Oregon judge gets mixed verdict on her decision to create ‘special jury’ of second graders

A Clackamas County judge this week decided to give a hands-on civics lesson to a class of visiting second graders, inviting eight of them to serve as jurors in a hit-and-run trial, swearing them in, allowing them to sit in the jury box and giving them supplies to take notes. At one point she wondered aloud if they were old enough to know how to write. Circuit Judge Ulanda Watkins even suggested to the defendant that she would reach a verdict “with the assistance of my special jury.” Watkins’ decision...