Highland Park High students, MN Supreme Court justices hear arguments

Seventeen-year-old Agustina Pestel and her classmates don t know exactly why their teachers nominated them to be trainee guides for Minnesota Supreme Court justices who visited the school Thursday But the junior at Highland Park Senior High School who is interested in journalism and law met Chief Justice Natalie Hudson along with other scholar representatives ahead of oral arguments at the school that morning We just got to ask her a lot of questions about not just her personal life but her life as chief justice and what it was like in that position and kind of the sacrifices she s had to make throughout her life to get to that Pestel stated And she explained a lot that she still gets those nerves so she tries to bring a little humor into it sometimes The Minnesota Supreme Court s seven justices gathered at the St Paul high school to hear the oral arguments on a civil commitment matter Students Rosemary Egberg center and Alice Verbrugge right listen to Associate Justice Sarah E Hennesy of the Minnesota Supreme Court at Highland Park High School in St Paul on Thursday May John Autey Pioneer Press years of school visits The state Supreme Court first held oral arguments at schools in Rochester in Highland Park is the court s th in-school visit for oral arguments The court tries to visit schools in all judicial districts over the years Hudson announced Ramsey County is in the Second Judicial District We want our young people to be engaged citizens and so this gives them an opportunity to see the judicial system at work Hudson explained But it also is as a provision to our neighborhood as well To educate young people about the importance of the judicial branch the work that we do in protecting rights that there is a place for people to bring their grievances and how it is we go about resolving those matters in a democracy High schools typically hear oral arguments for criminal cases though the one at Highland was a civil situation The focus is on selecting cases that are absorbing and accessible for students Hudson explained But we try to find a incident that has one issue you know no more than two so that they can focus in on that So something that we think high school students would be interested in and they care about so that they can see how that would relate to their lives Hudson announced Volunteer lawyers and judges also visit classes ahead of oral arguments in order to help students understand what they will be hearing during arguments she declared We all love these opportunities because it gets us out of the Capitol where we hear the majority of our oral arguments and gets us out into the public Young people will ask and say all kinds of things and that s great Hudson explained You want to hear what they re interested in or what they know about the court system and don t know and they re dependably very inquisitive Sen Nesje listens listen as attorneys make oral arguments during a development before the Minnesota Supreme Court in the Highland Park Senior High School auditorium in St Paul on Thursday May John Autey Pioneer Press Hearing from students After oral arguments concluded students were able to ask justices about their work work-life balance and their paths to the court Later the justices ate lunch with attendee representatives and visited classrooms Learner representative and junior Lynex Lee sees law as something he might be interested in in the future What I revealed intriguing about the judges were that various of them didn t choose to go into being a judge in the first place and they needed to be like a lawyer or such Lee reported And then I really felt that you don t have to be set on one thing Even for students who are not interested in studying law it plays a role in other fields students will decide to go into announced junior and trainee representative Alfiya Jarso I think it s cool because it s critical that we hear about things like this Jarso disclosed But seeing things in real time and getting a better understanding of how the law system works especially as students who are trying to find out what they want to be in the future it s very pivotal to us that we can kind of experience that see what we like and watch it all go down To view the event go to spps eduvision tv directplayer aspx q qDJvCLgfGNkbUQQdvNzQ d d Related Articles Minnesota Supreme Court tosses recall petitions against DFLers who boycotted session Over a St Paul Valentine s Day lunch hour judges married couples for free in Ramsey County Letters Who wants to prevent discovery of fraud MN counties cannot hold detainees for ICE without a warrant Keith Ellison says