Courtroom becomes civics classroom

When a judge realized teens before him don't know their rights, he had to do something.

By JAMAL THALJI, Times Staff Writer
Published November 12, 2007

Circuit Judge Walter "Skip" Schafer Jr. quizzes teens about their knowledge of local, state and national government during his "Breakfast Club" Saturday morning in a New Port Richey courtroom. The juvenile court judge hands out civics homework to teens in his court, and orders them to return during weekend first-appearance hearings so he can test them from the bench.
	[Photo by: Jamal Thalji | Times Staff Writer]

NEW PORT RICHEY - If you fear for the future of the nation, read no further.

Circuit Judge Walter "Skip" Schafer Jr. summoned a teenager to stand before him. It was early Saturday morning in the West Pasco Judicial Center.

He swore the boy in. Then he grilled him.

"Weren't you supposed to do the preamble to the constitution?" the judge asked.

"Well, I know only a little of it," the teen said.

"So for a couple of weeks you could not memorize the preamble to the constitution?" the judge asked.

"I tried, sir," the teen said.

"I tried," said Schafer, exasperated.

The judge calls it his Breakfast Club. But unlike the '80s teen movie, this isn't detention, and Anthony Michael Hall can't do your homework for you.

* * *

It's called a "plea colloquy." It's when a judge reads the charges against you, the penalties, and your rights in a court of law.

It's read every day in courts across the nation. But when Schafer read it to the teens in juvenile court, he realized this: "They don't know what the Bill of Rights is."

So Schafer, appointed to the bench in 2005, decided he'd make them learn it.

Last year he started ordering a handful of the teens in his court to memorize some aspect of U.S. civics and recite it to him while he's on weekend court duty.

"When they do community service they just go do it," he said. "This is a learning experience."

* * *

"Who's president of the United States?" the judge asked a teen boy in a white-striped polo.

"George Bush," the teen said.

"Good. Who is the governor of the state of Florida?"

"Charlie Crist."

"How many United States senators does Florida have?"

Silence.

"I don't know."

"Don't you think that's important?" the judge asked.

Schafer told him the answer: two senators in Florida, two for each of the 50 states, 100 in all.

Later, another teen will get this wrong, too.

"I just said it," the judge said. "Were you listening?"

* * *

Some don't even get that far.

"Tell me about the Bill of Rights," the judge asked one petite teen girl in a white sweater.

She couldn't. She admitted she hadn't even looked up the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Failure is not an option. The judge makes them come back until they get it right.

"What are you doing tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.?" the judge asked her. He already knew the answer: "You're going to tell me about the Bill of Rights."

* * *

Schafer called up another teen boy. His oversized blue T-shirt hung over his shorts.

"Now you do understand when you come into my courtroom you have your shirt tucked in and you don't wear shorts," the judge said. "If you came into juvenile court you know what I would do? I would arrest you."

And then, just as two centuries of American civilization seemed ready to come to an end in Courtroom 1A, the teen in shorts summoned from memory the preamble to the U.S. Constitution:

"We the people ... of the United States ... to form a more perfect union ... establish justice ... insure domestic tranquility ... provide for the common defense ... promote the general welfare ... and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves ... our posterity ... do ordain and establish this constitution ... "

"I'll give you credit for that son," the judge said. "Name the three branches of government."

"I'm not sure of that, your honor," the teen said.

* * *

Robert White, 42, was one of only two parents to accompany their teen to court.

"I don't even know the constitution," he said. "I wasn't taught that in school.

"It's good for them, the next generation, they can be more advanced than we were."

So did his 17-year-old son, Terry, learn anything?

"Not really," the teen said.

"You learned not to get in trouble," his father said, "right?"

* * *

The petite teenager came back to court Sunday morning.

This time she brought a copy of the Bill of Rights.

But she did not memorize it.

She's not done with the Breakfast Club just yet.

Jamal Thalji can be reached at thalji@sptimes.com.

[Last modified November 11, 2007, 21:20:06]