Community Service

Judge Cantrell is committed to helping the youth of his community. In 2004, he co-founded the Lakeside Home Mock-Trial Team, a project for which he earned the Alma Wilson Award in 2005 for the program's impact on the lives of the youth involved. The team is made up of residents of the Lakeside Home, an alternative residential school and treatment program for teenagers who are in the Tulsa County Juvenile Court system.

Since the inception of the Mock-Trial program, Lakeside residents have participated in many state-wide mock-trial competitions. More than gaining an understanding of courtroom procedure, many of the team members acquire something even more important as a result of this experience: self-confidence. Through their participation in the program, the students realize that they don't have to be defined by the mistakes that they had made in the past, and that their future had yet to be written. One former team member stated that the program had given her the "confidence to stand up and talk to people."

In addition to being co-head coach, Judge Cantrell has also helped the students prepare for the more practical aspects of competition. He helped the students obtain appropriate courtroom attire through loans of clothing from local attorneys. The Lakeside Home has been in competition for the last five years, often placing above many larger schools, and coming within .04% points of a state-wide semi-final victory. The Judge is extremely proud of his involvement with the Lakeside Home and continues to play an active role in the teams development.

In 2006, he was elected as a District Judge for Tulsa and Pawnee counties (District 14, Division 4), the position that he continues to hold today. He helped develop the Lakeside Home Mock-Trial Team at the Lakeside Residential Treatment Home for teenagers. He redesigned the Juvenile Drug Court, rewrote the handbook, obtained a grant to help the court function more effectively, thus helping the program enjoy substantial success.

See Tulsa World article