2014 Ohio High School Mock Trial State Championship

welcome to the 2014 Ohio High School Mock Trial state championship good morning I'm Stephanie bucher with the Ohio Supreme Court's office of public information we are live from the Senate hearing room at the Ohio State House in Columbus what you will see today is a polished performance by these students who will be arguing a fictional court case live in a real courtroom setting before a panel of judges what adds to the drama is that all season each team has been preparing for both sides of the case and they only found out a moment ago whether they will be arguing for the plaintiff or the defense since last fall teams of high school students have been preparing and competing against one h of one another and the top two teams have advanced here today for the championship round those teams are orange high school the Lions from pepper pike and Sylvania Southview the Cougars from Sylvania this is oranges second year in a row in the finals so we wish them the best of luck and Sylvania has won five titles the most of any team so the winning team today will be representing Ohio in the national championship that will be coming up in Madison Wisconsin our sponsoring organization for today's Ohio mock trial competition is the Ohio Center for law related education or ocl re they've been educating students about their constitutional rights and responsibilities through this program since 1983 the Supreme Court of Ohio along with the Ohio State Bar Association the Ohio Attorney General's Office the ACLU of Ohio Foundation roc LRE sponsors and after growing steadily over the past 31 years ocl Ari's Ohio mock trial program is now the largest non-athletic Competition in the state with more than 3,000 students participating and more than a thousand legal professionals who've been volunteering as their legal advisors case committee members and judges joining us now from ocl re is the high school Mock Trial program coordinator Todd birch and Todd thanks so much for being here today when we talk about the largest non-athletic competition in the state of Ohio how many students how many schools have been participating through the competition this year Thank You Stephanie I'm happy to be here this year we had approximately 180 schools with more than 330 teams for well over 3,000 students participating in this year's competition and when did they actually start preparing for this each year the case is released at the Ohio Center for Long related education law and citizenship conference in late September students have had the opportunity to work on the case since that time okay and what have they been doing to prepare for today the type of preparation might vary by the particular school students will often set up scrimmages with other local mock-trial teams work in real courtrooms preparing their parts and of course work with their legal advisors and their academic advisors to build the skills that are important to be successful in the mock trial program so you mentioned the the adult support that they're getting from their advisors and you also mention some actual attorneys have been helping them as well absolutely each team in the competition is supported by one legal advisor and one academic advisor in addition to that the program is fortunate to have the support of more than 1,000 legal professionals who volunteer their time as judges committee members competition coordinators and team advisors how much time does it take for the students and for their their adult support staff if you will to get ready for this obviously again the amount of time can vary from team to team but as you may imagine to get here today it is a significant time commitment the typical team will meet in practice several times a week either in class for those schools that feature Mock Trial is a classroom component or after classes an extracurricular activity what is the main goal of providing this type of programming this mock trial program for Ohio students as with all of our programs that was Hillary the main goal of this program is education we want to educate the students regarding the legal system the Constitution and their rights we also want to help them build skills that will be successful not just in a legal career but in other careers including public speaking self-confidence and critical thinking so you talk about learning some of those skills that they need to kind of be prepared for making their argument and some of those you already mentioned what are some of the other things that you're hoping that the students learn through this whole process as I mentioned I hope that they'll have a better understanding of the Constitution a better understanding of their rights for instance this particular case is based in a school setting and involves the rights of students and a better interesting of how the legal system functions and how they're able to protect and argue for their own rights within that system and then what should we be looking for today for this this particular case you'll see the students argue regarding the first and fourth amendments in their school it's important to look for in terms of the presentation today you'll see students that are very polished very focused on the presentation I think making very effective arguments on both sides to the judges hopefully you'll see very balanced very poised arguments from each side in today's case what happens for the winning team after today the winning team will represent Ohio in the national high school mock trial competition in May and this year that competition will take place in Madison Wisconsin okay well great we're looking forward to seeing the kids in action as they get ready to get their their mock trial presentation all ready to go before the judges so thanks very much time we really appreciate that thank you okay and in fact we're gonna learn a little bit more about the specifics of the facts and legal issues that are going to be presented in this year's case that the students are going to be arguing in just a few minutes the case is titled Phillips School District vs. Jessie Springfield at all the facts of the case are that Phillips High