Visiting jurist gives Lynn Tech students lesson in law

LYNN – Students at Lynn Vocational and Technical Institute got a rare opportunity Wednesday morning, as District Court Judge James Wexler paid a visit to the school to discuss the law and answer questions about how he makes his rulings and sentencing decisions.A friend of former attorney and current LVTI Vice Principal Caroline Hall, Wexler spent the better part of Wednesday morning speaking to students in several different classes about his job and the state’s court system as a whole.Students quizzed Wexler on a number of topics, including the drinking age, assault and the new loitering ordinance recently passed in Lynn, preventing individuals from hanging out on school grounds on off hours.Most of all, Wexler stressed that, although he does not always agree with the law, it is important to have strict guidelines with such a large population so there is no confusion about the law.”I don’t always agree with the laws I enforce, but in such a large country we have to broaden the rules,” he said. “Because we are in a country with over 300 million people, we have to make larger rules that reach everyone. Everyone needs to know what the rules are, and it is my job to make sure that laws are enforced. For example, I know people under 21 that can handle alcohol, and people over 21 that should never drink, but we have to have that set age so that we have something for everyone to follow.”Wexler said that while making a ruling as to whether someone has broken a law is difficult; sentencing can be even tougher, having to take into account different factors surrounding each suspect.He used the example of assault with two students. The maximum sentence for punching someone if both parties are over the age of 17 is 18 months in prison. Wexler said he would be more apt to give the full sentence to someone like himself for punching a student in the class, as opposed to a fellow student of the same age.Wexler has a long career that includes handling civil rights cases as an attorney, but he says as a judge he gets the most satisfaction from seeing people he has locked away living clean lives after prison.”I was followed once by a young man at a grocery store, he followed me through the store and eventually trapped me in the frozen food section,” he said. “He asked if I was a judge, and at that point I recognized him as a person I had put away for a really violent domestic incident, I thought I was going to end up with the frozen food, but he looked at me and said ‘That was the best thing that ever happened to me. I hated you then, but having gone to jail really changed me.’ That is when I am satisfied.”Wexler made the students think, asking questions like “When is it OK to lie?” He illustrated the difficulty of having to deal with hearing two sides of the story and decipher which person was telling the truth, and said many times the wrong person ends up in jail – or free – because of poor attorneys and simple human error.”In our system some people who are guilty get set free, some people go to jail who are innocent. It isn’t fair, and we try to do it right, but we are human,” he said. “When people get away with serious things, it does not make me happy. But it is hard, because sometimes lawyers do not do their jobs.”When it comes to making a decision on his own, Wexler says he often wrestles with himself overnight, and is not afraid to change his mind if he has to.He even believes that someone could “misremember” something, and may not necessarily be lying, even if a statement they made is found to be false.”People’s memory can change over time, and sometimes people can misremember what they said or what happened when they are scared or under a lot of stress,” he said. “I have to be satisfied that I did not make a mistake.”For students at Tech it was an opportunity to ask questions and understand why the law is what it is and what potential punishment could follow if mistakes are made. The students took advantage of the opportunity, asking qu