In anticipation of the mock trial competition on February 20, Mock Trial club convened on February 12.
The team went over and discussed both direct and cross-examinations to prepare.
Mock Trial Club prepares annually to present their prosecution and defense case in front of a judge, and a jury made up of actual lawyers.
The winning team moves on to the state-wide competition in Harrisburg.
Defense lawyer Khushi Thaker thinks the club is “very surreal.”
“You’re there to be a lawyer and do a court case and it’s very similar to what a real court hearing would be,” Thaker said.
Mock trial cases alternate between criminal and civil.
According to Mock Trial advisor Denise Meehl, every year, the cases “range from wrongful death to arson.”
“All of them took place in the same made-up town in Pennsylvania, and there are some ties throughout them,” Meehl said.
Unlike a debate, lawyers will be “standing in front of a judge speaking, they would have a very different kind of experience with it,” Meehl said.
According to defense lawyer Sam Kennedy, it’s all about being prepared to argue your case to the jury.
“The case releases usually around October 1st,” Kennedy said, “we meet twice a week to develop strategies, arguments, write opening and closing statements, develop lines of questioning, figure out how we’re going to argue the case to best maximize our chances of winning.”
Thaker has a similar starting process.
“We get that packet and then we kind of just go from there. We start reading all the testimonies, we start kind of looking at the evidence, just skimming through all the rules and the backstory and everything of the case,” Thaker said.
According to Thaker, that’s only the first step.
“Then we figure out who wants to be on what side and assign roles like who will be witnesses, who will be lawyers and who will be understudies.”
Members of the participating teams wear professional attire and bring copies of evidence to present to the jurors and judges.
According to Kennedy, competition day is very humbling.
“You feel very adult all of a sudden. It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m standing in a courtroom talking to an actual judge,’” Kennedy said.
While the day of the trial can be stressful, Kennedy can deal with it.
“The key is to just sort of push past that strangeness and just try and be calm and be in the moment and be ready to just argue your case.”
For Meehl, Mock Trial isn’t just about competing, but it is also about the experience peers have working together on a case.
“A lot of other mentorships you might to some extent be doing the job a little bit,” Meehl said, “whereas this, you are actually doing the thing and seeing if you like it or not, which is a great experience for people to be able to have.”
“Working [on a court case] for the duration of months and half of the people that are involved are being the witnesses also is a very different kind of way to look at it,” Meehl said, “which I think is more what the debate club would be.”