JEFFERSON — Hundreds of area elementary students filled the Jefferson County courtrooms, peered behind bars in the jail and learned about various aspects of the law at the county’s Law Day on Friday.
The 4th annual event, featuring the theme “Free Speech, Free Press, Free Society,” was coordinated by the Jefferson County Clerk of Courts, corporation counsel and sheriff’s offices, and attorneys from the Jefferson County Bar Association.
Taking part were some 290-plus fourth- and fifth-graders from public and parochial schools across the county, with activities including jail tours, mock trials, question-and-answer sessions with judges, and introductions to various specialties of the sheriff’s department, including the K-9 unit, dive team and SWAT.
Students also got to engage in a trivia contest revolving around the law.
Participating schools included St. Henry’s Catholic School of Watertown, St. John the Baptist Catholic School of Jefferson, St. Joseph’s Cathlolic School of Fort Atkinson, Cambridge Elementary School, St. Paul Lutheran School of Lake Mills, and East, West and Sullivan elementary schools from the School District of Jefferson.
Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Ben Brantmeier welcomed the students, noting that Law Day is a nationwide observance established by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 as “a day of national dedication to the principles of government under law.”
He said in Jefferson County, it has been a tradition for nearly a quarter-century, exposing children to the fundamental freedoms and responsibilities they have under the United States government, and applying that understanding on a county level.
Brantmeier went on to reflect on the theme for the year, highlighting Americans’ right to a free press, among other freedoms granted to the people of the United States.
He cited the First Amendment, which lays out people’s freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to peaceable assembly and right to petition the government with their grievances.
He went on to cite the Fourteenth Amendment, which incorporates the rights established in the First Amendment to apply to state governments.
From there, he quoted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which takes those ideas a step further, saying, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media, regardless of frontiers.”
Law Day provides an opportunity to reflect on those freedoms, he said, while renewing our commitment to the rule of law and the Constitution.
“The rule of law requires that no one be above the obligations of the law or beneath its protections,” Brantmeier said. “It stands as a bulwark against the arbitrary use of government power.”
The founding fathers of this country understood that to secure liberty the U.S. Government must hold to laws rather than the whims of officeholders, Brantmeier said.
He cited President John Adams as saying, “The true idea of a republic is an empire of laws, and not of men.”
He explained that the Constitution grants only limited power to the federal government, leaving the remainder to the states, and divides federal powers between three separate, co-equal branches.
“This separation of powers has helped guarantee the rule of law and preserve liberty for generations,” he said.
Law Day started at 9 a.m. and continued through the early afternoon, with the students rotating through all of the stations one classroom at a time.
One of the highlights included a mock trial in which students themselves got to play the roles of judge, witnesses, prosecuting attorney and defense attorney for a case based on the characters and events of a familiar fairy tale.
Another highlight was the jail tour, where students got to tour a vacant area of the jail, step into a cell and see the restraint systems used on the most violent and recalcitrant prisoners.
“I got handcuffed!” Sullivan student Amethyst van Aacken exclaimed as her group exited the cells to make way for the next pupils.
Students had a lot of questions about the sheriff’s office K-9 officer, Gader, and handler Deputy Greg Jansen. The youngsters wanted to know how Jansen picked the dog who would become an important part of the sheriff’s department team, whether the dog lived at home with Jansen (yes) and what those commands meant.
Jansen noted that he speaks to the dog in German. First of all, that’s the language in which the dog was trained, but secondly, it doesn’t matter what the officer is saying to the people he is dealing with — if it’s in English, it pertains to the human and the dog doesn’t need to pay attention.
K-9 officers have many uses, he said, including acting as a deterrent and locating prohibited substances. The specially trained dogs also can be used to locate people who have wandered off due to dementia or other reasons or who have fled the scene of a crime.
In addition, Jansen said, the K-9s provide law enforcement officers with an added level of security in dangerous situations, when the department might choose to send the dog in first.
Students also appeared impressed with the variety of equipment SWAT and dive team officers had to use.
Overall, they learned a lot, participants said.
Jefferson County Clerk of Courts Cindy Hamre-Incha, who coordinated the activities, said that this is one of four educational events the courthouse hosts each year. There is the intensive Youth Government Day for high-schoolers, which explores all aspects of county government; a special day for middle-schoolers interested in further investigating the field of law; this elementary event; as well as a special educational day for area home-schoolers.
All of the above provide an important window on how local government works and the rights and responsibilities of all citizens and how they are protected, she said.