Professor stages mock trial for and with deaf students

Madonna Lockes is accused of getting drunk, breaking into someone’s home and eating pizza. The case against her hinges on the testimony of an eyewitness who claims to have seen her at the scene of the alleged crime.

Her case is going to trial Wednesday (April 7), but not in a courthouse. Madonna Lockes’ guilt or innocence will be decided at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf.

Madonna Lockes is not a real person and her trial is not real, either. But the mock court exercise developed by a University of Wisconsin–Madison Law School professor is intended to introduce Wisconsin deaf students to the world of law, and the very real possibility of becoming a lawyer.

“One of my goals here is that I hope to interest a couple of kids in going to law school,” says Michele LaVigne, a clinical associate professor of law.

The school’s 10th graders will serve as jurors for the case, while 11th graders will serve as lawyers and witnesses. Middle-school students will make up the audience. The trial begins at 10 a.m. at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf, 309 West Walworth Ave., Delavan.

The idea for the legal drama was born after LaVigne discussed the possibility with Tim Jaech, her friend and a former superintendent of the school now working at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. DPI oversees K-12 deaf education in the state.

“I’m interested in the dissonance between the hearing culture and the deaf culture,” says LaVigne, who is not deaf but knows some sign language.

That interest, LaVigne says, comes from working with deaf clients early in her career and from teaching two former students who are deaf. Her students piqued her desire to enhance legal services for the deaf and encourage more deaf people to consider law as a career.

The UW Law School has graduated three deaf students in recent years, although there are less than 100 deaf lawyers in the United States, LaVigne says. There are many more lawyers who suffer from hearing loss but consider themselves part of the hearing world, she adds.

LaVigne and five of her law students – Christopher Hanewicz, Jake Herro, Caleb Keller, Joely Urdan and Jonathan Wier – have worked on the case since January with the Wisconsin School for the Deaf students. A former public defender, LaVigne concocted police reports and witness statements, while students took photographs for evidence.

She says working on the mock trial has made her own students more sensitive to the legal needs of deaf people, and it has made her a better teacher by forcing her to use more visual elements in her presentations.

While the case is “a cheap version of Goldilocks,” LaVigne says with a laugh, the judge will be real: Richard S. Brown of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. Brown, who is deaf, will have a special interpreter for the case. The school’s staff interpreter will translate for the students, along with two interpreter interns, LaVigne says.

“Everyone in the trial will be deaf,” she says.