Each academic year, under the auspices of the American Mock Trial Association (AMTA), colleges and universities throughout the nation compete against each other for regional and national championships. The regional competitions culminate in three ranked national competitions designated as gold, silver and bronze.
This year, Hamilton College's Mock Trial Team attended and competed in the Regional Championship at St. John's University. One of the team's two squads finished three points away from second place and an on-the-spot invitation to go on to the National Championships. Nevertheless, the team was quite happy with its performance—for the past few years, the team has made significant progress, relishing the mock trial competitions and coming closer to winning a championship.
Call it luck—call it fate: on Tuesday March 8, the Hamilton College Mock Trial Team Captain Alex Kaufman was informed by AMTA officials that, due to a withdrawal, a slot had opened in the National Championships, and Hamilton's team was next in line to compete.
On Wednesday morning, the official invitation was offered to compete in the Silver Championship (the second rank of the three divisions) at St. Petersburg, Florida. The Championship will be hosted March 11-13 by Stetson University's College of Law.
Members of the team who will compete in Florida are attorneys Michael Blasie '07, Scott Iseman '07 and Alex Kaufman '06 and witnesses Benjamin Johnston '07, Stacy Sadove '07, and Tanya Shpiniova '08. Other members of the team include: attorneys, Joshua Agins '07, Billy Oppenheim '06, Patrick Randolph '08; witnesses, Dillon Prime '07, Douglas Chiciak '06, Deanne Katz '08, Annie Hardiman '07 and Sarah Boole '07.
Given the short notice, Hamilton's team will not have a chance to meet to strategize and develop its arguments until only a few hours before the tournament! But that's not all—in addition to the short notice, the set case for the national competitions is significantly different from the set case the ATMA competitors have argued this academic year. For the final competitions, three new witnesses have been added to the roster, one new piece of evidence has been added, and one old piece of evidence has been retracted. In addition, the majority of witness affidavits have also been changed. The changes present new challenges for rapidly developing new witness strategies, calling new witnesses, preparing direct and cross examinations of new witnesses, and also altering opening statements. In short, the team will have only a few hours to prepare itself to argue either side of a significantly altered case.
Even though this presents a daunting challenge, the team is eager to compete—win or lose. It's the experience that matters, and the invitation to the Silver Competition marks a major milestone along the way to achieving the team's highest ambitions. The team has shown "grace under pressure" in the past, as it has competed against and beaten among others Fordham, Boston College, Syracuse University, and Yale. The team knows that getting into the National Competition rode to a certain extent on luck—but they also know that they were next in line to compete because they've worked hard, thought creatively, and argued effectively.
So, even if they don't win the Silver Championship, the members of the team are proud of their past achievements and their collective commitment to a deeply academic extracurricular enterprise—where well-researched and well-crafted rhetoric orally poses opposed positions—as the mock trial teams accuse and defend and do their level best to induce well-founded judgments of guilt or innocence in accord with their desire to see justice done, and to learn to play a central role in its doing.
So, undaunted, determined, and excited, the Hamilton College Mock Trial Team will travel to St. Petersburg, Florida to compete in AMTA Silver Championship at Stetson University's College of Law.
Stay tuned for the sequel!
-- by John Adams, Visiting Professor of Communication and Michael Blasie '07