School if fictional case that's been created just for today was agreed to license naming rights of its sports field to our large corporation the students at the school organized protests both in the school and on the field the school district responds by installing security cameras and searching lockers of the students that have been involved the school also files a lawsuit seeking an order authorizing the school to remove the students from the field the students are claiming that the school district's actions violated their first and Fourth Amendment rights the First Amendment concerns freedom of speech and assembly among others Sylvania South View will be arguing for Jessie Springfield and his classmates that the school violated those rights to speak and express their views and they're also going to be arguing under the Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures that the school violated their constitutional rights by installing security cameras and searching their lockers Orange high school is going to be arguing for the school district position and to learn more about this and other aspects of the case let's talk with Lisa a Schulman she is the director of the Ohio Center for law related education Lisa welcome and I want to give a little bit about your background you are actually a lawyer so you you have been on in the you know in the legal field for a while how different is this case from from real life well what we are very very fortunate to have is our case committee is comprised of lawyers and judges who use their years of combined experience to create fact patterns and legal issues that very much are real true to life so I think what we'll see today is what we would expect to see in a courtroom in any courtroom across Ohio and how important it is that for the the case committee when they come up with these types of cases to make it so that the kids can relate to well of course when we're talking about kids who are in high school when we find fact patterns in which they can relate where they see that the constitutional rights as well as the responsibilities are at issue it makes it much more engaging for them and as we know the cornerstone of everything that OC LRE does is that it's based on educating kids about the Constitution and so the case committee always puts the constitutional issues at the forefront of the of the case why is that important to have the kids understand their constitutional rights that's such a young age well what we do know and what's been a cornerstone of our democracy is that we can't be an effective democracy if we don't have active engaged and knowledgeable citizens and so oh Solari was created to help high school students and now both elementary and middle school students understand that those rights responsibilities knowledge will make them more engaged when they become citizens what are some of the things that we should be looking for in the audience if we've never been to a trial never been to one trial well the judges will be scouring the students on both their understanding of courtroom procedure as well as their understanding of the issues and the facts so all three of those together are the kinds of things we're going to look at what the judges will be looking for in the students performances today is their poise their ability to ask questions for the witnesses how they respond to those questions and then what is most difficult for young people learning how to try cases is how do they respond to the things that we don't know about all of those surprises that come up in any trial and how close is the mock trial to what we would see in a real trial setting I think it's going to be very very realistic to what we would see in a actual trial if we were down in Franklin County or any other Common Pleas Court in Ohio these are somewhat smaller in terms of the number of facts that are issue that might be the biggest distinction between what we would see all right so what are you looking forward to as you sit and watch the arguments today from our two teams well I always are thrilled when I actually get to see the case come to life I've seen bits and pieces of the case since September as the students have worked through districts and regionals but I've not yet had the opportunity to see it all the way through so that's what I'm going to be doing today okay great thanks so much Lisa and we'll have a chance to talk with you again right after the students present their oral arguments thank you thanks I appreciate it and so we look forward to hearing her analysis on how the students perform and not let's get a Jared writes who is the director of programs at Osceola Reed talk a little bit more in in general terms about your organization what what are the this is not just the only program that you have what are some of the other programs that you offer to students in assists in the state well it would be interesting to note today in particular looking at a mock trial we've initiated a middle school mock trial program and it's based on pieces of literature that is read at the middle school level we like that because we believe it's collaborative and the kids begin to learn these skills but they're also reading good literature and we also have We the People the citizen and the constant tution which is also performance-based as this is but it simulated congressional hearings and we do that at the Statehouse in the actual hearing rooms and the students prepare some very in-depth questions about the Constitution the Bill of Rights and then they are questioned by members of the legislature and and other members of the legal community we have that from middle school as well we have a program that deals with intolerance and injustice called you for justice we have a program that deals with public policy called project citizen and then some teacher programs we partner with teachers to bring citizenship to life and so the mission for the Ohio Center for law or data and education comes all back to what those programs are doing for the students yes absolutely and like I said everything we have has an authentic assessment so students actually learn by doing you know it's not paper and pencil