Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus went on the stand in Sitka recently as part of the 2023 Color of Justice program. For an afternoon, students at Mt. Edgecumbe High School took on the roles of judges, attorneys and witnesses for a mock trial aimed at encouraging students to consider legal careers.
Naomi Oxereok is trying on a curly gray wig that someone has left on the judge’s bench in the Sitka courthouse. Oxereok is a Mt. Edgecumbe High School student from Wales, Alaska. Today, she’s presiding over the case State of Alaska v. Miley Cyrus. Sitting next to Oxeroek, also in judge’s robes, is Nome attorney Sigvanna Tapqaq.
“I’m the judge helper,” Tapqaq says. “I’m her shadow, basically.”
Oxeroek decides against the wig, and after conferring briefly with Tapqaq, she calls for opening statements.
Eighty-six students from Mt. Edgecumbe High School are here for Color of Justice, an educational program that encourages students from underrepresented populations to consider legal careers. They’ve only had about an hour to prepare questions, read affidavits, and learn their roles. Students around the courthouse are sitting on the floor and in folding chairs hunched over their papers, drafting questions for cross-examination with gel pens and trying to memorize their own witness testimony. Legal professionals are scattered among the students, answering questions.
The Color of Justice program was started by the National Association of Women Judges in 2001, and a version has taken place in Sitka every other year since 2011. Kelsey Potdevin is an education outreach manager at the Alaska Native Justice Center in Anchorage. She says one goal of this week’s program is to build more Alaska Native representation in the courtroom.
“It’s certainly an experience that I never had to have when I was in high school, and I think if I had had something like this in school, I might have, you know, chosen a different career path,” she says. “I think people think that sometimes that they’re not smart enough, they’re not rich enough, they’re not something enough to go to law school and to go through the whole process of becoming a lawyer or a judge. So we’re here to tell them they can.”
The trial, a fictional fight between the state and a pop star over a stolen cellphone, is taking place simultaneously in three different courtrooms because there are so many students. While Judge Oxeroek hears opening statements in one room, one of the real-life attorneys in another room stops the proceedings to remind the defendant of her rights.
“Okay, so everybody on the jury, you’re not supposed to hear this,” she instructs the dozen students sitting on a makeshift jury bench. “Cover your eyes and your ears — one ear — you’re not supposed to hear.” With the jury dutifully covering their eyes and ears, she addresses the defendant, who is slightly confused about whether she’s allowed to testify on her own behalf.
“Okay. Miss Cyrus, you have the right to testify, and it’s your choice whether you testify or not,” she says. “You can talk to your attorney about whether you want to testify, but it’s not their decision to make.”
Back in the first room, student Atigun Pensley, who is serving as a defense attorney today, calls Taylor Swift to the stand for a cross-examination.
“Now, Taylor Swift, was there anyone who saw this exchange between you and Miley in the hallway?” he asks, pacing in front of the witness stand. The witness responds nervously that yes, she had been eating lunch with Kylie Jenner.
Judge Oxeroek keeps her enthusiastic courtroom in check with the help of Tapqaq and Alaska Supreme Court Justice Jude Pate, who is standing in the corner offering encouragement and tips. When Oxeroek overrules an objection from the rowdy prosecutorial team, Pate asks her to explain why.
“It’s overruled because you’re making an objection against your own team,” Oxeroek says into the microphone with a quiet smile.
Pate, who served as the Sitka Superior Court Judge before transitioning to the Supreme Court, says he has helped with Color of Justice events for the past decade, and his goal is to bring together attorneys, judges, and students, “and to make sure that the students at Edgecumbe know that this is their court, that this is their future if they want it, that is there for them” he says.
Before Judge Oxeroek, Pensley makes a rousing closing statement for the defense:
“Members of the jury, there has been conflict between these two teenagers,” he says, pacing this time in front of the jury. “But to convict Miley, you would have to conclude that there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Miley intended to deprive Taylor of this phone. In this case, there is not no such evidence.”
Ultimately, two juries ruled that Miley Cyrus was not guilty of theft in the third degree, and one jury ruled that she was guilty. And Justice Pate’s verdict?
“We have at least two presenters who graduated from Edgecumbe and attended Color of Justice, and now they’re back, teaching criminal justice,” he says. “That’s just magic. That tells us that it’s working, and that makes me happy just to be here.”
