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Justice career for Jazzy

Belpre teen has hopes of becoming Supreme Court justice

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BELPRE -- Jasmine Wright, a 15-year-old Belpre High School sophomore, wants to fight crime after high school.

"I wanna be the person that is prosecuting these bad people for their crimes," Wright said. "I want to put them in jail. I want you to be able to come to me and tell me what happened and I'm like, 'I'll put that person away for you.'"

At Belpre, Wright is a member of the color guard, is a varsity cheerleader, president of the sophomore class student council, attended a youth leadership camp in Athens last year, is on the mock trial team, and will be one of the first members of Belpre's moot court team.

Wright said she plans to pursue a career in law and that she has supreme ambitions.

"My dream job is to be a Supreme Court justice," Wright said. "I would love to go to the Supreme Court and be a Supreme Court judge."

Wright is not only learning about the procedures of a trial, and what she needs to bring with her into a courtroom, but she has also started teaching herself what to leave out of it.

"One of the things I've been working on a lot recently is setting what I believe completely aside and simply going on the facts that are presented," Wright said.

"It's very hard. I obviously have my own opinions on stuff but, at the end of the day, in a jury trial, it's innocent until proven guilty. You can't take your own opinions into there. It is what was presented at the trial to you. … I have to take it from that perspective, and make sure my case is strong enough, that without someone's personal opinion, they would still be proven guilty."

Wright said she and fellow classmate Conner Elder will be the first members of the newly formed moot court team. She said the moot court team is different from the mock trial team in that the mock trial team deals with an actual trial and the moot court team looks into the appeal process. Wright said Elder is the brief writer and that she handles the presentations they bring before a judge.

She said she's thankful she gets to participate in these kind of activities.

"I'm just really excited we have these opportunities," Wright said. "Not at many schools would you be able to practice something that you want to do in the future, and just get to see if that's your vibe."

Wright might have found her vibe in the courtroom but she has been vibing on the dance floor since she was 3, which eventually brought her into cheer and color guard.

"I did dance competitively since I was 3," She said. "I transferred into cheer my seventh grade year."

Wright said a friend talked her into joining the team when she got into junior high school.

She said she loves that she gets to continue to dance with cheerleading, that she gets to go to all the games and cheer on her classmates.

"I love watching the games," Wright said. "They just get so intense, and they're so much fun. The people that are playing the game, you know them, so you want them to do well cause that's your school."

Wright said she just joined the color guard this year. She said it has been one of the hardest things she has had to learn, and that it can be scary joining a new team, but she said everyone has been extremely supportive, kind and helpful as she's gone through the process of learning.

She said she was nervous about her performance because the team had received a 1 last year at the state level. Color guard is graded on a 1-5 scale with 1 being a superior rating.

"Coming in this year I was like, 'If guard doesn't get a 1 this year, that's me! The only new person is me," Wright jokes. "And we did get a 1 this year at state. So, I was so excited. I was like, 'Ok! I didn't mess it up too bad.'"

Wright may question her abilities with a flag, but she has full confidence in her public speaking skills. She said she has been competing in pageants since she was 1, and is the current 2022 WV State Honey Festival Teen, and said the interview part of the pageant is her favorite and a great way to hone her public speaking skills.

"I love going on stage and talking, I love dressing up," Wright said. "Interviews are so much fun, I love talking to new people, I think it's just a great opportunity. It really helps with your confidence. To get on stage and talk in front of people. It really helps with that. If you're afraid of public speaking, it's a good outlet. I love it."

In her free-time, Wright said she enjoys spending time with her parents, Kristopher and Jessica Madison, and that they are extremely supportive of everything she does.

"I feel like we're such an open family. I talk to my parents about everything that happens," Wright said. "And my parents are super supportive. They come to every game, every basketball game, every football game, every band competition, if there's something I'm in, they are there."

Wright said she hopes to continue her pursuit of knowledge about the law after high school by attending The Ohio State University in Columbus, Howard University in Washington D.C., or maybe the law school at The University of Cincinnati.

Starting at /week.