BY BETTY ADAMS

Staff Writer

High school students will see lawyers argue an animal-seizure case and a forgery case when the Maine Supreme Court holds sessions at two local schools this month.

The seven-judge panel will hear three cases at Cony High School Oct. 27 and three at Winthrop High School Oct. 28 before heading north to Bangor and east to Eastport.

The state's highest court, which has chambers in Portland, has held oral argument sessions in various high schools during October for the past four years. The sessions are open to the public.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Leigh Saufley said holding arguments in schools started as an experiment proposed by Sen. John Martin, D-Eagle Lake, who invited them to the Caribou Performing Arts Center four years ago.

"It turned out to be every bit as invigorating as we hoped," she said.

Now the court tries to sit at a number of different schools, usually at the invitation of a local legislator.

"The venues vary from a stage in a gym to some very well-laid out actual performing arts centers," Saufley said.

Once, however, a school visit had to be cancelled. "We would have been in the middle of the 'Annie' set," Saufley recalled.

Saufley said Sen. Elizabeth Mitchell, D-Vassalboro, issued the invitation to sit at Cony in Augusta and state Rep. Pat Flood, R-Winthrop, invited the justices to Winthrop High School's Performing Arts Center.

"I think it's an extraordinary opportunity for students," Mitchell said. "It's an actual working supreme court. Students will have access to the cases online and can hear the arguments. We're very fortunate; every high school in the state would love to have them."

James Holland, an assistant principal at Cony, said the session will be held in conjunction with the school's Awareness Day, put on by the Cony Civil Rights Team.

Flood said two teachers at Winthrop encouraged him to invite the court.

"This will be an opportunity for your young people to see how these leaders use art and science and skillful dialogue to reach conclusions on very complex issues of law," Flood said.

"It's very exciting," Saufley said. "The schools respond very well, and the teachers work with students over a variety of civic-related matters."

Winthrop High School Principal Karen Criss said every student will get an opportunity to attend a session.

"What an opportunity for our kids to see justice in motion," Criss said.

Saufley said the justices try to meet briefly with the students.

"We have to be very careful about it because the students are very engaged in the cases and we can't discuss them," she said.

However, she said the lawyer who present the arguments have stepped up their participation.

"They answer questions for the students," she said. "They can get much more specific and can very much fill them in on the background."

She said high school students frequently comment that seeing the time-limited oral arguments in the cases is much different than hearing portrayed on television.

"If you think about what you see on TV, you see badly portrayed court work," Saufley said. "You don't often see appellate work. We're so happy we have the opportunity to get them thinking what it all means."

Saufley said the court tries to schedule cases that have lawyers and or litigants in the area.

"We try to be careful subject matter is appropriate, but high school students today are pretty sophisticated," Saufley said.

In a case to be heard at Cony, Fern Clark, of Somerville, is appealing a Lincoln County District Court decision which allowed the state to keep more than 66 animals seized from her home in January.

Clark, who has pleaded not guilty to five counts of aggravated animal cruelty, claims the civil-seizure hearing should have been delayed until she had an opportunity to argue in the criminal case that the search and seizure was improper, according to a description on the court's Web site.

In a case set for Winthrop, Patsy Rollins, who was found guilty of 31 counts of aggravated forgery, maintains the jury trial was unfair and the evidence does not support two of the convictions.

She also maintains a mistrial should have been granted.

Betty Adams -- 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com