CHARLEMONT — The fate of a young musician was left in the hands of a number of local students last week.
Close to 100 students and guests joined a video conference call for a remote mock trial facilitated by Liz Falco, a civics and English teacher at The Academy at Charlemont. Twenty seventh- and eighth-grade students stepped into roles as attorneys and witnesses, the clerk, bailiff and defendant. A group of 12 juniors played the role of jurors.
It was the school’s first remote mock trial.
“I’m proud of the work that the seventh- and eighth-graders completed, and I’m proud of how resilient and adaptable they have been during this process,” Falco said.
The case, Oregon v. Cy Miles, brought into question the events of the night of Oct. 26, 2019, when a loud bang at a concert in Oregon caused panic among attendees who were already attempting to exit the Digby Concert Hall. With one exit jammed, a stampede of people resulted in the injuries of many and the death of one fan, a 27-year-old named Janet Jopson.
Cy Miles, a musician who had recently parted ways with the band on stage at the time, was accused of tampering with the door and the band’s pyrotechnics, and causing the stampede that resulted in Jopson’s death.
The mock trial began with opening statements from both the defense and the prosecution, which asked the jury to find Miles guilty of manslaughter in the first degree and disorderly conduct in the second degree. Local attorney Barra Cohen, who serves as a staff attorney at the Amherst-Northampton Children and Family Law Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services, served as judge.
Students went through the process of a standard trial, beginning with the prosecution’s evidence, followed by evidence from the defense. Attorneys questioned their own witnesses, who were then cross-examined.
While the prosecution focused on evidence that would point to Miles’ guilt — including a Facebook account potentially created by him that posted a vague threat of violence at the concert, a past conviction of arson and discontent over his former bandmate, Marlo Hubbard, using music he had written — the defense attempted to sew seeds of doubt into the jury by pointing out that only two phones had been searched following the incident, and that the stampede was actually the result of a music journalist sharing the Facebook post that led to the rushed exit from the venue.
Ultimately, the jury could not agree on a verdict.
The mock trial has been a longstanding tradition at The Academy at Charlemont, Falco said. But the students’ experience last week and in the weeks leading up to the first remote trial the school had held was unlike any other.
“Communication is such a key part of collaborative work, and one that was definitely hard to replicate remotely,” Falco said. “But the students were able to meet this challenge.”
Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 263. Twitter: @MaryEByrne