Instead of hiring a babysitter, Hayden Duran left her daughter at a friend’s house for the day while she was at work. The fact that there were no parents present did not worry Hayden… that is, until she got a call from the police telling her to come get her daughter immediately. When she arrived to pick her up, she learned that her daughter’s friend had been shot dead. She also learned that her daughter was the killer. The two girls had found a gun in the safe of the dead girl’s parents, and their games got way out of hand.
Was Hayden negligent for leaving her daughter alone?
Was Hayden negligent for leaving her daughter alone? How about the parents who left the gun in an unsecured safe? Did her daughter intend to shoot the other girl? These are all questions that the William and Mary Mock Trial Team tackled in court last year, Law & Order style.
Mock Trial is first and foremost a team. At the beginning of the year, we are given civil or criminal cases like the ones above, rigorously analyze the facts and evidence, and formulate arguments for both the defense and prosecution. We get to play the lawyers and the witnesses; we preform direct examinations, cross examinations, opening statements and closing arguments (almost) just like you’ve seen on TV. Several times a year, we take our case across the country to compete against other colleges who have been doing the same thing. To determine a winner, judges and jurors score us based on how our lawyers argued and our witnesses acted — and W&M Mock Trial tends to score very well. But it’s not all about winning for us.
We get to play the lawyers and the witnesses; we preform direct examinations, cross examinations, opening statements and closing arguments (almost) just like you’ve seen on TV.
Mock Trial blurs the lines of being a team, being a club, and being the best of friends. As a team, we drive each other to perform during competitions. As a club, we share a common interest in public speaking and persuasive argument. As the best of friends, you’ll find us hanging out on the weekends, grabbing dinner before practice, playing intramural sports, staging snowball fights on the Sunken Garden, and doing a million other fun things together outside of practice. The best part? We aren’t all pre-law. We don’t all do government, take criminology courses, or even watch courtroom dramas. Having so many different people working together explains why we are a successful national powerhouse, why meetings are so fun, and why we are such great friends.
To learn how to join the WMMT fam, visit our website at wmmmocktrial.org and follow us on Facebook.
Email Kat Mail at kjmail@email.wm.edu.