Mock Trial

Hi,

  I know I haven’t written in a while but it’s not my fault. I just didn’t get time to write. Although many things have happened one of the most important thing is that just recently I have had a mock trial in my school.

 It was all just like a real trial. First we were told that the unit is going to be mock trial cases and we were given many options of the mock trials we could study. The one that got the most votes was the most interesting on (of course) but the teachers said that it is the most difficult and that we might get a bad grade if we chose that one because it is complicated and it has a lot of hard vocabulary. She also warned us again that the teachers were debating whether they should keep this case as an option or not.

The name of the case is ‘State of Oregonian vs. Willy Freeman’. We just stuck to it anyway and we started doing the timeline and reading through the witness statements and taking notes. I have to admit that it was very boring and I wasn’t paying a lot of attention in class. When we got to the stage when we were done taking notes and we were going to get to know what our role would be, our teacher asked our preferences so that we got the roles we wanted. Now this was very kind of her because she had told all the other teachers that they should not ask the students what they want to be and give them the role the teacher thinks is perfect. Our teacher always does things like this. I think is the best teacher I have got yet. She is also very casual and like our friend more than a teacher. I like her class more than any other after PE though.

There were many characters. They were-

Defence

•          Willy Freeman (defendant)
•          Joel Byrd (con-artist)
•          Pat Ives (criminologist expert, expert witness)
•          Opening and Closing statement
•          Direct examination attorney
•          Cross examination Chris Riggs (me!)
•          Cross examination Lou Contralto
•          Cross examination Leslie Moore

Prosecution

•          Chris Riggs (corrupt police officer of the Irving police department)
•          Lou Contralto (loan shark)
•          Leslie Moore (accountant, expert witness)
•          Opening and closing statement
•          Direct examination attorney
•          Cross examination Willy Freeman
•          Cross examining Joel Byrd
•          Cross examination Pat Ives

We then started working on our questions or statements.

Oh! Silly me. I haven’t even told you the details of the case. Well, what am I waiting for! Here is the case background:

The defendant, Willy Freeman has been charged with murder of her business partner, Devin Frost. Devin apparently had a gambling problem, and had been unlucky for some period of time. Thinking that her luck would change, Devin borrowed money frequently from a local loan shark, Lou Contralto. However Devin’s luck didn’t change and, under pressure for payment from Lou, Devin started stealing money from the business. However, with skyrocketing interest and continued gambling losses, Devin’s debt to the loan shark was over $200,000, even after she had bled the business dry. Contralto had already given Devin several violently physical “messages” that the debt was to be paid – “or else”. In the meantime, Willy had hired an accountant to find out why the business was in the red. When Willy learnt that Devin had been stealing from the business and had driven the business into bankruptcy, Willy allegedly became enraged and threatened to kill Devin. A few days later Devin was found dead and through a buy-sell agreement and insurance policy, Willy would become a half million richer.

We then had a trial which was more like an inter-class competition.

Who do you think murdered Devin? Leave your opinion as a comment.