Courthouse Visit Reveals Adversarial Judicial System
December 12, 2016
Law and Society students visited the Alameda County Courthouse on December 7.
“We sat in on an actual court case in progress, so that’s always fun to watch,” said Law and Society teacher Dino Petrocco.
The students watched a homicide trial. Sophomore Roni Ayalon said, “It was interesting and kind of scary to see that it was someone’s life on the line. You know, they could possibly be getting the death penalty. It was all really serious.”
The purpose of visit was to show students principles of their course work in action during an active court case. “Hopefully they’re going to see what we have been learning for the past 12 weeks,” said Petrocco. “They’re actually going to see that in real life. They’re going to get to see the whole adversarial system in effect and by going to the jail, they’ll actually get to see the first part of the adversarial process before someone even goes to court.”
The class has been learning about the justice system, specifically the different types of penalties for felonies, something that was displayed at the courthouse. Sophomore Dylan Grausz said, “I think it’s really interesting to learn about it because then you can learn about what happens to these people if they get convicted of a crime or murder.”