Recently, on May 6th, Lenape’s Mock Trial team attended the Burlington County Bar Associations’ Law Day Dinner, where they were commemorated with certificates as well as a delicious meal for their performance in the Vincent J. Apruzzese High School Mock Trial Competition. The team advanced to the second round of regionals and were also became county champions for the third year in a row, which is the furthest that the team has made it in its history. 

This year’s case was a criminal case that featured the defendant Devon Ransom, a gamer that attends the fictitious Metropolitan University. At Metropolitan, Devon used to be a part of the Video Game Club with their friends Georgie, Riley, and Schuyler. Their favorite game to play was Blaze of Honor, a game where you and your friends can play as police officers and plan out and conduct SWAT operations. Unfortunately, the friend group broke apart after a big argument occurred between Devon and Schuyler because they had different plans as to how to go about one of the operations in the game. Devon and Schuyler began arguing with each other on social media because of this. This all culminates with a swatting incident occurring at the Metro Perk coffee shop. The overarching case question of the case was: was Devon the one that made the call?

The Mock Trial team was split up into two groups, the prosecution and defense, and each was responsible for evaluating and synthesizing a variety of evidence like witness statements and subpoenaed information in order to create a convincing argument for their side. Each group also had to consider how their points and witnesses could be discredited by the opposing counsel. For instance, I was an expert witness that was investigated for potentially playing a role in an admissions scandal at the university that I worked at. This process took months of hard work and preparation from tryouts in September to our first match-up in late January.

I joined the team this year and was surprised about how much I learned even though I am not interested in a legal career. I became more confident in my public speaking abilities, was able to hone my critical thinking skills, and was able to understand more about how I best collaborate with others in achieving goals. If you find any of these benefits enticing, the team will be having tryouts for both returning and new members in the fall and I definitely recommend attending: even if you are not selected for a starting role there are ways for you to contribute and be a valued member of the team!