and it's authentic because we bring in those people like attorneys today or members of the legislature or our other members of the community to interact with kids so it's not just roleplay they're going through something authentic like you will see today and they're doing research they're looking at different different avenues to find out how they can best present their case it's not a script I mean they're you didn't present them with everything they needed to know to present today none of our programs are that way if students have to begin to develop these these are student driven in many cases with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights they have to begin to read it find find information elsewhere talk to people because that's the best learning learn by doing and all of our programs are related to the standards in terms of English language arts and social studies so they're really collaborative teachers can work together on these and they're not all extracurricular with We the People it has to be a rostered class so it has to be an academic class so we were talking about how the students today are going to be presenting to a panel of judges can you explain a little bit about who who were gonna be talking who they're going to be talking to and how in their scoring well they're going to be looking at some of the sharpest legal minds here in the state and they're coming from around the state and the students will I know they prepared their their speeches but they have to think on the cuff and that's what some of these people will be booked be looking for great Jared thank you so much for your time we appreciate that and we're looking forward to seeing how those students are arguing the case so now let's take a look at the competing teams that we're going to be hearing their arguments from Orange High School is arguing for the plaintiff Phillips School District Orange is located in pepper pike which is near Cleveland here in the state of Ohio this is the team's second straight year in the finals Orange High School has been part of mock trial for 14 years and this is their second year with ten teams in the competition which is the most teams among all the schools who participate the seniors on this year's team competed as freshmen in the state finals Sylvania South u High School will be arguing for a defendant's Jessie Springfield and his classmates Sylvania South use located in Sylvania which is near Toledo the second the school has been part of mock trial for 19 years with 18 straight appearances at state's 14 for Final Fours and five state championships dating all the way back to 1996 they were finalists in 2010 Sylvania South you also won the 2013 Empire international championship so we wish both teams the best of luck and we look forward to seeing all of their hard work pay off in today's championship round the mock trial should be starting in just a few minutes and it will last about an hour and a half before the judges break to score the teams and at that time we'll be back with more information and lots more interviews including we'll be talking with some of the students while we have a chance let's talk about this beautiful room and its history again we are in the Ohio Senate hearing room at the Ohio State House and at one time this was a law library so that's an appropriate setting for a mock trial additionally the Ohio Supreme Court used to hold its sessions in the room that is directly above us in what is now the North hearing room today the Ohio Supreme Court has its own building the Thomas J Moyer Ohio Judicial Center which is just a few blocks away from here on Front Street so without further ado let's go down the main floor of the courtroom where the teams are about to argue the fictional case Phillips School District vs. Jessie Springfield at all in the 2014 Ohio High School mock trial state final [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] like the welcome both teams this is the case both school district versus Jessie Springfield before we begin I want to introduce the members of the scoring panel I will be the presiding judge and today in the trial name is Gerry McBride I'm a judge of the I'm on County Court of Common Pleas and I'm a member of the high school mock trial competition committee and if the spring judges would introduce themselves hello I'm Stephen Tilson I'm a practicing lawyer from galleon Ohio and I'm the president of the Ohio State Bar Foundation our both sides ready to proceed then okay plaintiff may proceed first then you may your honors my name is Ari I'd like to take a moment to let my teammates introduce myself - my name is Megan Shanklin also an attorney for the plaintiff your honor the American public education system has an incredibly important mission within our country to provide students with a safe and healthy learning environment within Philips high school however this mission is being threatened by the disruptive behavior of the student group occupy which is why we're here today to request that the court grant a temporary restraining order against the defendants Jessie Springfield and the student group occupy ordering them to vacate their makeshift tent city outside of the football field now while Phillips believes that students should be able to express themselves and share their ideas during the school day and on school grounds is neither the time nor the place today we will prove by both clear and convincing evidence that Phillips meets each requirement necessary for the granting of a temporary restraining order Phillips has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits seeing as occupy is neither a school nor curriculum related group therefore they are not entitled to or allowed to use school grounds including the area where their 10th City now sits in addition occupy is severely disruptive to the school environment Phillips will suffer irreparable harm of the most is not granted because it will be unable to maintain order and discipline within the school a significant governmental and community interest now this not only harms the school but more importantly the student body at large no injury will be caused to others in the