Judicial Discovery Center sets out to blend civic education with Missouri’s historic courts

The Supreme Court of Missouri will soon be home to an educational exhibit that aims to teach civic responsibility to the next generation. 

Heidi Doerhoff Vollet, a partner with Cook Vetter Doerhoff & Landwehr in Jefferson City, said the goal of the Judicial Discovery Center is to showcase the court’s history and promote citizenship education about the court system.

Vollet is the chair of the Judicial Discovery Center Committee of the Supreme Court of Missouri Historical Society and said the center has been a dream of the court for several years now. Promotional material for the center calls it a “living library of justice.”

Though the project has been imagined for several years, it is coming to fruition now thanks to a tax incentive approved by the legislature. The credit gives incentives for funders to donate to better these buildings and projects and in exchange, they receive a state tax credit, Vollet said.

The center will be located in the library’s east wing now that it no longer needs as much space for offices and physical books, Vollet said. The center holds a small theater that plays an introduction to the court system.

“That is previewed through judges whose portraits come to life and (…) they kind of speak with each other and introduce in lay persons (words), how courts work, how they do their business and what their role is,” she said. “I think it’s about an eight-minute video and there’s one version that’s geared toward grade school students and the other version that can be shown is geared toward any member of the public.”

The center is geared toward tourists as well as students on field trips to the court.

Just outside the theater are more exhibits geared towards explaining the third branch of government, including graphic vignettes that show who the current judges are and some of their background when they were younger. This helps younger students to connect with the judges more. Other exhibits focus on interesting court precedents and cases, examples of how the courts are organized.

Those wishing to donate to the center can reach out to the Supreme Court of Missouri Historical Society for details.

“There’s a lot of people, I think, who would be interested in supporting this and could help bring about some wonderful enhancements that everybody, no matter what political stripe you have, should be proud of,” Vollet said. “This is a non-political thing that we’re talking about. t’s just citizenship, education, understanding what courts do and why they are important in our government.”

A private reception for those who helped make the Judicial Discovery Center come to fruition was held at the center Nov. 5.