More than a hundred North Smithfield High School students watched attorneys present oral arguments before the state’s highest court Thursday morning.
But they did not see five Rhode Island Supreme Court justices and the half-dozen or so attorneys appearing before them in the Licht Judicial Complex in downtown Providence. Instead, they watched them at work in the school’s auditorium hearing and presenting arguments on cases as diverse as excessive noise in Warwick and a Providence murder.
For the first time in eight years, the Rhode Island Judiciary revived its Travel Court program, reviving a pre-pandemic tradition where justices take their work on the road, traveling to local schools to conduct the business on their dockets.
The official name for Travel Court is “Riding the Circuit,” a practice that dates back to the 1700s, when judicial officers would ride, sometimes on horseback, from place to place to hear arguments.
While oral arguments before the state’s high court are always open to the public to attend in person or listen to online, Riding the Circuit provides an opportunity for justices to meet students where they are, according to an official news release from the Rhode Island Judiciary.
The last time such an event was held was in 2018 at Lincoln High School, courts spokesperson Lexi Kriss said. Chief Justice Paul Suttell wanted to revive Riding the Circuit this year as one of several initiatives related to civics, Kriss added.
In all three cases heard Thursday, appeals are centered on whether lower courts followed the correct processes in coming to their verdicts.
Junior Isabella Rawson said she found the first case on the docket the most fascinating: an appeal of the 2024 legal victory of singer Vanessa Carlton and her husband over their industrial neighbors in Warwick related to intolerable noise. The fight over loud noise in Vanessa Carlton et al. v. Artak Avagyan et al. began with the arrival of a crane operation in 2024.
In Q&A after the session, Justice Erin Lynch Prata told students the Warwick case provided an example of what she described as great attorneys making their cases on an impactful neighbor dispute. The plaintiffs had moved from New York to their home in a historic village in Rhode Island during the pandemic, thinking they would find a certain life, she said, only to find that living circumstances would be much different than they’d imagined when they first arrived three years earlier, she said. That fight over their concerns is still going on now, she emphasized.
Due to standard time constraints for testimony, students got an abbreviated look at the complex histories behind each case. But justices appeared very familiar with the facts behind each, and had targeted questions ready to go based on items of limited scope.
As Carlton’s attorney Nicholas Hemond mentioned, some matters up for discussion had “plenty of court cases to go around.”
Another case heard, State of Rhode Island v. Juan Rivera, involves a defendant now serving two consecutive life sentences after he was convicted in 2024 of first-degree murder for shooting and killing a man in Providence in 2021. Rivera wore a mask during the crime at Roque’s Cafe, but police were able to use surveillance video from the surrounding area to track him down.
Justice Melissa Long reminded an attorney on the case that the court’s review wasn’t about whether surveillance video shows everything as fact as he contended, but about whether certain legal requirements were met, including authentication of evidence.
During conversation with students after the docket, Long said the murder case was an example that our whole lives are effectively on camera now, and we should live with that in mind.
On the topic of civics, Long said what’s often lost in the discussion relates to the importance of fact-finding jurors to society. She said students should never see the work of jury service as negative or a task to be avoided.
Attorneys and justices took pains to explain certain aspects of what they were doing because they were in a setting with students. Rivera case defense attorney J. Richard Ratcliffe, for example, gave a nod to the young people in the auditorium by noting how his testimony would refer to people in the case by their nicknames as found in testimony, including one named Shorty.
Retired Justice Francis X. Flaherty was recalled to sit on the bench for oral arguments to avoid a tie. Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg retired on March 27, leaving four justices.
You cannot get that from a textbook. Seeing that depth in action, our hope is that some of those students left inspired to explore this kind of work.
Addressing students after the session, Flaherty commended school officials and judiciary staff whose work made it possible to hold court in a new location, smiling as he compared it to going on a safari. He cited the value of such events to students where they live, and the importance of the key cases they’re able to learn about.
Kriss said that the court’s decisions in the cases, which are posted online, would also be sent to the school when they are available so students can see how things turned out.
Principal Dan Geraghty said the visit represented a special opportunity for the school, allowing students to see how far litigation can reach.
“You cannot get that from a textbook,” Geraghty said. “Seeing that depth in action, our hope is that some of those students left inspired to explore this kind of work.”
Maybe not exactly for Rawson, who said the meticulous and detailed arguments she heard gave her a fresh appreciation for those who pursue the legal profession. She had considered pursuing a career in law but said seeing the court in action, though inspiring, made her realize that this might not be the career path for her.
Rawson said legal proceedings can be so glorified on television while actual deliberations, as seen from a seat in the audience, are even-keeled and unemotional.
“It was a cool experience to get to know what actually happens, which we wouldn’t have had if they hadn’t come to our school,” Rawson said.
This story was originally published by the Rhode Island Current.