granting of this motion seeing as the students of Occupy have many other outlets of communication readily available to them and finally the public interest weighs in favor of Phillips for several reasons and what she will demonstrate today now at the end of today's case we will also respectfully ask the court to deny the defendants motion for a TR o against Philips in which they are seeking to restrain Phillips from conducting legitimate searches of their lockers and backpacks as well from confiscating other unauthorized occupy related materials the defendants will be unable to prove that they have a substantial likelihood of success seeing as their first and their Fourth Amendment rights were never violated we will call two innocents of the standard a your honors dr. Jaime Gomez principal of Phillips High School will explain to the court that the Student Handbook states that unless the club registers and is approved by the principal as curriculum related they're not allowed to use school facilities therefore she will explain them since occupy never got her approval occupy cannot be considered curriculum related and they are not allowed to camp out on school grounds in addition dr. Gomez will explain that the district's actions to restrict occupy on school grounds were consistent with existing school rules and were only reasonable time place and manner restrictions that a content-neutral kaci Mancuso of the Philips Police Department would prove that the search is conducted with students lockers and backpacks were indeed reasonable and justified and that there was no violation of the student's fourth mehnat rights seeing as a search is conducted or justified at their inception and reasonable and scope he will also explain about the many other outlets of communication that were not only available to the students of occupy but already actively used by them and finally officer Mancuso will testify to the severely disruptive effect occupies actions had on the school now your honors in our nation schools must maintain order and discipline within their hallways so they may be able to carry out their most important job educating the bright young minds of America and Phillips high school is no different which is why at the end of today's case we will respectfully ask the court to deny the defendants motion for a tiara against Phillips and grant the motion of Phillips so these students may vacate their 10 city and finally restore order back to the school your honors there is a time and there is a place for everything but the students current occupation outside of the football field is neither the time nor the place thank you your honors defense counsel you may make your opening speech make our appearances yes morning your honors my name is Eric sue I'll be delivering the opening statement for the defense as well as the cross-examination of dr. Jaime Gomez and the direct examination of Alex Chen good morning your honors my name is Yaron Chen today I'll be conducting the direct examination of the defendant Jesse springfield the cross-examination of officer casey Mancuso and at the conclusion of the hearing today the closing arguments on behalf of the defense if you may call your first witness hopefully the only mistake today step in front of the pogos may it please the court our schools are to be a marketplace of ideas an opportunity to educate young minds of personal liberties and to promote a robust exchange of views instead this case brings to the court Phillips High School's efforts to constrain creative thought to censor free speech and to invade a person's privacy now the plaintiff has claimed today that Phillips High School's actions were taken to provide a safe healthy learning environment but the evidence today will show that films high schools actions were only taken because of one reason to stop the content of Occupy's message nowadays TR o hearing the defendants like the plaintiff will examine the four factors of a TR o first substantial likelihood of success on a trial of the merits second irreparable harm third the absence of prejudice to third parties and fourth public interest and in applying those issues to the facts of the case today the defendants will establish three points first but the plaintiffs will fail to prove through clear and convincing evidence that tensity presented of substantial material to parents with a school environment second the defendant will establish that same burden of proof the the schools remove of occupy leaflets was an unlawful content-based restriction under the First Amendment and third the school search of the defendants personal belongings and seizure of their cell phones violated their Fourth Amendment rights and reaching that outcome we will call two witnesses to the stand the defendant Jesse Springfield is u.s. history teacher Alex Chen they'll both take you through occupies efforts of free speech the school's retaliatory response and the schools further inconsistent application of policies used to quiet the movement as you learned today upon the announcement of the deal a group of students objected to the corporatization in their school which involved changing the name freedom field which honored veterans to fructose field Foreman group terrors occupy defendants gather support for their cause through social media posting flyers around the school and hosting meetings and as public and student support gathered for occupies cause Tennessee pressure principal Gomez to shut down the protest or lose the deal then and only then did the school take action to stop occupy it was there that the attacker occupies content could be seen because as Jesse springfield will testify today in an effort to shut down occupies protests the school ripped down occupy flyers off the walls harassed students handing out those flyers and censored Pro Occupy articles from entering the school newspaper now while the school justifies this action today based upon claims of interference the evidence today will show that there was no violence as a result of tent city no destruction of property attributable to these defendants no material and substantial interference to school operations well the student supports