There’s definitely a role for everyone on the Mock Trial team. Even if you are an introvert, you can have a spot on the team.

Sophia Myers

By Hilda Rico Valdez

The Granada Hills Charter (GHC) Mock Trial Team competed in the 46th Annual LA County Mock Trial Competition on December 4 at the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in Downtown, Los Angeles. Team A came in second place, with Louisville High School coming in first place and San Marino High School coming in third place out of over 80 schools that started the competition.

The Mock Trial team has been working hard all semester to prepare for the competition since they received their case information in September and had many competitions leading to the final on Monday.

The Mock Trial Team was assigned the case of People vs. Tobie Clark. This was a murder case in which Clark was charged with the homicide of Sunshine Medical Components Inc.’s chief executive officer. The prosecution argued that Clark should be convicted of first-degree murder, while the defense argued that Clark did not have motive nor intent, and moved for acquittal.

Mock Trial is an academic team that helps students gain a working knowledge of the judicial system by imitating realistic court trials such as People vs. Tobie Clark. Mock Trial also helps students develop their analytical thinking and communication skills. This is also only Mock Trial’s second year as a team.

On the Mock Trial Team, students compete with other schools in a series of competitions. Two types of these competitions are International Mock Trial (IMT) where students compete with other students from different countries through Zoom, and Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF), where students compete against schools in Los Angeles County. Their recent competition in the finals was in the CRF competition.

At the start of the fall semester, the team is assigned a case packet from CRF. Students and coaches take time to evaluate, assign roles, and practice their cases for competition day on the court. In the People vs. Tobie Clark case, there were eight witness statements, a total of four attorneys, and a prosecution and defense team. Members of the Mock Trial team worked together to prepare themselves for these roles.

Through their practices, students adopt proper courtroom etiquette. They learn to interact with each other’s roles properly and behave accordingly because they are in front of an actual judge and inside a real courtroom.

“As a pre-trial attorney, we argue about either including or excluding specific evidence in the trial,” junior Steven Chaparyan said. “This has a pretty big impact on the rest of the trial if pre-trial goes your way, a piece of evidence that supports your argument is included but if it doesn’t then a piece of evidence that supports the other team’s side is included.”

Senior and Mock Trial Historian, Sophia Myers elaborates more on the concept behind Mock Trial.

“During the trial, you are very much trying to build a case theory and trying to figure how you want your witnesses to reply and what emotions you want to evoke across the courtroom,” Myers said.
The prosecution’s role is to admit the right amount of evidence to incriminate the defendant, while the defense’s team’s role is to attack the prosecution’s evidence in favor of the defendant. Each member of the team has an assigned role for the case. Students are assigned the most applicable role for their particular skills.

These roles include attorneys, bailiffs, clerks, and witnesses. The job of the attorneys is to represent their clients and bring up evidence that goes against or supports them. Bailiffs are in charge of keeping order in the courtroom and swearing in the witnesses, clerks are time-keepers, and the witnesses learn their testimonies to elaborate on certain topics of the case.

Mock Trial as a whole helps students to develop their analytical, public speaking, and communication skills. Each student on the team plays an essential role on the team. They build connections with one another, strengthening their team effort. Being a part of Mock Trial allows students who aspire to be lawyers in the future to have good practice before entering law school. They learn to develop arguments, ask questions, speak confidently, and write proper statements, all of which are skills necessary to becoming a lawyer.

“It’s really nice being a part of a group and team effort,” senior and Treasurer Mia Fitzgerald said. “I find that we all are very passionate about Mock Trial. Everyone on the team loves what they do and I love being a part of that.”