Students Michelle Wander, Rianna Johnson-Levy, Sara Burakoff and Eli Sugerman talk about Mock Trial.
Scattered around the tables on the second floor ledge of Community High School was a mix of items being auctioned off: gift baskets of chocolate, earings, art, prom dresses, gift cards, a quilt and many more interesting items. These items were being auctioned off in order to raise money for Community’s Mock Trial team’s upcoming trip to Nationals. “I won a beautiful Monet and I’m pretty sure it’s the real one!” Shadi Ahmadmehrabi said jokingly. On Saturday April 17 Community’s Mock Trial team held this gala, “Objective….. Sustained”, in order to help lessen the travel fees to Philadelphia, the site of the National Tournament.
Only the eight members Community’s A team will be able to participate in Nationals. Nonetheless, many members of Community’s B team will still travel to Philly to support the eight participating. Between winning states and participating in Nationals, Community’s Mock Trial team must prepare an entire case. That means memorizing and analyzing between 60 and 80 pages of information. Then they must also formulate both a defense and a prosecution.
Compared to the state competition, Community’s Mock Trial team will have only one-quarter of the time to prepare for the National case which is a more dense and complex case. Their new case parallels the pre-revolutionary war era and borrows themes from the Chicago Seven. “There’s even a tyrannical Umbridge-like principal.” said Michelle Grifka. The Mock trial team has a huge amount of work in front of it but they have already begun to start memorizing the information and already have some directs and crosses written. The national competition will take place May 8th.
- Members of Commumity’s Mock Trial team
