The County Finals

Thursday, the twenty-ninth of January was the night of a historic moment for Oratory. Thursday was the ninth county final win for the Mock Trial team. In an intense competition of brains and charisma, the Oratory Mock Trial team went up against Kent Place. The attorneys and witnesses for both sides had practiced and memorized all that was needed to know for this case. But, in the end, our team came out victorious.

As we entered the bus that would take us to Elizabeth, where the Union County Mock Trial competition took place, I felt a surge of excitement come over me. Our team had practiced for months, memorized their lines and knew this case by heart. This case involves negligence on the part of a chaperone during a field trip. One of the chaperone’s students snuck out, fell off a wall and into a coma. On Thursday’s trial our defense team was going up to play the part of defending the school and chaperone in question in the trial. Connor Briggs is an attorney and the captain of the defense, along with the equally talented Justin Rodriguez as the second attorney. Then we had the witnesses, Charlie Arnedt as Dalton Fisher, the chaperone on trial. Next we had David Kendall as Kasey Damond, the manager of the hotel the students and chaperone were staying at. And last but not least, there was Christian Gonzalez as Jamison Manning, the Superintendent of the school district that sent the chaperone and students on the field trip. All of these team members have spent countless hours going over the materials of the case and studying this case inside and out.

We arrived at Elizabeth and quickly made our way inside the Union County Courthouse. We came up to our room along with the Mock Trial team from Kent Place. As a member of the Mock Trial Prep Team, I and my fellow Prep Team members provided moral support for the confident defense team. The judges that we had for this case were both experts at the field of law. Finally, the trial began.

Connor gave his opening statement like a bat out of hell and was into the groove. The plaintiff called their witness to do their direct examinations, however Connor and Justin tore those witnesses apart in the cross examinations. Now it was time for our witnesses to shine. Charlie, Kendall, and Christian gave confident answers to all of the questions given to them by the opposing counsel and would not budge an inch. Finally, it was time for the closing statement, where Justin gave an amazing closing that put the final topping on our great case. The defense team gave their all and it showed. However, the jury ruled in favor of the plaintiff, but that did not determine who won the county finals. After deliberations, the judges announced that we had won. Even though we could not scream with joy; all of us were doing it on the inside. I spoke to the attorneys, Connor and Justin, to get their views on how the team performed. Connor said “All of our hard work and dedication paid off. Across the board we all had great performances. Justin responded with “I think we did stupendously. We had an adept performances from Charlie, Kendall, Christian, as well as the attorneys Connor and myself.”

Now with counties out of the way, the Mock Trial team moves on to regionals. We will be going up against some very stiff competition. But, that does not matter because our team is not phased by the competition. We work hard and win cases!