The Honor Committee last night discussed two legislative changes respectively intended to incentivize the expediency of accused students’ trial date requests and ease the selection of jury members for some high-profile trials.
The first proposal affects how a student chooses his or her trial date. Under the current bylaws, when a student is accused of an honor offense, a notice of accusation by the Investigative Panel is provided by e-mail and certified mail. In that notice, a student is provided with about six possible trial dates, Vice Chair for Trials Sophie Staples said.
A student is then expected to choose a trial date from these dates and alert the Vice Chair of Trials of his or her preferences for date, counsel and jury panel, and whether he or she wants a closed or open trial. If a student requests a trial but does not specify the details, then the Vice Chair for Trials decides the details, Staples said.
Under the new proposal, the Committee would continue to provide a list of at least five proposed trial dates. The proposal creates a 10-day period after the notice has been delivered, called the “trial request period.” If a student does not choose one of the dates provided by the Committee, or does not provide an excuse deemed legitimate by the Vice Chair of Trials or Committee Chair during the trial request period for a delay, then he or she would be expected to leave admitting guilt, or “LAG,” to the offense.
“It’s important to keep in mind that this is not trying to LAG students with legitimate excuses,” Staples said.
Instead, it is an attempt to prevent unnecessary trial delays by students and create an increased incentive to designate a trial date as soon as possible, Staples said.
“The point is that we’ve discussed throughout committee of this overriding problem to want to have your trial sooner rather than later,” Staples said, adding that this amendment should help address the issue.
Committee Chair Jess Huang said the bylaw change would also prevent unnecessary drains on Committee resources because it eliminates the need to prepare for trials that will not happen. In this way, the amendment should help “streamline the process,” Huang added.
Though Staples believes the change will help relieve trial delays, other problems still remain and must be addressed, she said.
“I think that in order to have any real substantial effect on that we would need to address credit accrual,” Staples said, noting that a discussion needs to take place about whether students should lose academic credit for the semester during their accusation. “This committee did not show much interest” in the issue, Staples said, adding that she hopes pressure will be put on the future committee by the public to deal with these other issues.
The proposal will be voted on at the Committee’s next meeting, Huang said.
The second amendment the Committee discussed last night deals with jury panels and would alter the Committee’s constitution.
Under the current system, an honor trial jury panel must include “at least two panel members from the school of the accused.” The change would modify the honor jury panel to include the two members “whenever possible.”
Huang said in a situation in which a case is from a very small school and is very public, it is very difficult “to guarantee two students from that school” to be on the panel who have no knowledge of the case.
So far, no such instances have occurred, Huang said, but this new amendment would “protect us legally if there ever were such a case.”
The change would still require the Vice Chair of Trials “to do everything in his or her power” — such as calling the entire school — to find two members for the panel, Huang said.
Because this change is a constitutional one, it must be voted upon by the entire student body. The incoming Committee will undertake this task, Huang said.
“We’re going to have the language ready and set to go” for the new committee, she noted.
The current Committee will hold its last meeting April 5, and the new Committee will take charge the following day,
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