It was a tough week for canines in the First Fairy Tale Land Circuit Court. In early June, students in the third and fifth grades at the Bahrain Department of Defense Dependent School -- assisted by Lt. Cmdr. Corey Bean, Defense Service Office North Branch Office Bahrain, and Lt. Adam Sitte, RLSO EURAFSWA Detachment Bahrain -- participated in two gripping mock trials.
The Big Bad Wolf faced charges of trespass, identify theft for impersonating Grandma, and attempted murder of Little Red Riding Hood and Grandma, while the Fox was charged with aggravated assault on the Ginger Bread Boy, to wit: biting off the Ginger Bread Boy's leg. Although the Big Bad Wolf waxed passionately on the immutable nature of carnivores, exposed Little Red Riding Hood's unauthorized frolic off the path to Grandma's house , and made a compelling case that if "Grandma's nighty don't fit, you must acquit," he was found guilty on all accounts.
The Fox fared better, and was found not guilty after arguing persuasively that the Ginger Bread Boy assumed the risk of death or grievous bodily harm by fording a river on the back of a fox, and that in any case, as a vegan, the fox had no interest in eating a cookie made with eggs.
After the trials, Bean and Sitte discussed difficult legal questions posed by these trials such as necessity, proportional liability, character evidence, identification in inter-species lineups, and what it means to be tried by a "jury of one's peers," as well as what it's like to be a lawyer in the Navy JAG Corps.