Kids Avenue for March 2, 2009

• By RELMA HARGUS AND CHANTE WARREN
• Advocate staff writers
• Published: Mar 2, 2009 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Scotlandville Magnet High School teammates used eye contact and researched arguments to win their mock Supreme Court case and score a trip to the National High School Moot Court Competition in Philadelphia March 21-23.

The five-member team attended the Southern University Law Center Marshall-Brennan Project National High School Regional Moot Court Competition last month.

The competition took place on Southern’s campus and at the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal on North Third Street behind the Cap-itol. The team won first place, said Lisa Lemoine, Scotlandville Magnet High moot court coach and Governmental Affairs teacher.

The mock case involved imaginary Hickory High School, where a group of students had been suspended from school after wearing T-shirts on campus advertising a Web site they created to protest government spending on the War on Drugs.

Charcie J. Robins, 16, and Tia Benton, 17, playing the roles of lawyers in the finals, eyed the judge and projected their voices arguing for their student clients.

“You still have your constitutional rights even though you don’t have the same rights as an adult,” Robins told the judges.

Benton and Robins cited numerous court cases, including Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, a 1969 case which concerned school officials’ banning of black armbands after they learned of students’ plans to don them in protest of the Vietnam War. The courts decided that wearing the armbands was a symbolic act of political protest and therefore entitled to protection under the First Amendment.

Benton argued that Hickory High students were far less disruptive and also entitled to their First Amendment rights.

“We practiced every day after school for a month,” said Edcharra Cage, 17, who won as best oral advocate.

The team also included Adoria Harrison and Alicia Duhon. All the teammates are members of Scotlandville’s Center of Excellence Program on Governmental Affairs, where students take a variety of classes on law and government, Lemoine said.

The team was co-coached by lawyer Jack Harrison, who works with the East Baton Rouge Parish Public Defender’s Office, and by three Southern University Law School student coaches.

The Glen Oaks High School team of Shanderrick Williams, Jamie Turner and Rhonda Williams placed second and will also compete in Philadelphia.

Also, two students from Belaire High School, Sherman Vicks and Paris Gurley, as the highest-scoring individuals in the competition will compete in Philadelphia.