Johnson County Schools field teams, in recent years none of
the schools west of Johnson County have participated except
for a handful of schools in Wichita. There are plenty of talented
students who could excel at mock trial. Kansas is routinely one
of the strongest states in the country in debate and forensics.
Every year the KBA sends letters to all the schools in the state
inviting them to field teams. However, those letters usually land
on the desk of a teacher who is already very busy, doesn’t have
any background in the law and doesn’t know how to coach
mock trial. While the KBA offers to help find attorney-coaches
(Continued on next page)
OCTOBER 2010 | LAW WISE 3
for schools, teachers are often nervous about bringing someone they don’t know into their classroom. Since there is no
tradition of mock trial in their school, it is easier to ignore the
letter and not participate. To increase participation in Kansas
we need lawyers, especially those with children in the school,
to approach their local schools and volunteer to coach. Once
a program gets started it is often self perpetuating because the
students become so eager to compete, but it takes someone to
get the ball rolling.
The time spent helping to coach mock trial will be rewarding and well worth the time and effort. Ponce De Leon never
found the fountain of youth. He was looking in the wrong
place. It exists anywhere a mentor sparks the enthusiasm or
feeds the curiosity of a young mind.
On behalf of all my students at the Independent School and
all of the Mock Trial competitors in the state, thank you for
providing this valuable opportunity. n
Forty-Four teams competed at the 2010 National High
School Mock Trial Championships, including forty state champions and teams from South Korea, Guam and the Marianas
Islands. The Kansas team from The Independent School in
Wichita was 1-3, but was very competitive in all of its rounds.
In two of the rounds that it lost the Kansas team was judged the
winner by one of three judges. The 2011 National High School
Mock Trial Championship will be in Phoenix in May. The process of determining the Kansas State Champion will begin with
the release of the case packet in November. Regional competitions will be held in March and the Kansas High School Mock
Trial Championship will be held in early April at the Johnson
County courthouse.
For more information about the National High School Mock
Trial Championship visit:
http://www.2010nationalmocktrial.com/
http://www.nationalmocktrial.org/index.cfm
John Steere graduated from The University of Kansas Law
School in 1987 where he was Order of the Coif and Articles Editor of the University of Kansas Law Review. He was an associate at Shook, Hardy and Bacon in Overland Park and became
a partner at Fleeson, Gooing, Coulson and Kitch in Wichita. In
2000 he joined the staff at The Independent School in Wichita
where he teaches AP US History and AP US Government and
coaches debate and mock trial.
Take a Field Trip!
Looking for a field trip idea? Interested in an interactive
learning experience? Want to give your students a chance to
meet with a federal judge? Need materials to help you teach
about the courts?
Contact the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas for
help! We offer tours of our three courthouses and fun, timely, and interactive EDUCATIONAL programs designed for
students of all ages.
Check out the program offerings at www.uscourts.gov/
outreach/index.html and contact Neely Fedde, the Court’s
Public Outreach Specialist, at [email protected]
or (913) 551-6692 for more information or to schedule a session in our Kansas City, Wichita, or Topeka courthouses or
at your school.
Te r r i f i c Te c h n o l o g y
for
Te a c h e r s
Check out these great websites …
Voting rights quiz
http://constitutioncenter.org/Sieze_the_Vote/
Project Vote Smart provides information about candidates and voting education
http://www.votesmart.org/index.htm
Election related lessons
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/elections/cover.html
4 LAW WISE | OCTOBER 2010
Suffragist Susan B. Anthony’s petition to the 43rd Congress
O
n January 22, 1874, suffragist Susan B. Anthony’s petition
to the 43rd Congress (1873–1875) regarding a fine she
received for illegal voting was referred to the House Judiciary
Committee. Following the Civil War, Anthony—a lifelong advocate for women’s rights—and other suffragists sought to convince Congress to strike gender-specific language in the 14th
and 15th Amendments (which extended equal rights and suffrage
to African-American men). Meeting little success, they adopted a
“new departure” strategy which
interpreted the 14th Amendment
as granting all naturalized and native born Americans citizenship,
believing that particular status inherently conferred suffrage rights.
Anthony was among several
women who voted in Rochester,
New York, in the November 5,
1872, election. On November 28,
she was arrested on the charge of
“knowingly and unlawfully” voting. Anthony used her criminal
trial as a platform for her views on
women’s suffrage, refusing to pay the $100 fine levied upon her
conviction in order to gain greater publicity for her cause. After
a higher court refused to hear her case, Anthony turned her attention to the legislative branch. She sent a petition and a copy
of her trial transcript, imploring the House and Senate to waive
her fine. Arguing that she voted “in common with hundreds
of other American citizens, her neighbors,” Anthony declared
“it is a mockery to call [my] trial a trial by jury.” The House
Judiciary Committee failed to act on the petition, though Anthony never paid her fine nor served jail time. Fourteen years
after Anthony’s death, the states ratified the 19th Amendment,
granting women the right to vote on August 18, 1920.
