Though he did not testify, second-year College student Ronald Johnson was acquitted of charges of cheating in an open Honor trial Saturday afternoon. The charges had been filed about a quiz Johnson took in an Introduction to Environmental Science class last semester.
The class required a series of weekly, multiple choice quizzes, with each question shown once on PowerPoint slides, said Assoc. Prof. Linda Blum, the professor for the course and only witness who testified Saturday.
Johnson arrived late to class Oct. 24 while a quiz was being administered, taking a seat in the very back of the room, Blum said. Blum claimed Johnson walked in during the fourth question of the quiz, but Johnson claimed he entered during the third question but was hidden by a large closet in front of the classroom’s doorway.
Even though Blum allowed two quiz grades to be dropped by each student, Johnson said he chose to complete the quiz by guessing the answers to the questions he missed.
“I was watching [Johnson] closely, very closely, from the time he entered class,” Blum said in her testimony Saturday. While she did not notice “any overt gestures of cheating,” she said she found it odd that Johnson would attempt to take the quiz, because it was such a small part of his grade. Additionally, Johnson turned in his quiz to Blum herself at the front of the class a few moments after the rest of the class had passed their quizzes to her, she said. Despite Blum’s allowing students more time if needed to finish their quizzes and sign their names, she found it odd that Johnson turned in his quiz directly to her.
Blum said because Johnson walked across the room to turn in his quiz, he had ample opportunity to look at another student’s work to find the answers to the questions he had missed.
“I know how easy it is to observe [in that particular room],” Blum said.
Given Johnson’s tardiness, Blum said he had a 1.56 percent chance of correctly guessing all of the missed questions, noting that it would be “possible but not probable” for him to guess correctly the two or three questions he missed.
The counsel for the accused, however, said a 98 percent chance of getting the questions incorrect is not the same as a 98 percent chance of cheating, adding that the “probability of cheating and the probability of guessing are not the same.”
Blum nevertheless determined that Johnson cheated while taking the quiz.
“The fact that someone came into the room and guessed on questions that he had not seen, but had written answers down for, is in my mind an honor offense,” Blum said during her testimony.
Johnson’s counsel, however, questioned Blum’s assessment of the situation and questioned whether Honor charges should have been filed.
“Maybe he did guess,” Third-year Law student Ben Sachs — who served as Johnson’s counsel — said during his closing remarks. “But guessing isn’t against the honor code.”
When asked by the counsel for the community if she believed that Johnson cheated by looking at other’s quizzes, Blum replied, “I believe he cheated.”
In the end, though, after a brief trial in which Prof. Blum was the only witness because Johnson chose not to testify on his behalf or bring in any other witnesses, Trial Chair Sophie Staples announced that the jury had found Johnson not guilty of committing an honor offense. The jury, comprised of twelve University students from both undergraduate and graduate schools, had to consider three issues in order to reach a conclusion: act, intent, and triviality.
After the trial, a jury member, who spoke with The Cavalier Daily on condition of anonymity, said the trial’s jurors were “surprised how much was based on the professor’s gut feeling.” The jurors were even more surprised, the jury member said, because no one actually saw Johnson cheat. “Someone needs to see [the act] happen,” the jury member said.
Blum’s statement that guessing may be akin to cheating, the juror said, “didn’t have any impact on my judgment, but it had a negative impact on jurors.” She added that Blum — who was unavailable as of press time — “has a really extreme view that does not match” our Honor system’s policy.”
Though Johnson was acquitted, at least one University student later expressed some concern about the fact that Johnson’s case was brought to trial and not closed during previous investigation. Fourth-year College student Lauren McGlory, who also serves as a University Judiciary Committee counselor, observed the open trial and spoke during the Honor Committee’s meeting last night.
“I believe in the system and everything, but I felt like the system kind of lost its integrity putting the student through this,” McGlory said.
In response, Vice Chair for Trials Sophie Staples said while she agrees the system can be very arduous and difficult if one is an accused student, the ultimate verdict of not guilty is a sign that the system works in its current form. The perceived problem may have arisen as a result of varying definitions of what constitutes an honor offense between the investigative panel and the actual jury, Staples added.
Second-year Law student Andy Garrett, who served as part of the counsel for the community during Saturday’s trial, also noted that “our job is to present the story” and said it is each counsel’s responsibility to “present the facts” without judgment against or in favor of either side.
Several community members in attendance were surprised Johnson chose to make the trial open to the public.
“I just felt like I didn’t have anything to hide,” Johnson said after the verdict was reached. “I wanted the community as a whole to see how the honor system was working.”
—Vihar Parikh contributed to this article.
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