Full

Today was my first full day of school since I returned from DC. Since the Mock Trial team had scrimmages on Thursday and Friday, we were only there for the morning.

More to the point, we are in the three-week long break between semesters called Paidea that happens at my school. Although this began last Tuesday, I was not there, and today was my first full day of it. During Paidea, you choose one activity or group-type thing, and you do it all day everyday. There is everything from rock climbing (which my sister is in) to conspiracy theories, to Mock Trial. This is when the team does most of its work; we essentially do nothing but Mock Trial from 8:30 to 2:30. It is intense. I got a whole lot done today.

Our first trial is on Wednesday. Tomorrow after school I am going to get a haircut with a bunch of other people from the team. Now that the season is beginning, we have to trim up.

Basically, the way the competition works is that the state is divided into sixteen regions. We are in #15. There are three weeks of regional trials, during which you play other teams in your region. At the end of the three weeks, the team in each region with the best record (percentage of trials won), is declared the winner of that region. If more than one team has the same record, there is a week reserved for tiebreaker trials. Then the sixteen regional winners play each other in the playoffs, which are elimination; if you lose a trial, you are out and done for the season. The state winner goes to the national tournament.

Within each trial, though, things are more complicated. Every team receives the case materials; signed affidavits, exhibits, rules of evidence and procedure, and applicable case law. Then, they must prepare both sides of the case; since it’s a criminal case this year, that means both prosecution and defense. In the regional trials, the sides each team will present are predetermined. However, in the playoffs, the two teams arrive at the trial and flip a coin. The winner of the coin flip decides which side their team will present, thus forcing the other team to play the opposite side. For this reason, everyone has to be ready to go at any given trial. Our first two regional trials are our prosecution, and the last is defense. I have parts on both sides, but I am focusing on my prosecution roles at this point.

This year’s case is first-degree murder with an insanity defense. The defendant is an ex-Marine who came home from Iraq and shortly thereafter killed his childhood rival. He claims innocence by reason of a PTSD-induced hallucination, contending that the military failed to diagnose him. On the prosecution side, the witnesses are a close friend of the victim who was present at the shooting, the detective in charge of the investigation after the shooting, and the military psychologist who approved him for discharge. On the defense are a friend of the defendant, also present at the shooting, the defendant, and a psychologist whom he met before the shooting, and was evaluated by afterwards, who claims that he does in fact have PTSD. It is a fascinating case, probably the best I’ve seen in the four years I’ve been on the team. It is not quite as applicable to real life as last year’s case, which was a civil suit involving a sexually hostile work environment, and retaliation by the defendant, but it is very demanding legally. This looks to be an excellent competition season.