Kids create video, write law journal article about Texas Supreme Court
James and Emily Caughey, siblings whose mother is an appellate lawyer, interview Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht for a video that they made about jurists’ work. (Screenshot via YouTube)
Last year, Emily Caughey, now 11, wanted to do something to help educate other children about judges and how courts work. Both of Emily’s parents are lawyers. Her mother, Jennifer, chairs Jackson Walker’s appellate section.
With that background, Emily knew a thing or two about the legal system but was concerned by how little other people seemed to understand about how the judiciary works or how important judges are to the community.
Enlisting James, her younger brother who is now 9, Emily decided to make a video in which they interviewed Texas Supreme Court justices about their daily lives, their work and how they reach decisions in the cases that come before them. Five of the nine justices on the Texas Supreme Court, including the chief justice, participated in the 34-minute video, which is available on YouTube. Emily and James have since written an essay, “Exposing Kids to the Judiciary,” published in July in The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process.
“I wanted to teach people about the judiciary, and I thought that interviewing [justices] was a great way to do that,” Emily says.
In the video, Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, along with Justices Jimmy Blacklock, John Phillip Devine, Brett Busby and Evan Young, discusses appellate court decision-making. Devine explains that a dissent is “a writing that respectfully disagrees with the majority opinion.”
Several justices, including Hecht, say if they are trying to make a ruling and they don’t agree, they don’t yell at each other but keep their discussion “calm” and “quiet.”
“I thought it was interesting how they told us that if they disagree, they don’t fight about it, but they talk about it,” James says. “They don’t always have same opinion, just like my classmates and I don’t always have the same opinion.”
The justices also answer questions about what they wanted to be when they were little and their favorite flavor of ice cream. In addition, they are asked what their superpower would be if they could have one.
Blacklock wanted to be a baseball player when he was growing up. Devine’s favorite flavor of ice cream is salted caramel. And the chief justice would want to be able to fly as his superpower.
The video allows viewers to get to know the justices and relate to them, Emily says.
“Even though they are the highest justices in all of Texas, they are still people,” she adds. “They still have lives and families and activities.”
Emily and James are considering interviewing legislators in another project aimed at educating children, but they haven’t definitively decided.
In their essay, they said they started their project by writing to the Texas Supreme Court justices, then they “waited anxiously, not sure if they would respond.” Blacklock’s assistant answered and helped facilitate interviews of five justices in Austin in April 2023.
Their mother says her kids “love developing creative plans,” and she and her husband encouraged the project by driving the family to Austin and hiring a videographer to film the interviews.
“The kids decided all the questions on their own,” says Jennifer Caughey, who was appointed to the Texas First Court of Appeals in 2017 but lost the election in 2018. She ran on the Republican ticket—as did all the justices who were interviewed—and is currently doing so again as a candidate for Place 2 on the First Court of Appeals.
“They wanted some of them to be fun and some of them to be serious,” she says.
In an email, Devine wrote that he agreed to participate in the interview because “as jurists, we have a privilege and a responsibility to pass on our knowledge and share our passion for the American justice system with future generations.” Hecht wrote that he hoped the video would “encourage more instruction in civics throughout the educational experience.”
Busby pointed out that “many people who grow up in America have only had negative experiences with or heard negative stories” when it comes to the justice system.
“This project by Emily and James helps children begin to understand the importance of the rule of law and the vital positive role that judges and lawyers play in preserving it for all of us,” Busby wrote.
The video, Emily and James say, has already been shown in some Texas schools and passed around the legal community, particularly among lawyers in the appellate world.
Tessa Dysart, assistant director of legal writing and clinical professor of law at the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law, also saw the video. Dysart serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Appellate Practice & Process and reached out to Emily and James, encouraging them to write the essay about their project.
“As a mom of young kids, I was impressed with Emily and James’ initiative in creating and executing the project,” Dysart says. The video “allows us to see past politics and understand how the court operates as well as fun and unique facts about the court and its justices. I hope it inspires other kids to undertake similar projects.”
