On Feb. 3, Green Hope’s Mock Trial team competed in the North Carolina High School Mock Trial Regional Competition. The team competed at the Wake County Courthouse in Raleigh. The team placed second out of the twelve other teams there.
A mock trial is a competition where teams get a legal case. 2024’s competition case was State of Utopia v. Fran Lewis.
Radhika Chaudhary (’25) summarized the case, “The State of Utopia represents Pat Winter, who is accusing Fran Lewis of a premeditated murder. Fran Lewis leads an environmental alliance called the Wetland Alliance. This case goes against the company of Pat Winter, the pinnacle paper company, Fran and Winter who used to be close. Winter dated Fran’s sibling and cheated on Fran’s sibling. There is no evidence that Fran did the murder but there’s also no evidence saying Lewis didn’t commit this crime. Fran says that he was camping 20 miles away, when the murder occurred, but other than the people who knew he went camping, his mom. Winter claims that all of this leads to Lewis.
Students must practice prior to the competition to ensure success, Anyssa McGowen-Dove (‘24) elaborated on the studying where she said, “I would repeatedly read the affidavit to make sure I memorized all aspects of the case that my person was aware of. Then once a week I would meet up with the team to then go over how I responded.”
At the competition, they must argue their case in front of a judge and a jury. “Mock trial is acting and recreating a possible court trial that could happen in real life. On Saturday we went to the regional mock trial competition and performed in 3 rounds,” said Aleena Rosenzweig (’25).
Various team members went home with awards. Star awards are awards presented by the opposing team while judge awards are awarded by the judge. Diya Ramakrishnan (’26), won two awards, a judge award for best attorney and a star award for best attorney, Ipsi Vasipalli (’25) also won two awards she won a star award for best attorney and a star award for best witness, Dikshita Bhowmik also won a star award for best attorney, Chaudhary (’25) won a judge’s award for best witness and McGowen-Dove (’24) won both a judge award for best witness and a star award for best witness.
Even though the team was unable to make it to states, they were still highly pleased with their performance. The club had help from teacher advisors Mr. Ronald Richardson and Mrs. Kathleen Holland.
Regionals mark the end of the season for the mock trial team. Although the competition is over for the year, Green Hope’s team is looking forward to the competition next year as they aim to make it to states.