still growing for the occupy students the school them threatened defendants didn't stop protesting the NF C deal but there are be dire consequences and as you will learn at that time occupy stop their protest in the school instead move them outside following recent protests in US history occupy set up tent city to voice their dissent and as a testimony a both Jesse Springfield and Alex Chang today city was a peaceful symbolic protest free of drugs violence in any criminal behavior still the very next day without reasonable suspicion the school cut open the defendants lockers searched their personal belongings and seized their cell phones it is for these reasons because of the content-based restriction of occupies message that we as the defense respectfully ask you to preserve the marketplace of ideas at Phillips high school by denying the plaintiffs of ero emotion today and instead granting the defendants thank you thank you at this time if you'd have your witnesses step forward I'll ask the bailiff to swear in the witnesses please absol for the plaintiff now you may call your first witness you may hello dr. Gomez nice to see you again you too could you please state your name and occupation for the court of course my name is Jaime Gomez and I am the principal at Phillips High School and how long have you been with Philip school district it's been a while about 30 years now could you please tell the court about your educational background that qualifies you for this job of course I received my undergraduate in economics from Harvard University I carried on there at Harvard to also obtain my masters and PhD in education all right dr. Gomez let's talk about why you're actually in court today to deal with the NFC were you involved with that agreement I was yes and what exactly was your involvement well when the National Futures Corporation came to me with an interest in investing in our community supporting our school district I was more than happy to serve as a sort of liaison between Lee Martin of NFC and the other school board members so what was its deal about NFC was offering Phillips half a million dollars to replace our old high school Stadium with a new artificial turf to underwrite all costs of the deal and all they won in return was naming rights the stadium and management of food sales vending machine sales things like that so what did you think about this proposition I thought it'd be extremely beneficial towards Philips towards the entire community not only serving as a cost-saving measure but also improving the safety of anyone who wanted to use the field okay so in what ways did it save costs NFC would be providing a constant flow of revenue from food sales from vending machine sales but also most importantly Philips wouldn't have feasibly been able to go ahead with this deal without the financial assistance of a company like NFC and dr. gomez you also mentioned that it improves safety how did it do that well with the goal of improving safety and experience of our students being one of our number one goals in Philips the turf field would simply be much safer dr. Gomez let's talk about what happened after this deal actually went through how did the students at Phillips react to it most students were actually really excited about the deal especially student lack of personal knowledge Aris bond sure dr. Gomez is the principal of Phillips high school that she interacts with students on an almost daily basis these are simply her rationally based perceptions pursuant to rule 701 as a lay witness response yarder yes miss Gomez cannot testify today to the mindset of each of these students that they were excited about the deal and therefore she's a lack of person knowledge to their own mindset towards the deal that can't be basic excuse me honor observations this is a permissible opinion you'll be able to cross-examine certainly on that point objection is overruled yes your honor so dr. Gomez you're talking about how the students at Phillips reacted to the deal yes most students were really excited about it actually especially student government members and of course the athletes abusing the field however there were a minority of students who didn't like the deal they began to criticize it immediately one of these groups call themselves occupy can you talk a little bit more about this group occupy of course I first learned let's see that they were an unregistered noncurriculum-related group that had been protesting the NF C deal they were not only meeting on school grounds but proved to cause a number of other problems all over campus were there any other groups that protested this deal besides Occupy there were few so what was the difference between these other groups and occupy well the other groups were registered and occupy never registered okay dr. gomez did occupy ever come to you personally to express their concerns mm-hmm I actually had a meeting with several representatives from Occupy I wanted to listen to their concerns about the deal and why they had such a problem of it unfortunately their actions didn't changed all actually after we met let's talk about those actions what exactly was occupied doing in school right well occupy began meaning at first these meetings were impromptu and planned in the cafeteria in the hallways even which was extremely if house though what would happen would be members of Occupy would start vigorously debating with anyone who wanted the deal to go through and this would cause other students who weren't even involved in in what I can only describe now as near altercations really to be late to class and the fact is there's a time and a place for everything right but in the middle of our school day in the middle of the hallway is not the time or the place to be doing these kinds of things dr. Gomez was anything else going on in school at this time yes now that you mention it there were there were copious amounts of flyers hung all around the school in support of Occupy against the NFC do your honors at this time I moved to introduce what has previously been stipulated as exhibit a to the court please note that i'm showing opposing counsel a clean and unmarked copy of this