I love arguments, especially when other people are in them.

On Tuesday, three California Court of Appeals justices will roll into Napa to hear arguments in two criminal cases, and I am fired up for the 400 students scheduled to see them in action at District Auditorium.

While jury trials have some drama, what with the grilling of witnesses and introduction of eye-opening evidence, trials also can be tedious.

At the court of appeals, it is literally stand and deliver.

A lawyer has 20 minutes or so to persuade the court he or she is right, with the other side firing back from steps away. Either side can be undone by the justices, who can ask whatever they want whenever they want of whomever they want, making hash of a lawyer’s best-laid plans.

Usually, though, the justices listen attentively with few questions, not tipping their hands about what they think about a case until they issue their written opinion.

My brief days covering appeals arguments were in federal court. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals justices sat at a curved table made of marble in a large and ornate San Francisco courtroom, looking down at the attorneys. On a given day the subject matter would range widely — whether milk safety regulations are too burdensome, if a man on death row got a fair shake, who has authority over ships at sea, if an initiative passed by California voters is constitutional.

The cases to be argued in Napa Tuesday, People v. Rauen and People v. Patten, center on police searches and seizures. By the standards of court of appeals justices, they are routine. A new case of this sort is filed every day.

Yet this is anything but routine. This is the immense power of the government versus the inalienable rights individuals enjoy under the Constitution.

Health care reform, farm subsidies, Middle East peace talks — these are abstractions compared to the question of whether the government can take me from my home or car or off a bench in the park and lock me up.

The greatest defense against government tyranny or social anarchy is a fair and vigorous justice system, bound by laws and monitored by the people.

So kudos to Napa County Superior Court Presiding Judge Ray Guadagni for selling the court of appeals on the idea of visiting Napa. Kudos to the Napa County Bar Association, the schools and the California Court of Appeals, too, for shifting justice for a day from beautiful marble chambers in a grand building on San Francisco’s McAllister Street and bringing it to Napa.