NORTHAMPTON — Students from Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School and from UMass Amherst got to see the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court justices in action on Friday, as the court held a special sitting at Hampshire County Superior Court as part of an effort to broaden public awareness of the court system in the commonwealth.

The SJC heard oral arguments in three separate cases in the confines of the Hampshire County Courthouse, with commonwealth prosecutors and defendants’ attorneys each laying their cases before the justices. The cases themselves originated in Barnstable and Hampden counties, with two of them involving incidents that occurred in Springfield.

Following the oral arguments, the seven SJC justices — Frank Gaziano, Scott Kafker, Gabrielle Wolohojian, Elizabeth Dewar, Serge Georges, Dalila Wendlant and Chief Justice Kimberly Budd — sat down to talk with criminal justice students from Smith Voc and students at UMass taking a class on criminal jury trials, taking questions about their careers in law and what it means to serve on the state’s highest court.

The justices come from a variety of backgrounds, with some having grown up with lawyers in their family and others having little experience with the legal system before entering law school. Dewar she said she falls into the latter category.

“I went into law because I really liked writing, and I also wanted to do something where I was helping others, and I thought that law seemed like the intersection of those things,” Dewar said. “After law school, I was really fortunate to get something that a lot of graduates do if they’re really lucky after graduating — to work for a judge as a law clerk.”

Unlike Dewar, Budd said she initially did not have much of a passion for writing.

“I did not like to write, and because I wasn’t that great at it, I decided I needed to pursue it as a major in college,” Budd said. “So one of my suggestions to you is whenever you’re taking classes, just make sure you’re taking classes that require people to write.”

Georges said he was inspired to become a lawyer during his sophomore year in high school, following the 1989 murder case of Carol Stuart in Boston. Her husband, Charles, had claimed that a Black man had carjacked their vehicle and shot and killed Stuart, causing a media frenzy, only for it later to be revealed that Charles himself had been the murderer.

“I then thought that I just wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to know what my rights were and be able to defend myself,” said Georges, who grew up in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester and is of Haitian heritage. “It wasn’t my dream, but then it turned out to be something I really love to do.”

The justices also described how one of the most challenging aspects of the position was having to read many cases that showcase some of the worst of humanity. “There’s a lot of sadness in what we have to read, so that for me is the hardest part of the job,” Georges said.

Wolohojian, the newest member of the SJC who was confirmed to the position in February, said there were many cases in her legal career that still haunt her.

“There are terrible crimes, particularly committed against children, that are very hard to forget,” Wolohojian said. “I’m not even sure if it’s our job to forget.”

The first of the three oral cases heard in the courtroom Friday involved Shondell Rateree, who was convicted in 2022 by a jury on charges including assault and battery over an altercation that led to knife injuries to all involved. Rateree claimed that one of the victims in the case, Christopher Griffiths, had been the instigator of the incident, and she had attempted to introduce evidence of previous acts of violence by Griffiths to support her claim, but a judge had denied the motion.

Rateree’s attorney, Nancy Dolberg, argued on Friday that the judge abused his discretion and violated the defendant’s constitutional right to present a defense, and also that there was insufficient evidence for one of the charges against her, misleading a police officer.

The second case involved Terrance Montgomery, who was convicted in 2019 of second-degree murder in connection with a shooting at a birthday party in Springfield. Montgomery’s attorney Mark Bluver argued before the SJC on Friday that the judge’s voir dire questioning during jury selection was improper because they had asked potential jurors if they would have trouble convicting someone based on eyewitness testimony rather than DNA evidence.

Bluver argued such questioning deprived his client of his right to an impartial jury, while the commonwealth maintained the line of questioning was entirely proper, meant to counter the “CSI effect” theory that jurors may put too much emphasis on a lack of DNA due to TV shows like “CSI.”

The third and final argument involved the case of Pedro Vasquez, who was convicted of murder in the second degree in the fatal shooting of his ex-girlfriend Yahaira Hernandez. Vasquez’s attorney Ashley Allen made the argument before the court that before the verdict, two of the jurors had a racially charged dispute, with one of the jurors sending a note to the judge describing the incident and saying he had been called a racist by another juror.

The judge in the case, however, declined to dismiss either juror or question the other members of the jury, something Allen argued was not a proper response. The commonwealth argued the defendant was at fault for failing to establish an adequate review of the issue, and that even if the judge had erred, the proper course of action would be to revisit the issue rather than ordering an entirely new trial.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.