exhibit may I approach the witness maybe your honor I request as discussed in pretrial that given the amendments that the radish eat makes the exhibit a that arouse she'd be taking up along with Exhibit A for the purposes of evidence I'm sorry because of the amendments that the errata she makes to the content of Exhibit A I would request that the radish II be taking up along with Exhibit A to preserve the record and to the extent that the errata sheet changes the facts in the statements yes that that will be recognized all right may I curse the witness with a copy of exhibit a and the errata sheet you made you sir thank you dr. Gomez can you please tell the court what this is this is the Phillips High School student handbook as it says select provisions and how familiar are you with this document after working here for so long pretty familiar I see it on almost a daily basis and how available is this document to the students of Phillips was it says right here a copy is provided to each school we actually give a copy to each student and they can always pick one up in the Student Services office they're free and dr. gomez in regards to occupy specifically how familiar are you with that group's actions oh let's say extremely familiar I mean I observe them directly so based upon this familiarity with occupied actions and the Student Handbook that you're holding were any of the rules in that handbook broken by the club yes they were just at a quick glance most of the rules in non school sponsored publications were disregarded for example the Flyers that were hung around the school were hung during the school day which clearly violates Part B of rule three they were hung without an author's name on them there was no signature which completely disregards rule four and the first time I saw these Flyers was not on my desk but already on the walls of the high school which completely violates Part A of rule 3 I have to approve all fliers hung in the school to make sure they're appropriate and that they follow all of the rules whoever hung them up obviously skipped a few steps dr. gomez why do you enforce these rules primarily I think to increase the educational experience of the students to prepare them for after they leave high school but also with over 40 student groups activities all around the school it's important that all of them follow the rules don't get me wrong I of all people I'm completely for expressing your opinion and you know stepping out for what you believe in but I just can't tolerate disruptive activity or or contempt for established rules and policies in Phillips so beyond all of this what else if anything was occupied doing in school at this time right about now they were becoming increasingly disruptive raising their profile much more than before and as principal how did you respond to that I felt like I had no other choice but to increase surveillance around the school as many other schools had already done in the area to decrease any further misconduct I also asked detective Mancuso who was an undercover agent in another investigation at the school at the time to keep an eye on them so make you so did an investigation what did he find first that there'd be a tent city at the high school that night in test of the NFC let's talk about that 10 city what did you do when you heard about it I followed protocol as I always do I informed the parents and the students of all of the rules of their braking I also went ahead and locked the stadium gates to prevent any further trespassing so dr. Gomez you knew about ten city in advance why did it still happen well I beaten Mancuso to first maintain his cover as a student so he could be on the ground at tent city and obtain any evidence that might be there all right so what did you do following his investigation at tent city well based on the reports of hacking and unauthorized occupy literature your honor I believe the specific record to hacking does call for double here saving the evidence of the witness may I respond yes your honors this is not hearsay this is simply a statement being used to explain dr. Gomez's subsequent actions this is not being used for the truth of the matter as per rule 801 response your honor can I hear your question again it was what what did you do falling Mancuso's investigation at tent city yes your honor I believe opposing counsel is indeed offering the statement for the truth of the matter because I've built as I believe they'll miss Momo's later testify she used this evidence given by officer Mancuso to justify her continued custody of the phones of the students to this day objection is overruled yes your honor I believe you're talking about what you did following his investigation yes it was based on all of the information I had as I said I felt it necessary to ask detective Mancuso and Miss Jacobs the school custodian to search the lockers where they ended up finding all of the unauthorized occupy literature I also met with the students individually I asked Jessie for his cell phone because of the serious hacking accusations against him unfortunately he didn't want to put the whole thing to rest and just give me his password so obviously I couldn't search his cell phone further and dr. gomez these Locker and these backpack searches why did you feel that they were necessary for the purposes of restore order back to Phillips to stopping the disruptive nature of occupy so that the school could move forward with the NFC Deal so that the benefits could be provided to the students to better their education to better the faculties it's the Faculty's experience and the entire community of Phillips the searches were the first step in doing this and as principal I simply needed to enforce the rules thank you no further questions at this time you have any cross-examination yes your honor [Music] dr. Gomez you're looking to retire once this deal is completed correct in a while yeah and one of the places you're looking to retire to is potentially NFC correct oh yes well NFC is one of many options and you've pursued this option so far as to having conversations with individuals at NFC about job prospects correct well they came to me because of my