Mock Trial Provincial Champions
Mock Trial Provincial Champions
In Assumptions 11-year life span, it’s pretty incredible that we’ve been able to create so many ongoing traditions within our school community. Every year, our sports teams and extra-circular clubs are successful in a large range of activities. This year 2002-2003 year, Assumption’s Mock Trial team was one of the clubs that was again victorious, at every level from the city finals to the provincial championship.
The story, however, to our successes is much more interesting and much more challenging then a list of repeated victories for the ACS team. We received the case before Christmas break. The package in itself; inconclusive evidence against a bank robber with no alibi, was quite challenging to understand. Mrs. Spriet and Mr. Armstrong tried to explain the pertaining law to us and several lunchtime meetings to prepare us all for the inter-school competition at the Brantford Court House.
For most of us, it was the first time we’d ever been in a courtroom, especially to sit in front of a real judge or justice of the peace. Here, our five teams had the opportunity to argue or cases and act as real lawyers and witnesses in a realistic setting. It was a trial and error process, but by the end of the day we had learned a lot about working from behind the bench. Most importantly was the feedback we received from the professionals who had been part of the system for years.
Based on our performances at the inter-school competition, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Armstrong, and Mrs. Spriet selected a team of six. The original members were Navona Calarco, Jessica Grey, Nicole Burroughs, and Romi Abraham as lawyers and Michelle Parker and Dave Leibrock as our witnesses. We were also lucky enough to have Steph Hermans as our staff advisor, who was a witness on the Mock Trial team previously, so could bring a great deal of knowledge and experience to our team.
After the team was selected, the members realized what a responsibility being a ‘lawyer’ really must be. We had numerous meetings after school, which left little time for much else. Romi, who had several other after school commitments, was forced to hand over his position to Steph. In turn, Elizabeth Dugas, who was also a member of ACS’s team last year, took Steph’s place as student advisor.
With these minor adjustments, the real preparation for the semi-provincial mock-off’s began. We spent hours memorizing and analyzing, and maybe even sometimes doubting the work we’d done on our cases. We had the advantage of seeking advice from Mr. Anjevine, who is a lawyer in Brantford. Mr. Anjevine was able to give us deeper insight to what our team had to do to pull everything together and but forth the best presentation. The night before the sectional Mock-off’s, our whole team, including the staff and Mr. Angevine, practiced together until midnight to pull everything together.
The big day, (Valentine’s day), came early the next morning. The trials were again held at the Brantford House’s as well as City Hall. Here, we faced eight of the sixteen teams from our division of central Ontario. The experience was overwhelming, but thankfully our team received favor in the morning trials. Unfortunately, so had our main rivals Holy Trinity. The battle against Brad Mordon, Dave Taylor…was long, but ACS was again victorious. Our spawn should have known better than to attempt to challenge their superior.
The win over Trinity gave us the confidence we needed going to the next level of competition. We now had to face the winner from the other half of Central Ontario. This time, the trial was held in a courtroom in downtown Toronto. The team we played was from Middlefield, Ontario, near Scarbourough. This trial was definitely the most realistic. Despite a few hiccups, such as Dave pointing to the wrong person as the accused and Navona addressing her witness by the wrong name, we but forth an excellent performance as the Crown. The judge again gave us the upper hand and ruled in our favor.
ACS’s team knew that this was when the real competition started. Now, we were going to face the winners from the other five divisions of Ontario. In the next three or so weeks that we had before going back to Toronto, we spent as much time preparing mentally as well as academically
Finally, the big event was upon us. Our whole group traveled to Toronto a day early to make ourselves comfortable in the Carlton Hotel, where many of the other teams in the competition were staying as well. Besides checking out some of Toronto’s best malls and restaurants, we spent the night rehearsing our opening, closings, directs, and crosses. We tried to anticipate every spin that our opponents could potentially throw at us. After a midnight pizza and re-runs of Law and Order, out team decided that we were as prepared as we were ever going to be.
The hotel wakeup call came bright and early the next morning. It was hard to believe that this was the day we’d been preparing for since December. It seemed unfair that after all of our hard work, we could lose the whole competition just because of one slip-up during a trial. So, vowing that we’d go all the way, we passed through the metal detectors of the courthouse and got ready to take down all in our way.
Our attitude seemed not only to set off the detector, but reflect in out performances. We tried our morning trials almost flawlessly. We became "legal beagles" according to one judge. We’d have preferred to be called "legal lions", but we knew he was just trying to be nice. After many more such compliments, it came down to the final. The last trial. Who won here was named the ultimate champ for the rest of the year, and would bring the Mock Trial Cup home with them. All of us had our eyes fixed on bringing home the gold to ACS for the fifth year running.
I think the actual final was a blur for most of us. We flipped a coin, which decided that we were the Crown. Though we’d fought the case as the Crown more times than not, this time seemed different. Worst of all, when it was over, the judges didn’t rule immediately. The recessed for what seemed like hours…well, actually, it was. We had to wait until a banquet at eight o’clock at night for the judges to announce the winner. The wait seemed eternal. And just when we thought they were going to name the champions, someone went into another list of thank you’s for sponsors. The gourmet dinner with pear shaped potatoes and fancy desserts, seemed to go on forever. Finally, the stage shifted from contributors to the cup.
I don’t think I’ve even been in a situation where time seemed to stand still before. Everything I did wrong during the last trial flashed through my mind. I tried to counter it by thinking of everything the other team had screwed up on. Like when… all of a sudden my thoughts were interrupted by a lady speaking at the front. " High-school"…..so that was it, the other team had won……"second place", she continued. "and therefore first pace goes to Assumption College School of Brantford."
Everyone around us starting clapping and looking at us expectantly. Almost in a trance, we went to the front, shook hands, and claimed our trophy. After everything we had done, we finally made it here and won the final competition. We were the best (pretend) lawyers in the province. We knew it was an amazing accomplishment for our team as well as us each individually.
The next day, returning to ACS, we came a little bit more down to earth. One day, we were criminal persecutors, and the next we were sitting back in math and english. No matter how much more we do in our lives or how many more long classes we have to sit through, I’m sure none of us will ever forget the time when we truly shone behind the bench.
Special thanks to Mr. Campbell, Mr. Angevine, Mr. Armstong, and Mrs. Spriet for being behind us every step of the way.
