After months of going through document after document, as he was searching in the file cabinet in the Student Government Office, Lock Whiteside jumped. He found it – the piece of paper detailing the judicial board’s burden of proof from 1986 in the Student Senate records. He described it like when “a little kid is in a candy store.”

The student body re-elected Whiteside, a senior in political science, as student chief justice of the judicial board, his main campaign goal remained to raise the burden of proof.

The judicial board’s responsibility is to hold academic and non-academic hearings for students who are in violation of the University’s student conduct code and may face suspension or expulsion.

Whiteside said the current burden of proof states that under the rights of the accused, all students are innocent until proven guilty with “clear and convincing” evidence. He said, rather than have the burden of proof be clear and convincing evidence, he wants to change it to “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

According to Whiteside, the current burden of proof requires that there should be a 70 percent mark for the board to find a student guilty, and he wants to raise that to 90 percent.

Chris Gilmore, a junior in political science, has been on the judicial board since his freshman year and also ran against Whiteside in the previous election for chief justice.

Gilmore said he does not think raising the burden of proof is a good idea at all.

“What the judicial board is supposed to do is we’re supposed to uphold safety and academic integrity,” Gilmore said.

He said raising the burden of proof is putting the individual on top of the community.

“Raising the burden of proof raises higher standards for the community and the University…and lets a person slip through the cracks,” Gilmore said.

Aside from raising the burden of proof, Whiteside said next year, he hopes to make the whole judicial board process more transparent and to make sure students are aware of the code of conduct.

Despite these changes, Whiteside does not look upon his previous term unfavorably.

He said he would consider “the reforms I was willing to speak out against to ensure the campus would be involved in a dialogue” one of his successes.

Although Whiteside said his job can be intense at times as facilitator of hearings and with fulfilling duties such as detailing facts of the cases, listing sanctions and writing letters about the hearings to the appropriate parties, he said he never regretted his decision to become chief justice.

Whiteside said in his new term, he hopes to promote outreach programs to bring awareness of the board to campus, which he said was partially not possible this year because of lack of funding.

Gilmore disagreed. He said a lack in leadership was the problem and the member who was in charge of coordinating the series about academic integrity, hazardous drinking and other important topics for students, quit because of the lack of assistance from the leadership.

“The leadership wasn’t on par of the past two years,” he said.

According to Gilmore, communication was a big problem this year, especially about meeting times and training.

Whiteside said he wanted to better the comunication with his board members as well.

“I want to create stronger relationships with judicial board members,” he said. “[A lot of members] disagreed with me this year, and I wish we came to more common ground.”

Brittany Eley, a junior in political science and criminology and member of the judicial board, said Whiteside did an excellent job this year as chief justice.

“He’s made sure that everything stayed pretty much on track,” she said. “I just did a hearing with him on Monday, and he did really well with follow-up questions, and the whole organization of our group.”

According to Eley, Whiteside has the most important role of the board because he has to facilitate the whole process, and Whiteside has made sure that the board stayed on task in their work.

Sade’ Graves, a junior in communication and psychology, is a new member to the board and said she joined the board at Whiteside’s encouragement.

“I had an idea of what [the judicial board] was, but now that I serve on it, I realize how big a deal the judicial board is,” she said.

According to Graves, the judicial board to her seems like the invisible branch of Student Government that not everyone knows, but is very important nonetheless.

Danielle Seale, a senior in political science and philosophy and judicial board member, said she hopes Whiteside will fulfill his duties more completely next year than he did this year.

“There are like 30 members on the board and it always seemed to come down to the same certain people doing everything,” she said.

Seale agreed with Gilmore and Whiteside in that the communication lines between members needs to be stronger.

“It felt like he was keeping us very separate,” she said. “We just need somebody who can lead [the board] in the right direction.”

Seale said one of the successes she thought the judicial board had this year was the program the board hosted in conjunction with Campus Police that was set to promote alcohol awareness.

Whiteside said one aspect he hopes to continue is his reputation with students that they can come to him with problems.

“I get calls at all times of the night,” he said.

Senior Staff Writer Tabitha Earp contributed to this story