Source: Office of History and Preservation, Office of the Clerk, http://
clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.html?action=view&intID=21,
(October11,2010)
Jeannine Koranda, How Kansas Picks its Supreme Court Justices
Becomes Issue in Governor’s Race, (available at http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/10/2141178/how-kansas-picks-its-supreme-court.
html#ixzz0yhYNXUvV)
Selection to the Kansas Supreme Court at 11-14 (citations
omitted).
Susan B. Anthony photo, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Susan_B_
Anthony_Older_Years.png
19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920)
T
he 19th amendment guarantees all American women the
right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy
and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and
protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations
of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many
Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution.
Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.
Beginning in the 1800s, women organized, petitioned, and
picketed to win the right to vote, but it took them decades to
accomplish their purpose. Between 1878, when the amendment was first introduced in Congress, and August 18, 1920,
when it was ratified, champions of voting rights for women
worked tirelessly, but strategies for achieving their goal varied. Some pursued a strategy of passing suffrage acts in each
state—nine western states adopted woman suffrage legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the
courts. Militant suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent
vigils, and hunger strikes. Often supporters met fierce resistance. Opponents heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically
abused them.
By 1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were
united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. When
New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918,
the political balance began to shift.
On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the
amendment, and 2 weeks later, the Senate followed. When
Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on
August 18, 1920, the amendment passed its final hurdle of obtaining the agreement of three-fourths of the states. Secretary
of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August
26, 1920, changing the face of the American electorate forever.
For more information, visit the National Archives’ Digital
Classroom Teaching With Documents Lesson Plan: Woman
Suffrage and the 19th Amendment.
Source:
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/print_friendly.ph
p?flash=true&page=&doc=63&title=19th+Amendment+to
+the+U.S.+Constitution%3A+Women%27s+Right+to+Vo
te+%281920%29
Follow the links below for two lesson plans based on the
19th amendment.
www.archives.gov/education/lessons/woman-suffrage/
www.okbar.org/public/lre/lessonplans/19thamend.pdf
OCTOBER 2010 | LAW WISE 5
The 26th Amendment
T
he 26th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July
1, 1971. In the turmoil surrounding the unpopular Vietnam
War, lowering the national voting age became a controversial
topic. Responding to arguments that those old enough to be
drafted for military service, should be able to exercise the right
to vote, Congress lowered the voting age as part of the Voting
Rights Act of 1970. The Supreme Court upheld the legislation
in a 5 to 4 vote in applying the lowered voting age to federal
elections only. A constitutional amendment was required to
uniformly reduce the age to 18. Endorsed by Speaker Carl Albert of Oklahoma, the amendment passed the House 400 to
19 on March 23, 1971. On June 30, 1971, Ohio became the
39th state to ratify the amendment; however the official ratification did not take effect until July 1 when the Government
Services Administration opened for the day. With the 1972
elections looming, the 26th Amendment was ratified in record time. President Richard M. Nixon officially certified it on
July 5.
Source: Office of History and Preservation, Office of
the
Clerk,
http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/highlights.
html?action=view&intID=57, (October 11, 2010).
Follow the links below for two lesson plans based upon the
voting age
ht t p: // w w w.f ir s tladie s.or g /curriculum /curriculum.
aspx?Curriculum=1711
http://www.pbs.org/elections/kids/lessons/lesson_plan14.
html
Biography of the newest Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan
A
ssociate Justice Elena Kagan was born on April 28,
1960 in New York City. Kagan
graduated summa cum laude
from Princeton University in
1981 and then attended Oxford
University on a fellowship, receiving a Master of Philosophy
in 1983. After graduating from
Oxford, Kagan attended Harvard Law School, becoming
supervisory editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduating in 1986. Kagan clerked for
Abner Mikva on the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and on the Supreme Court for
Justice Thurgood Marshall. She then entered private practice
at the Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly, leaving
to join the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in
1991. She served as Associate White House Counsel in the
Clinton Administration from 1995 until 1999 before returning
to academia at Harvard Law School, where she became a full
professor in 2001. In 2005, she became Harvard Law School’s
first female dean. In 2009, then-President-elect Barack Obama
nominated her to become the first female Solicitor General of
the United States; she was confirmed in March 2009. In May
2010, President Obama nominated Kagan to fill the vacancy
created by the retirement of Justice John Paul Stevens. She was
confirmed by the Senate by a vote of sixty-three to thirty-seven
and was sworn in on August 7, 2010.
