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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, February 20, 2005

Mock trial lets students try hand in courtroom

By Will Hoover
Advertiser Staff Writer

In amazing courtroom drama yesterday at Honolulu's 1st Circuit Court, 22-year old Terry Chan went on trial for vehicular homicide — 10 times.

Gene Moore of Kaiser High and Kristina Ramilo of McKinley High participated in the Hawai'i High School Mock Trial Tournament.

Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

Chan was tried five times in the morning, and five more times in the afternoon. When the final gavel sounded, 10 presiding judges — including

Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona — had found in favor of the prosecution four times, and six for the defense.

The unusual action was part of the 18th annual Hawai'i High School Mock Trial Tournament in which junior barristers from around the state got the chance to practice courtroom procedure before the bench.

Punahou School edged out eight other O'ahu schools to win yesterday's regional competition and advance to the state championship on March 19. Punahou junior Joseph Lee, 17, attributed victory to the closeness of the team and expert advice from a number of lawyers and others in the legal field.

"We definitely couldn't have done it by ourselves," Lee said. "The real strength of our team was bringing a lot of different people together with different attributes."

Although all teams were required to stick to the "stipulated facts" of the case, the action inside the five courtrooms varied greatly, depending on the styles of the real judges and lawyers who volunteered to preside, and the personalities and strategies of the various student lawyers and witnesses.

In some instances, the defendant appeared to be guilty of causing the death of the deceased, Cam Souza, during a disastrous late-night car race. In others, the defendant seemed guilty of little more than bad judgment while Souza came off looking as if he was responsible for his own death.

Even the gender of the fictitious Terry Chan changed from courtroom to courtroom.

"This is the third time I was Terry," said the normally jocular Kenneth Yeung, 16, who was on the McKinley High School team and got Aiona's nod as "best witness" in Court Room 5. "I was finally able to get into character."

Undefeated going into the last round of the day, Punahou suffered its only loss to the Gold Team from Hawaii Baptist Academy — the only one of the nine competing O'ahu schools that accepted the option of having more than one team. The school's other team was the Black Team.

Sacred Hearts Academy came in second to Punahou.

Like the other presiding judges, Aiona had nothing but praise for all the participating students.

"I just want to say you all did an excellent job," he said. "Give yourself a hand."

Acting in accordance to the judge's instructions, the students proceeded to applaud.