Another successful season has ended for the Trinity College Mock Trial Team, with a heavily competitive invitational season and an even more competitive season. Trinity was knocked out of the running to compete at this year’s American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) Nationals in the semi-finals, losing to some of the best teams in the nation at Lafayette College in March. The program is still as strong as ever, with a large number of class of 2016 members taking the reigns in scoring for the B Team. This year’s case was a civil case involving the death of plaintiff Mr. Lee Allen while he was on a diving expedition with the defendant, Neptune Underwater Expeditions. All season long, our team like hundreds of other teams has argued case theory, witness calls, and the rules of evidence about whether or not Lee’s surviving spouse Andy Allen can hold Neptune Underwater liable for her husband’s tragic and untimely death. If you sat through a trial, you’d find that there is quite a push and pull on both sides of the case – on one side you see that Lee Allen lied about his experience and health to Neptune, and on the other side you see that Neptune violated multiple industry safety standards.
Top row, from left to right: Vince Novelli, Drew McCarthy, Pat McCarthy, Ethan Cantor, Jack Nettleton, Jeff Pruyne, Sam Hines, James Geisler. Front row, from left to right: Tom Crowley, Youlan Xiu, Katherine Rorer, Ursula Petersen, Andres Delgadillo, Jhon Pacheco, Tanya Kewalramani, Julia Mardeusz, Katherine Feehan, Ali Caless. (Not Pictured: Meredith Munro, Brooke Moschetto, Nicole Lukac, Saint Oo)
The photograph above is from January, when members of the Mock Trial team returned to campus a week early from winter break to study and practice for the last invitational before competition at Fordham University, Rose Hill. The little gold cup that Vince Novelli (2013) is holding was rewarded to our A Team for placing third among all the teams at the invitational. The team improved steadily as the season continued, with a learning start at the annual University of New Hampshire invitational and gradually gaining more ground at the following invitationals at UMass Amherst, Boston College, and Tufts University. All the time and effort our teams put in during the invitational season showed at the first level of competition with our regionals round at St. Anselm College. Our A team placed fourth out of the regional round, finishing above Dartmouth College among others. Our B team was the highest ranked B team at St. A’s, and missed the cut off margin by half a point. All in all, it seems like we have a great squad ready for next year’s competition season.