Schools throughout Maryland, including here at Decatur, are preparing for Mock Trial competitions.
For those who don’t know, Mock Trial is an extracurricular activity where students compete using a made-up court case to learn about the legal system in a competitive manner. It usually takes place after school.
“You get to go to the courthouse and compete against people which is really fun,” said Simran Jain, who is a member of the team and has been on it for three years.
They are each given a case book that has characters in the case and are to study and read all of it. Some people are assigned certain characters in the case, called witnesses, and some are their attorneys who are trying to prove they’re in the right.
The attorneys also cross-examine one person each from the other side and are trying to prove them wrong.
The last two people are alternates; if someone isn’t there, they fill in and they also keep time.
There are two sides, defense and plaintiff. The defense in defending the person being accused of something and the plaintiff is trying to prove that they are wrong. On each side there is an expert witness. The two expert witnesses are there to talk about the case and give their opinion about the case.
They are also trying to prove that they are an expert in what they do. The cross examining for the expert witnesses is different though. The cross examiners are trying to prove that the person on the other side isn’t an expert and that their client is an expert.
There are two types of cases, criminal and civil. This year, students are doing a civil case. It is about a person by the name of Dakota Reese who has been accused of stealing ladder shoes from their neighbor. Since she stole the ladder shoes, it caused someone to get hurt.
