Mock Trial Reflection
Last week the 7th and 8th grade had mock trials. We also did mock trials last year but they were very scripted. This year we were paired up with a partner on either the prosecution or the defense, each person had to write either the opening or closing statement and examine two witnesses. I was paired with Sherif, and I wrote the opening statement. It was fun because we got to write the whole thing ourselves.
Last year we re-enacted the Scopes-Monkey Trial. And this year John wrote a crime for us and put in different evidence and facts. The story was this: Monica Hewitt was being accused of cutting the cords on Jennifer White’s parachute before they went skydiving. Monica was jealous of Jennifer because Jennifer was dating Monica’s ex-boyfriend who she still loved. But it was a tough case for the Prosecution. There were lots holes that could have easily broken our case. Almost all of the evidence was unsure, fingerprints were smudged, witnesses were not wearing their glasses, and a few other things like that.
The week of the trials we had two seminar sessions with either John Fraher, if you were prosecution, or Kasra Sadr for defense. I was on the prosecution. During the seminars we learned about giving opening and closing statements and how to question a witness. The other half of the class was in the next room with Kasra Sadr learning how to be defense attorneys.
At first it was hard I had no idea what to do. On the day of the second seminar we were supposed to bring in our opening statement and our questions. I was nervous, I didn’t know what to expect. I was standing there first in line and I handed John my opening statement. He looked at it for one-second and said, “This is too short” and sent me back to my seat. I felt extremely underprepared. He looked at two more opening
statements and told everybody to sit down. Then I started to feel a little bit better because nobody was sufficiently prepared.
After the second seminar I was nervous that I would not be able to write a good opening. But then on Thursday night I just started writing and came up with a pretty good opening. But during the trial I was worried that my partner, Sherif, had not tried very hard on his portion of the case. But he ended up doing a pretty good job. I was glad that Sherif came through because I know that some people didn’t prepare very much at all and, had very weak arguments.
I felt like Sherif and I did a great job, but I was still nervous that we were not going to win because our jury had just listened to the same case just before and they all voted not guilty. But to my surprise when the judge read the verdict form and said, “Guilty”.
I liked doing the mock trial again. It was definitely better this time than last because we all got to write our own case and everybody’s was a little bit different. I have also always been interested in law and criminal trials, so this was defiantly a good experience for me.
