Teen Court Awards: Justice (and cookies) have been served
By DOUG McMURDO - Associate Editor
Thursday, May 22, 2008 12:34 PM PDT
ELKO - Judge Mike Memeo isn't used to seeing a lot of smiling faces in his courtroom, but that wasn't the case Wednesday evening when Elko and Spring Creek high school students involved in the highly-successful Teen Court program - along with their proud parents -attended the group's annual awards ceremony.
Spring Creek student Annie Hucal won the Most Outstanding Teen Court Volunteer based on her participation. She was an attorney in 15 cases, served on six juries, was the bailiff in one case and served as the program's student coordinator for Spring Creek High - in addition to performing 20 hours of service.
Memeo noted the success of the program is due to a “largely volunteer effort.” Make no mistake, Teen Court is a valid instrument of the justice system.
The teens involved hold their peers accountable. Even first-time offenders sentenced to Teen Court volunteer for the diversion. Some, said Memeo, served their sentence and then came back to join the program. That kind of success is something to take pride in, said the judge.
Offenders are only eligible if the crime they are charged with is a first-time offense and is minor in nature. Kids trafficking drugs, in other words, don't get a shot at Teen Court.
Those that do are represented by a teen attorney, prosecuted by a teen attorney, and the jury is comprised of teenagers, who are truly their peers.
Memeo generally hands down community service sentences, assigns them to write essays and otherwise pay back society while learning a valuable life lesson in the process.
The statistics back up the program's success - and indicate Teen Court is as busy a court as there is in Nevada.
During the 2007-08 academic year, 129 cases were tried and 2,129 community service hours were completed. There were 166 students who served on juries; 33 participated as attorneys, court clerks and bailiffs.
More than 125 essays were completed with a total word count of 27,866 (enough for a small book) and 30 “crimes and consequences” classes were held along with 90 traffic safety classes. Fourteen letters of apology were written and seven tours of the Juvenile Detention Center were conducted.
Since the program began in 1997, 1,475 cases have been adjudicated, a total of 20,281 hours of community service were served, 992 essays were written and more than 1,200 classes were held.
Memeo singled out for praise Tracy and Pauline Corgan, who “kept the whole thing going.” The couple played active roles in ensuring sentences were completed and students remained involved. He also expressed gratitude to Jackie Jones and Scott Guthrie.
“All of you are outstanding volunteers, outstanding students and you served in various functions. I am so pleased to work with all of them,” said Memeo.