PLACENTIA : Mock Trial Champs Await State Finals

El Dorado High School senior Sunshine Arena has worked for four years to be on a winning team.

Her efforts were rewarded this week when her team became the Orange County champion of the Mock Trial competition.

“This year, we said, ‘We can do it,’ ” said Arena, 16, who wants to be an attorney. “It’s so exciting that a dream I’ve had for so long has come true.”

Students at the Placentia high school squared off with Fountain Valley High School students in the annual event Tuesday night at the County Courthouse in Santa Ana.

The Orange County Mock Trial is co-sponsored by the Constitutional Rights Foundation of Orange County and the Orange County Bar Assn.

Costa Mesa attorney Alan V. Thaler, a board member of the Constitutional Rights Foundation and attorney coach for the Fountain Valley High School team, said 114 trials were held since early November, which led up to the final round of the competition Tuesday night. This year’s program involved more than 1,800 students from 46 Orange County high schools.

Thaler said students presented the case, People vs. Bell, which involved First Amendment rights, religious intolerance and arson.

Student teams played roles of prosecution and defense attorneys, witnesses, clerks and bailiffs. Judges from Orange County Superior, Municipal and U.S. District courts, as well as attorneys, participated by lending time and expertise.

Thaler said the Orange County Mock Trial program is the largest in the state and second most comprehensive program in the country. Since the program started 12 years ago, more than 20,000 students from Orange County schools have participated.

The mock trial gives students a chance to improve their speaking skills and offers them insights into the mechanics of a criminal case.

“It makes you think. It challenges you, and you can argue without getting in trouble,” Arena said. “It’s good practice for me, since I want to be an attorney.”

Jim Disbennett, El Dorado’s teacher coach, said students also learn about team playing.

And this year, Disbennett said, the team effort showed.

“We have a lot of talented students, and their hard work paid off,” he said.

Thaler said he has coached Fountain Valley’s team for the past five years, and this year was the first time his team made it to the final round.

“My observation is that it was a classic contrast between the (Fountain Valley) prosecution’s traditional approach and a more showman, glitzy and dramatic presentation by the (El Dorado) defense,” Thaler said.

Now that El Dorado has taken the top honors locally, the team will compete in April in the State Mock Trial in Sacramento.