Court is back in session as Mock Trial aims for virtual verdict
With an exciting and fact-filled murder case, West’s Mock Trial team has been working on preparing for this year’s virtual regional competition. Although it has been a tough adjustment online for all aspects of learning, the team has still pulled through with meetings to teach new members and for the rest of the team to investigate the case. Social studies teachers Jacob Smasal and Daniel Lewis have been leading the group through the process.
“In the beginning of each Mock Trial season, the teams are given a problem or case, and there are roles that we assign to our members like witness and attorney,” Lewis said. “Then they prepare for the prosecution, trying to convict someone of murder, or the defense, trying to defend someone against a murder charge.”
According to Smasal, the competition begins after a defense and prosecution argument is prepared.
“They try to win the case like they do in an actual courtroom,” he said. “Then what happens in a normal year is we travel to an actual courtroom and we would go against other schools and a judge will preside over the case. So a team of prosecutors from our school will go against a defense team from another school.”
Unfortunately, this year and the end of last year have been a little bit different. The unexpected circumstances in spring of 2020 brought disappointment to the squad.
“COVID struck in early March last year, and the state finals were scheduled for March 15, which was going to be a Friday-Saturday event,” Lewis said. “But two days before we were getting ready to travel to Madison for the state finals, the Dane County Courthouse was shut down, so the whole state finals were canceled.”
Instead of canceling the entire season this school year, the Wisconsin High School Mock Trial program sent out the case and planned for a virtual regional and state competition. Since the return to school, the meetings work a little differently.
“For hybrid, we've decided that holding 6:45 AM practices allows the kids that are in school to get here before classes start for zero-hour or first hour,” Lewis said. “For virtual day kids, I am okay if they just show up in PJ’s for an hour and then head back and start their virtual school.”
During complete virtual learning in the fall, one of the attorney captains, junior Patrick Gannon, felt that meetings were more difficult for the team.
“It is definitely different,” he said. “We were meeting via Google Meets, which is way harder than meeting in person, and it takes some of the fun out of the meetings. Usually, we meet attorney and witness, but that was hard because we had to do it in breakout rooms.”
During such meetings, team members prepare what they are going to say during the trial, but junior Anika Larson, also one of the attorney captains, emphasized that it isn’t just memorization that’s important, but also thinking on one’s feet.
“An important thing is learning how to object and how to respond to objections,” she said. “We can memorize and practice them as much as we want but until you are questioning a witness and you have someone object to you, you are never going to know what it is like. As far as prep goes, everybody has written their questions; we’re working on opening and closing statements, and getting witnesses really comfortable with their roles.”
Lewis knows that the process of preparation can be quite demanding at times. However, it provides good practice for those interested in studying law in college.
“A lot of people don't realize the work that goes into proving your side of the case by making oral arguments to prove your point, and getting this experience is very helpful for students who want to go to law school down the line,” he said.
This year’s case starts with a murder of a twin, Amari, done with a garden hoe in the estate’s guest house. The suspect and defendant: the identical twin, Dorain.
“There is a person named Dorian who is pretty secluded, lives on an estate and has a pretty rough relationship with his family,” Larson said. “But his mother, twin sibling, and adopted sibling all come and live with him during the pandemic.”
There are six witnesses total, Dorian Grey being a significant one. Junior Bryce Joel, one of the witness captains, takes the role of portraying Dorain. Joel has been in Mock Trial for three years and loves the practices, competitions, and the people.
“I portray the plaintiff, Dorian Gray, who is on trial for the murder of their twin brother,” he said. “I chose this part as I have always been good at making the ‘villain’ of the case seem like a not so bad person. I really like to make the jury feel sympathy for them.”
On Wednesday, the 13th of January, the teammates were able to put their skills to the test. In anticipation of the event, Joel felt a plethora of emotions.
“Competitions are always a mix of nervousness and being so excited it feels like your heart is going to pound out of your chest,” he said. “This scrimmage is going to lay the foundation for how our season is going to go.”
A scrimmage plays an essential role in preparing new members for the routine and style of the courtroom, one of Lewis’ main objectives with the team this year.
“For our individual team members, our number one goal is to get some experience of what a trial looks like in a courtroom in America,” he said. “This isn't something that a lot of people are familiar with, especially aside from TV shows like Law and Order, which is not even super realistic.”
However, with current circumstances, students may not have gotten this full experience with the scrimmage conducted virtually. Nevertheless, the team persevered. Lewis was able to contact the Mock Trial coach from Appleton West, and the scrimmage was done between them.
“We met in the academy room with the document cameras up,” Smasal said. “We had Appleton lawyers sitting in as the judge, so we had the Appleton team on zoom.”
Since the scrimmage was virtual, there were connection and volume issues. However, the scrimmage, overall, went well for the team.
“It was a little awkward because we aren't really talking to people, we are talking to cameras, but they did really well,” Smasal said. “In terms of where we are this year in comparison to last year, I think we are doing really well.”
As students were sitting in desks and at home while the other team was on the screen, the scene was unusual to the members because it was much different than a courtroom.
“We tried to make it as realistic as possible with a witness sitting at a desk and an attorney at a podium, but it's not as realistic as we wanted,” Lewis said. “For the first time we've had a scrimmage it went really well, although obviously virtual scrimmages are not ideal. We have some kids in quarantine, students who can't come to school for whatever reason, and it really makes it difficult for the whole team to get together to participate in the scrimmage, but I think we did as well as we could have considering the logistic and technical circumstances.”
Every team has goals in order to succeed, and Mock Trial is no exception.
“Our number one goal every year is to advance one of our teams to the state tournament,” Lewis said. “In order to do that, we have to get top 2 ranking at the regional tournament.”
In any club, different skills are needed in order to flourish. In Mock Trial, those skills are either already known or obtained from involvement.
“The most important skill needed for Mock Trial is public speaking because this is like a really intense speech class,” Lewis said. “Not only are you up there speaking publicly, but people aren't necessarily agreeing with you; they are trying to wheel out of your questions.”
Smasal acknowledges that he likes being a leader of the Mock Trial team because of the laughter and the independence the members have. But, he is often reminded to give more freedom to the students and enjoys seeing the work they do.
“As a teacher, this reminds me to loosen up sometimes,” Smasal said. “I don't have to be completely in control all the time, I can let the students steer the ship because they are better at this than I am, so it's a good lesson on a lack of control and it’s really amazing to see what students can do when given the chance.”
By Abby Eaton and Sage Wesenberg
Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue IV
February 1st, 2020