“If I see you in my courtroom again, there will be serious consequences,” Judge Michelle Mown told Madison Jones, who stood before her in character as a teenager on trial for drug and alcohol violations.

The scene was part of a collaboration between the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office and Wareham Middle School. Wareham has recently begun the Mock Trial Program, a three-week curriculum meant to introduce students to the legal system.

According to the Plymouth County DA’s website, “the program’s focus is on decision-making, risk taking behavior, and explaining the legal and social consequences for one’s actions.” The Mock Trial Program was originally brought to the attention of Principal Peter Steedman by School Resource Officer Karl Baptiste.

Each grade heard the same case, about four teenagers found in a house littered with alcohol bottles and with 20 Valium pills missing from a prescription not written to any of them. Students acted in character as the defendants and police officer who found them. Both attorneys and the judge (employees from the District Attorney’s office) were shadowed by other students, and a number also sat as jury members. The fifth graders were the first to tackle the trial, and the sixth graders arrived after an hour for their chance. Each grade used different students to act out the story.

Before the trial began, Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham took each grade through a brief overview of what would happen in the trial and what was expected behavior in the courtroom. “You need to stay quiet,” she reminded them. “If you make noise the judge has the right to throw you out.”

Opening statements began, followed by a witness for the prosecution, and testimony from the four defendants, who acted at witnesses for the defense.

Judge Michelle Mown, occasionally banged her gavel and ordered silence, as the students reacted to twists and turns in the testimony. When the closing arguments had been completed, the jury retired and Buckingham asked the audience if they felt each defendant was guilty or not guilty. She asked the audience to think of what steps the characters could have taken to improve the situation, rather than end up on trial.

The juries returned quickly with their findings. In each case, the jury foreman stood and pronounced one character not guilty, and three characters guilty.

Each guilty conviction was met with a sentence - two characters received probation, and one was sentenced to six months in a juvenile detention center. There were strong noises of agreement or dissent from the audience as each finding was read. Judge Mown gave each character a thorough dressing down at their sentencing, warning them that if they showed up in her courtroom again, they would not like the results. When the trial was over, the students clapped enthusiastically.

“The students took to it,” Steedman said at the end of the trial. “They were engaged. This is the first year that we’ve done this, we didn’t know how it would go, but the students were great.”