Trial by students: Arroyo Grande mock trial team heads to state

The kids practicing in the Arroyo Grande High School classroom may look like regular students, but as you walk into the classroom set up like an impromptu courtroom, they don’t sound like them.

“No further questioning your honor,” said senior Griffin Berlin, 17, after a particularly strenuous round of questioning a “handwriting expert,” grilling her on her examination of a note that may or may not prove that the defendant had intentionally (though fictitiously) murdered a campus security guard.

Soon after uttering the words, the group morphs back into high schoolers, their stern expressions giving way to grins and an argument about the “grossness” of sourdough bread.

The group of students is Arroyo Grande High School’s winning mock trial team. On Wednesday, the team was holding one of its last practices before heading to the state mock trial competition in Sacramento on Friday, after winning the San Luis Obispo County competition for the third year in a row in February.

“Let me put it this way: I wouldn’t be surprised if we won,” said attorney coach Stephen Dorsi while he watched the group run through its witness list and discuss the questions they planned to ask during cross-examination. “They may not think it, but I think they have as good a shot as any at winning.”

Dorsi has been the attorney coach at Arroyo Grande High School since 1999. His first winning team was in 2005, when the South County school beat reigning champs Templeton High School after years of coming in second place, he said.

The school is currently on a three-year winning streak at the county level, counting this latest competition, though it has never advanced beyond the state level. (A San Luis Obispo County school has never gone to the national competition in California mock trial’s 35-year history.)

For their part, the students on this year’s team don’t seem to be too nervous about Friday’s competition. After all, they’ve been practicing for this for close to six months.

“We’re a solid team,” said junior Khanh Fleshman, 17, one of the two defense attorneys on the team. “Like top 10, definitely.”

Mock trial competitions are part academic study, part theatrical production.

The students spend months poring over the details of a fictional case — in this instance, People vs. Hayes, in which a college track athlete is facing charges for killing a campus security guard, after allegedly hitting the guard with a baseball bat to stop the guard from choking a teammate. The students must learn all the legal precedents and all the facts of the case, audition for roles as attorneys or get in character as expert witnesses.

At the competitions, teams could be called on to act as either the prosecution or the defense, and need to be prepared to do either equally well. Once facing other teams, the students have to be able to think on their feet and respond to questioning or legal maneuvers from the other team in a way that their characters would, while still only drawing from information that was provided to them in their preparation packets and not making up new evidence on the fly.

“Objections are definitely the hardest,” said sophomore Amina Assal, 15, one of the two prosecuting attorneys. “Responding to objections to your witnesses that maybe you haven’t seen before is challenging.”

Dorsi said every trial, even between teams that have met each other before and competed, is its own beast.

“We could do the same case three times, against the same team, and you would have completely different outcomes each time,” he said. “Once the evidence gets rolling and the questioning, they take on their own life.”

The team will compete in their first matchup Friday, and then depending on their scores, will head on to further rounds Saturday. Ultimately, the two teams with the highest scores will go head-to-head in a battle of legal wits and improvisational skills at 9 a.m. Sunday.

This story was originally published March 17, 2016 at 1:28 PM with the headline "Trial by students: Arroyo Grande mock trial team heads to state."