Dartmouth will play host to the New Hampshire Supreme Court on Thursday, April 10, as part of an outreach program for New Hampshire high school students. The court will hear oral arguments in two appellate cases in front of an audience expected to exceed 400 in Moore Theater in the Hopkins Center.
The traveling program is designed to educate high-school students about the state's judicial system and has already made stops at Dover High School in Dover and St. Anselm's College, in Manchester. Of the theater's 400-plus seats, 350 will be reserved for high school students, leaving only 60 for members of the Dartmouth community. All seats are reserved as invite only.
The event, which is co-sponsored by the Rockefeller Center and the Center for Women and Gender, will also be broadcast on Dartmouth Television for those unable to procure an invitation, but will not be shown on local television or radio.
The two cases featured in the Hop include State of New Hampshire v. Geraldine Spencer, involving the alleged denial of a motion to suppress statements obtained in violation of constitutional rights against self-incrimination.
The other, Rachel Comeau v. Jerry Vergato, involves the question of whether the defendant can be considered a landlord and the plaintiff a tenant when living at a campground and questions whether the current "Recreational Campgrounds" law is the exclusive statute governing relationships between recreational campgrounds or camping parks and the campers.
All parties involved in both cases have agreed to participate in the outreach program and the hearings will be official.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court is the state's only appellate court. It has discretionary jurisdiction allowing the justices to decide whether or not to accept a case for appellate review, with the exception of capital murder cases.
Not only those students in attendance will benefit from the hearings, however, thanks to the work of Rebecca Kurzweil '03. With the help of education professor Jay Davis, Kurzweil plans to create educational materials based on the Court hearings for high school and junior high school students. The materials Kurzweil looks to create would be designed to help students better understand the judicial process.
"The rationale behind this project is to develop an educational module that New Hampshire high school teachers can use in their classrooms to teach their students about the way the state court system works," Kurzweil said.
