Cypress High’s Trying Times End Happily

A defendant’s damning admission that she had drunk enough to put her “in a good mood” before she got behind the wheel gave a team of Cypress High School apprentice attorneys a guilty verdict Tuesday, sending them to represent Orange County in the statewide mock trial championships in Sacramento in April.

The 10th Annual Orange County Mock Trial featured the fictitious case of a teen-age drunk driver who was prosecuted by Cypress High School students and defended by a team from Santa Margarita High School. Other students played the roles of witnesses and other court personnel.

The battle of facts and argument was refereed in a courtroom here by U.S. District Judge Gary L. Taylor, who declared the defendant guilty on all counts.

“If any of you decides to go to law school, your future is assured,” Taylor told the two teams. “There’s plenty of room for you in the profession.”

The contestants were scored by a three-member panel of Orange County Superior Court judges, headed by Presiding Judge Leonard Goldstein. The outcome of the contest does not depend on the verdict in the case.

Judge Nancy Wieben Stock saluted the six students who played the lawyers for both sides, noting that all of them are young women who “could replace many of the lawyers who appear in my courtroom.”

Both teams showed a commanding knowledge of courtroom protocol and the rules of evidence.

Using a curriculum designed by the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Orange County, the students argue and re-argue the same case for months, learning both the prosecution and defense arguments.

This year, the students had to argue a constitutional question involving whether a police officer violated 4th Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure when she stopped the fictitious drunk driver. Judge Taylor ruled the search illegal, and the results of a Breathalyzer test taken after the stop inadmissible as evidence.

The Cypress High team then had to prove that the defendant was drunk using circumstantial evidence and the witness’s own testimony. Cypress High has fielded the county champion team for three of the past four years, sending one team to the national championships.