
“Intimidating,” is how Haines police officer Max Jusi described weathering questions from a group of eighth graders at the courthouse recently.
Jusi, state park ranger Jacques Turcotte, and magistrate Paul Korchin helped Haines middle school social studies and language arts teacher Lisa Andriesen during her annual deep dive on the Bill of Rights with students, giving kids the law enforcement side, the judicial side and something of a conservation enforcement perspective to many of their questions.
Jusi said the kids were “super engaged,” and came prepared with questions about the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.
“They were really aware of the dangers of self incrimination and things like that,” he said. “I was kind of surprised by how many of them were just aware of facts like ‘Hey, you don’t have to answer when I ask you this.’ Super smart kids.”
Jusi said it was lighthearted and he is excited to help out again next year. He said he particularly enjoyed decompressing and getting a reprieve from his regular duties as an officer.
Turcotte echoed Jusi’s sentiments and added that he is not sure he’d have had the same level of critical questions as Andriesen’s students did when he was their age.
He said they asked a lot of clarifying questions, got into detailed specifics of how they could respond to situations they could encounter in day to day life in Haines.
Andriesen said the students later said they found it interesting how many rights an accused person gets, how much gear police have to wear daily, and that it was interesting that the police cannot just pull you over; that you must be breaking a traffic law.