JFD> My point is that as an adult who is no longer in school, I have
 JFD> protection from the law, I have the right to a FAIR and SPEEDY trial
 JFD> before an impartial judge and a jury. and I am not guilty, till the
 JFD> judge bangs the gavel.
 JFD> These rights are guarenteed the accused in a Court of Law.
 JFD> I think they should also be guarenteed to a student in school "court"
 JFD> IN school "court" you have basically, no rights at all  It's "Bend
 JFD> over and smile" as it were.
Part of the problems in the schools is them trying to handle problems at
their level instead of letting the courts handle the problem. As an example,
most schools have handled dope problems for many years without charges being
filed. Most of the high schools in the country probably violated several laws
in the way they handled controlled dangerous substances. They confiscated the
dope and locked it up in the principal's safe. Most, if not all,  states
require destruction of controlled dangerous substances by a state entity
charged with that responsibility. Most of those safes contained thousands of
dollars worth of street drugs at one time or another. IMHO many of the
schools handled it this way because they didn't want the adverse publicity.
Filing charges would be public notice there were drugs in that school, and
that would be bad for the career of a principal.
Your idea about school courts, or a similar version, is being tried in many
places with great success. They don't hear the chewing gum cases, but they
might hear a first offense of possession of marijuana or other criminal case
of like nature. Our court here is called "Teen Court". The judge, jury, and
prosecutor are teens, and they hear only cases which could be heard in a
public court. The public court refers cases to the teen court. These are not
major criminal cases, and they don't involve repeat offenders. The Teen Court
here only handles violations of the law, not violation of school policy. I
can't speak for Teen Courts in other places, but our's appears to be a raving
success. Our Teen Court can assess fines and/or community service, but they
can't give jail time in their verdict.
 JFD> However to disipline a student for a traffic violation on the public
 JFD> road, when the police have already given him a ticket for said
 JFD> violation, Is to put the student in double jepordy.  Another
 JFD> constutional no-no and exactly what happened in the case I was
 JFD> thinking fo
Double jeopardy is the trying of a person twice for the same offense. The key
word here is, "trying". All you are talking about above is punishment from
two different entities, and that is not double jeopardy or a violation of the
Constitution. In my family, there might be a third punishment, parking the
car for a week.  Let me give you a more severe example. The police catch
little Johnny at school with a pound of marijuana. Little Johnny is kicked
out of school by the school and charged with Possession With Intent To
Distribute Marijuana by the police. The criminal case will be heard or
"tried" in public court. Being kicked out of school will have nothing to do
with the criminal case.
I'm not trying to make fun of your example, but there needs to be a little
bit of humor from time to time. If your example did amount to double
jeopardy, most parents have violated the constitution with their children. I
can hear little Johnny now, "But Dad, you can't send me to my room, I had to
sit in the corner for an hour at school."
 JFD> That's the problem... I feel that school rules should be bound by the
 JFD> same constraints that public laws are.  If feel the accused should be
 JFD> offered the same rights as a public accused suspect.
I think that I understand your thoughts on this, but I would disagree with
the wasting of time on the majority of school rules. Let me explain before
you pass judgment. 1) Little Johnny is chewing gum in class with 30
witnesses. The teacher draws a "sad face" beside his name on the wall and
tells him to spit it out. Little Johnny says, "I want a trial." 2) Many of
the more serious rules are covered by public law, but there might be a
question in the minds of some whether charges should be filed or not. Maybe
this question is in the favor of the child, trying to decide if there is a
way to handle the situation without giving the kid a police record or
involving them in the juvenile justice system (if such an entity exists).
Let's say the offense is assault and battery on a teacher, and the teacher
wishes to handle the matter without filing charges if possible. I don't think
your intentions are to eliminate this choice and force the teacher to file
charges. The principal expels little Johnny for 3 days and tells him to write
a paper on self-control. 3) Little Johnny comes home and convinces you he
didn't assault the teacher. You appeal to the principal, he gives you the
facts, and he denies the appeal. You appeal to the school board, they hear 10
witnesses who watched the assault, and they deny your appeal. You still
believe little Johnny is innocent and refuse to accept the ruling of the
school board. The vast majority, if not all, of jurisdictions allow an appeal
to a public court. In my jurisdiction, this would be a County District Court.
There might also be civil liability which would be heard by a public court.
There are other factors which would have to be considered (i.e. the age of
the offender and what choices are available, the severity of the violation,
the severity of possible punishments, etc.). I doubt very seriously that you
would wish to have public trials over happy faces, sad faces, or stars by a
kid's name. The taxpayers couldn't afford a system like this. I also
seriously doubt that you would wish to force the filing of public charges on
every violation of the law. Millions of law violations are handled daily
without charges being filed. Most of these violations are handled by parents,
and the tax payers couldn't afford it any other way.
Tom Rightmer - A Victims' Rights Advocate
... Celebrate Hannibal Day.  Take an elephant to lunch.
--- Blue Wave/DOS v2.30
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