Mira Mesa Students Bound for Sacramento to Try Out Legal Mettle in Mock Trial

A group of students from Mira Mesa High School will have their day in court this week.

As winners of the countywide mock trial competition among 13 San Diego County high schools, the Mira Mesa team will argue in Sacramento constitutional issues of privacy, and search and seizure for the state championship.

Since September, they have been immersed in both legal issues and courtroom decorum, capitalizing on a unique opportunity at the high-school level to learn about the law and how to craft logical rhetoric.

They have passed the scrutiny of almost 30 “judges”--attorneys volunteering their time to judge head-to-head contests--in competition over the past several months with other county schools. For the next several days, the students will play their roles as prosecutors, defense attorneys, and witnesses against winners from other counties under the sponsorship of the Constitutional Rights Foundation and the State Department of Education.

Prosecutors for Mira Mesa will go against defense lawyers for another school while at the same time Mira Mesa defense attorneys will try and hold their own against prosecutors from a competing class.

The students volunteered for the grueling months of preparation as part of Mira Mesa’s speech and debate class.

Case Involves Stolen Goods

The mock case involves two police officers who, while investigating stolen videocassette recorders, believe they see VCR boxes in a car parked on a neighborhood street. The officers, who are undercover, enter the house of the car owner and arrest her on charges of receiving stolen property. One of the officers also scuffles with the defendant.

Among the issues the students must consider: the concept of reasonable suspicion, a personal right to privacy in the home, and limits to the exclusionary rule regarding illegally seized evidence. The team is judged on how well it argues its side, as there is no right or wrong decision to the case itself.

“It (mock trial preparation) helps you think on your feet,” said Jason Massey, who with Vicky Nguyen play defense attorneys. “I think we’ve learned that if you go into (something) well-prepared and have a curve thrown at you, you can adjust.”

Added partner Nguyen: “We don’t use as much paper (refer to notes) as other teams do . . . I think that they use it too much.”

Tara Narayanan, a “prosecutor,” said that “if you know the fact pattern well enough, you won’t be as nervous in front of the judges.”

Teacher Harriet Marriner said preparation requires a tremendous amount of time from her charges but that it pays dividends not only in her class but also in other subject areas.

“The (mock case) is contained in a 50-page booklet and the students have to understand all of the legal ramifications and also the rules of conduct,” Marriner said. “It’s an incredible amount of work.”

The class sat in on several trials at Superior Court.

“I think one of the things that helped the most was to see how lawyers structure their legal arguments,” Massey said. “Most of us had never been in court before and we saw that every case has a different legal structure.”

Jeff Contreras testifies during mock trial as one of the police officers. “I studied all of the penal codes and convinced myself that the police in this case were justified in believing that what they did was right,” Contreras said.

The other “officer,” Ed Gawaran, said that he read the case synopsis enough times “to be able to picture myself as a police officer and to actually believe I am a witness on the stand.”

Use Common Sense

The students are quite convincing, according to San Diego lawyer Craig McMahon, who volunteered to coach the team in forensics and basic legal issues.

“There’s no way for them to understand all the intricacies of the legal system but they do very, very well by using common-sense application of major points,” McMahon said. “I’ve stressed that they should think about common-sense arguments on each issue, to ask, ‘Is it reasonable for a witness to act or do this?’, to essentially craft a line of questions so that their side tells a story that holds up under scrutiny and so that the story of the other side does not (hold up).”

McMahon said that the Mira Mesa students have mastered the facts so well “that they can remember which witness said which fact and can refer back in making objections or pointing to weak logic of the other side.”

The intense preparation by the students is no different from that done by real lawyers, McMahon said. “You can never be too prepared, to know that something unexpected is always going to come up.”

A second coach, attorney Janelle Davis with the state Attorney General’s office in San Diego, told the students that courtroom demeanor counts for a lot: “They should act like professionals, with good posture, with a voice that projects, and with respect for the system.

“And even though the (case is a fiction), I tell them to know what is in each witness statement so that they can frame their questions to elicit the statements they want to bring out, and emphasize the shortcomings of those things they want to disprove.”

Massey and Narayanan, both juniors, already are interested in becoming lawyers, and they will work as volunteer legal assistants in an attorney’s office this summer. But all the students have developed a better appreciation for the beauty of the legal system as well as for its shortcomings.

“I realize now that the system is mortal, that it has flaws,” said Tyler Owen, a second student prosecutor. “Before, I’d assume that someone is guilty because he or she is on trial. Now, I apply a little more critical thinking.”

Narayanan said that she has learned how witnesses can be guided to say or not to say something.

“So at a real trial now, I wonder what is not said and what (lawyers) managed to hide, and what are the actual facts,” she said. “Sometimes it’s kind of scary.”