http://www.scotusblog.com/reference/educational-resources/biographies-of-the-justices/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kagan_10-1-2010.jpg
Nominating People to the Supreme Court – Yesterday and Today
by Scott Shipman
S
tudents, much like the general public, often have little understanding of the role of the Supreme Court in the public
life of the United States of America. Since our society rests
upon the fundamental bedrock of rule of law the Supreme
Court, as the ultimate arbiters of constitutionality, have a critical role in our democracy. The Supreme Court, however, is
not an impersonal, remote group of demigods who dispense
rulings from on high. Rather the Court, at any given time, is
composed of individuals who bring with them their critical
insights, perspectives, and judicial philosophies. Naturally,
these cannot help but reflect their personalities and formative
experiences. Today, much is made of this issue. To be sure,
this was not always the case. Extensive evaluation of a judicial
nominee’s background, personality, and judicial temperament
is a modern phenomenon. Still, the question of how much a
background can, or even should, affect a Supreme Court justice is a fascinating one. An individual justice can certainly put
his/her own stamp upon rulings…or dissents. One of history’s
most notable examples of this is Justice John Marshal Harlan.
Harlan, born into a slaveholding Kentucky family, crafted one
of the best known dissents in the Court’s history. Harlan, alone,
stood against the majority ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, the infamous case that upheld the segregation through the doctrine
of “Separate but Equal.” Harlan noted that, in the eye of the
law, “there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class
of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.
In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law.
The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards
man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his
color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of
the land are involved.”
Teaching Plessy v. Ferguson can be a good opportunity to focus on the role and impact of individual justices on American
political and judicial life. The following activity can be a great
means of connecting the past to the present.
http://www.supremecourthistory.org /learning /images/
SCHS_nominating-federal-Judges-standard.pdf
6 LAW WISE | OCTOBER 2010
Court Education Video Avail
a b l e
The Kansas Supreme Court has released a new educational video along with talking points on four court-related topics.
The video, called Justice in Kansas, and the talking points may be accessed below.
Justice in Kansas Video: Published by the Kansas Supreme Court, produced in January 2009 and hosted by then Chief Justice
Robert E. Davis, the video provides information regarding the structure and function of the Kansas Judicial Branch. Copies
of the video are available upon request to teachers or anyone interested in law-related education. Contact Ron Keefover,
Education and Information Officer of the Office of Judicial Administration, Topeka, (785) 296-4872 to order. Video is approximately seven (7) minutes in length. Window Media Player 9.0 or above is required. Free Download for WMP.
Talking Points:
• Interesting facts regarding the Kansas Judicial
System
• Types of courts
• Case statistics
• Jury service in Kansas
• About Kansas courts
• Ron Keefover
Education-Information Officer
Kansas Judicial Center
301 W. 10th
Topeka, KS 66612
(785) 296-4872
Fax (785) 296-7076
[email protected]
Resources at the Law-Related Education Inventory
1.Constitutional Packet. H/S. Materials related to a nationwide campaign to educate Americans
about the Constitution. Library numbers 342.02/N213c
2.
The American Constitution: The Road from Runnymede. MS/HS DVD
3.
The Supreme Court. H/S set of four DVDs
4.
Liberty’s Kids: The complete series. MS/HS 900 min. DVD set.
The Law-Related Education Inventory has many resources to help teach about law-related topics. The Kansas Bar Association
and the lawyers in your community sponsor the Law-Related Education Inventory. To order a catalog, call Meg Wickham at
the Kansas Bar Association, (785) 234-5696. The clearinghouse will mail free copies of law-related posters, games, mock trials, booklets, lesson plans, and other aids. It is open Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The director of the Teachers College Resource Center, which houses the Law-Related Education Inventory, Janice Romeiser,
can be reached at [email protected].
Update: The Kansas Bar Association Law-Related Education Clearinghouse Inventory catalog is available. To request a
new copy, please call Meg Wickham, KBA Public Services Manager, at (785) 234-5696 or e-mail her at mwickham@
ksbar.org.
Law Wise Editor: Sarah Shipman, staff attorney, Silver Lake Bank, Topeka
Coordinators: Kathryn Gardner, a career law clerk to the Hon. Sam A. Crow, and Meg Wickham, Kansas Bar Association
Law Wise is published by the Kansas Bar Association during the school year. The Kansas Bar Foundation, with Interest on Lawyers’ Trust
Accounts funding, provides support for this publication. It is published free, on request, for teachers or anyone interested in law-related
education and is edited by Sarah Shipman, Topeka. For further information about any projects or articles, contact Kathryn Gardner, Topeka,
(785) 295-2626; or Meg Wickham, manager of public services of the Kansas Bar Association, (785) 234-5696. Law Wise is printed at the
Kansas Bar Association, 1200 S.W. Harrison, Topeka, KS 66612-1806.