By Allison Li, Celine Wang and Mucteba Gokcek
Both teams won their preliminary matches with a prosecution win against St. Mary High School on February 8th and two weeks later, a defense victory over Mount St. Mary Academy. The teams’ phenomenal performances have placed East at the 5th seed out of 16 schools.
Note: Due to the closure of Williamsville schools, any dates mentioned are postponed
Looking for a club that will allow you to compete against other schools and have fun with your friends? Well, Mock Trial might be the club for you!
The point of Mock Trial is to compete against other schools about cases, usually criminal cases, that aren’t real, and to advance to the “playoffs”. Schools compete in the Buffalo City Courts downtown. In fact, very recently the Mock Trial team won against St. Marie’s at the Buffalo City Courts February 8th. This qualified them for the playoffs.
Williamsville East’s Mock Trial team has met great success in the past few weeks. The trials take place at the Buffalo courthouses, with real attorneys acting as judges presiding each trial. Attorneys also act as coaches and sources of advice on each team. This year, our teams compete with the case United States v. Phoenix Jones, in which the United States government accuses Phoenix Jones of conspiracy to receive and sell stolen goods over the dark web.Most recently, the prosecution won their trial on March 7th in a narrow 2-point difference, meaning Williamsville East is officially among the best eight of the region!
“There’s something special about this year, I can feel it,” co-President and Most Valuable Attorney Nina Raj remarks in an interview with ESN. “We’ve never had this kind of chemistry amongst the team. Previously, I’d be left alone with just one or two other members struggling to get everything together the day before a trial, but this year everyone stayed after school Friday night and we walked out of East together with the sun down but our hopes held high.”
The season started off rough, with the New York State Bar Association releasing several huge changes, heavily altering the case just two weeks before the first competition. However, with the help of Mr. Marcus (our attorney coach) and Mr. Powalowski (our club advisor) in addition to several hour-long practices, we pulled through. The team moves on to face back-to-back trials in the morning and afternoon on Saturday, March 21st. The team would like to respectfully say “GRRRRR!” to their upcoming opponents, Nardin Academy. If both defense and prosecution win, the team then gets to compete in the semi-finals to be held on Monday, March 23rd. We wish the best of luck to our lawyers and witnesses!
The Mock Trial team prepares by meeting one to two times a week. However, the officers meet more frequently to better prepare for the case. They read the case to find the theme of it, and find how to handle the case. Their team is divided into the prosecution, (who are responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against an individual accused of breaking the law), and the defense (who research the facts, investigate the case against their clients, and try to negotiate deals with the prosecutors). Nate Milk said, “The goal is to score as many points as possible and out score the other team.” Therefore, Mock Trial is a fantastic club if you have any interest in law. A member of the club who was one of the witnesses in the recent mock case said that Mock Trial was “stressful but rewarding.”
If you would like to join there are announcements for new members every October and November. Then there are tryouts. The thing about these tryouts is that they are very similar to getting onto a sports team. Mr. Powalowski, the club advisor, said, “Getting onto the Mock Trial team is like a sports team due to the competition. As opposed to physical traits, you need to have good traits about mannerism and speech to get on the team.”
