Chester High School Youth Court Mock Trial at Widener Law School

Chester High School Youth Court, Widener Law Students, Lawyer, Youth Court Teacher

Chester High School Youth Court displayed their legal skills in a mock trial at Widener University Law School on Wednesday, April 9^th, 2014. Widener University Law School has been a partner to the Chester High School Youth Court. Each year the law students, on a weekly basis, come to the high school to assist students in mock hearings and actual student hearings. On Wednesday, Youth Court students were invited to WLS to perform a mock hearing to an audience of law professors and law students on the Delaware campus. The campus is nestled unassumingly from route 202 on Concord Pike. As you enter on campus and head further in, it is bigger than it looks from the outside. Inside the large lecture hall included a courtroom for the purpose of mock trials. The Youth Court students demonstrated a typical scenario of a student offense and took the case through the Youth Court proceedings from swearing in to questioning, jury deliberation, and final disposition of the case. Chester High School Youth Court did an impressive job with the mock hearing at Widener University Law School.

Widener Law School Students

Jenna Messa      

Melanie Reynolds 

Raphael Castro 

Youth Court Lawyers

Andy Tanzer

Greg Voltz

Youth Court Teacher

Donna Brown

Parent Chaperone

Bige Chambers

Previous Youth Court Student
Brian Foster

Youth Court is an alternative to punitive and zero-tolerance school discipline policies. It seeks to interrupt the school to prison pipeline by preventing students who commit minor offenses from being suspended. By keeping offending students (respondents) in school, it allows them to continue their education while accepting responsibility for their misbehavior. Youth courts are intended to be restorative rather than punitive, and provide the offending student with the tools with which to avoid the misbehavior in the future.