Countywide : Mock Trials Offer a Real Challenge

The halls of the 11-story county courthouse are normally quiet at 7 p.m., emptied of attorneys, judges and clients and inhabited only by janitors and a few people at night court.

But for the past few weeks, the sound of about 1,400 high school students has filled the otherwise dreary halls, as they anxiously awaited their turns to perform in the county’s mock-trial competition.

“This (the program) is the one thing we can all agree on,” said Alan Crivaro, one of about 250 attorneys and 40 judges who are volunteers, coaches and judges in the competition. “Those (students) who walk away from this are very, very knowledgeable. They learn that the courtroom is theirs, as taxpayers . . . (and) that there are real rights.”

On Tuesday and Thursday evenings since Nov. 20, two dozen courtrooms have been filled with high school teams--drama students, “L.A. Law” fans and future attorneys--competing for the county championship that would take them to the state competition and possibly the nationals.

On Tuesday night, Cypress High School won the final round against Santa Margarita High School, sending Cypress to Sacramento in April to compete for the state title, said Patricia Hitchcock, organizer of the county competition.

Cypress High’s team won the state championship in 1988, and came in second in the county competitions last year.

This year, more than 40 Orange County high school teams each practiced up to 20 hours a week, preparing the defense and the prosecution for a case created by the Constitutional Rights Foundation and used by all mock-trial competitions in California, Hitchcock said.

Each team had two opportunities to try both sides of the case, which every year includes at least one criminal issue and one constitutional-rights issue, she said. This year’s case involves a defendant who is charged on two counts: possession of an unregistered assault weapon and involuntary manslaughter.

“We practice until we get it right,” said April Balangue, a junior and prosecuting attorney for the Cypress team. “But even if we practiced six hours a day, it’d be worth it. It’s like anything else, it’s an accomplishment.”

Participants are given the case, the evidence, the witnesses’ statements and previous court decisions which may provide useful arguments for the case, but they are required to produce everything else.

At any point, one of the attorneys or witnesses may throw a curve ball--presenting evidence or testimony from a new perspective to better argue the case.

“You have to be on your feet,” said Karrie Bailey, a senior who plays a witness for the Los Amigos team. “It teaches you to speak on your feet.”

Most students agree that aside from the friendships they make, the most rewarding aspect of the program is getting a taste of real life.

“This is a lot better than any class I’ve taken,” said Alton Hitchcock Jr., a senior on the Los Amigos team who plans to study drama after high school. “Like they say, you learn more from life than anything else, and this is definitely living.”

Said Dawn Welson, a senior on the Mission Viejo team, “You don’t see just the glamour of ‘L.A. Law.’ Some of it’s boring, too.”