Kathrine Alderman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The Jefferson County Homeschool Association, Inc. (JCHAI) recently had their mock trial classes come to fruition in a competition against another homeschool mock trial group from Leon County. The competition was held on Friday, March 12, and took place in the Court House Annex here in Jefferson County—which JCHAI thanks Kirk Reams and the County Commission for allowing them to use to hold the mock trials. They also extended thanks to Floyd Faglie for serving as their judge. Along with Faglie graciously accepting the role of judge, they also had six volunteer jurors for the trial, Debbie Pittman Melissa Philley, KC Smith, Merry Ann Frisby, Donna Dowler Parmer and Grant Payne.
The JCHAI group had 14 students participating, filling various roles in the case, such as prosecuting and defense attorneys, etc., and the Leon County group had 12 students on their team, filling similar roles. The coaches for the Jefferson County team were Michelle Dollar and Monica Freeland and the coach for the Leon team was Betty Johnson.
Both sides presented the case, JCHAI defending and Leon County prosecuting and then switching to Leon County defending and JCHAI prosecuting. The case was a fictitious case of the the State of Texas v. Taylor Glow, which, though a fake case, was based on the real arson case of the Texas Governor's mansion being burned down.
This was the first time JCHAI has ever had a mock trial group, so their first time competing, and, though the Leon County mock trial team has had teams in the past, this was this particular teams first time doing a mock trial competition as well. Both prosecuting teams failed to convict Taylor Glow, meaning both the JCHAI and Leon County defense “won” their case. However, when the final points were tallied, the overall winner was the Leon County team.
JCHAI isn't discouraged though, both the adults and the kids on the team learned a lot by going through the process of the mock trial—not only about the judicial process, but about how mock trials themselves work. So, they hope to do this again in the future. Sadly, homeschool groups can't compete against established schools, so this competition versus Leon County won't let either team go on to compete against someone else, it was more for them to learn and have a fun time doing it. Both sides competed well, and JCHAI hopes to face Leon County again in the future, and hopefully grow their mock trial skills enough to beat Leon County next time.
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