background in economics but again I've had many conversations with many companies but I really don't plan on working very soon after I retire I want to take a few years off just to be clear Koko's returning to my original question you did indeed have our conversations with individuals that NFC about job prospects there they came to me correct and then following this Lee Martin is also the individual who represents NFC for the purposes of this deal correct I believe so yes it isn't in fact true that Lee Martin has been your friend since you were classmates at Harvard who were old friends to be clear upon the announcement of the steel of the NFC there were several groups protesting occupied a purpose in the NFC deal correct yes as I said before and just to be clear occupy was not the only one engaging in protest activities it was the only unregistered one noncurriculum-related one so turn to my original question then it's an occupy was not the only group protesting NFC no but they were the only ones breaking the rules okay we'll talk about the rule violations later miss Gomez but firstly I wrote this down just to be clear and examination you stated that the school is not the time and place for occupies protests you stated that correct yes and I believe that just to be clear you as a principal encourage students to express their ideas through student groups don't you of course without breaking the rules and to be clear you encourage this expression at this exchange of ideas even if the views are misinformed of course I any any child stepping up what they believe in I believe that it it betters their educational experience so for example one that was occupy expressed ideas through their online petition correct the online petition that was open to the entire Internet it's out the one-year that's the online petition yes yes and when you learn to this online petition you informed Lee didn't you I did because it concerned his deal and when you informed him he wasn't your own words not to police about this was he of course not the people he was trying to help were protesting against the deal so to be clear he was not pleased no I don't know why he would be then occupy began posting leaflets correct yes all over the school and then you learned of a pro occupier article that was being submitted to the school newspaper correct yes that libel had that article had libel towards the NF C it was completely inappropriate so book Gomez's your testimony here today that the article without submit had libel contained within it no I just said that I did in the in the newspaper and you didn't let it in what you let it you sorry you prohibited excuse me without ever reading the content of the article correct no I saw the article so again principal Gomez their testimony here today but you read the context this article prior to your prohibition why would I not let it go into a newspaper without reading it first so just to clarify that is your testimony here today no I just stated that I didn't put it in these are the reasons why I didn't put it in the newspaper principal Gomez returning to my original question did you or did you not read the article prior to your prohibition i I did but I didn't really feel the need to state that in my in my affidavit just the could and it is not in your priors one testimony that you read the article no only that I didn't put it in the newspaper okay no the very next day after this article was submitted you had another immediately Martin correct yes and during this meeting he wasn't sensed wasn't he he was a little concerned yeah principal Gomez in to believe in your prior sworn testimony you referred to him as incensed didn't you you can use that word if you want yeah it's the word you used it wasn't it yes I believe so and he was incensed about the community's scrutiny of this deal that was caused by occupy correct of course again the community who was trying to help was was reacting badly to the deal it didn't really make sense well regardless of whether or not made sense the purpose of this meeting of Lee Martin was to discuss ways to counteract this negative publicity yeah we wanted to show the public how positive the deal could be for them after this meeting with Lee Martin isn't in fact true that you decided to immediately and strictly enforce a policy against occupy yes as legitimately as I could based on these school rules and the way you enforce it following this immediately Martin was tearing down occupy flyers from the walls correct yes I actually asked the custodians to take them down not sure of tearing off is there right what you did instruct the custodian to remove occupy leaflets after the meeting of Lee Marvin of course they were breaking their rules but just to be clear principal Gomez prior to the meeting with Lee Martin you never ordered anyone to remove occupy flyers and then they hadn't really been a problem before the Flyers became more and more apparent in the school after this meeting so returning to my original question then principal Gomez you did not remove occupy flyers prior to the meeting no as I stated before no after intensity occurred rather you had another conversation Lee Martin correct yes I believe he called me well during this conversation isn't a factory that Lee was the one who suggested you file a lawsuit to remove tent city yeah thought it was a good idea I mean we couldn't actually forcibly remove 40 students without following proper legal protocol so then is that a yes my question Lee was the one suggesting that idea mm-hmm and to be absolutely clear tomorrow plane today here is indeed to remove tent city yes no city has been occurring for a roughly two to three weeks correct mm-hmm and in that time isn't in fact true that you have no evidence of violence at tent city no is in fact you have no evidence of any destruction of property at tent city no and to be clear the first night the tensity went up you didn't even tend to that did you I met with Mancuso after there's no question principal Gomez you did not personally attend the event no I'm not sure the students would have wanted me there Jeff scene your honor moved to strike the latter part in the witness's statement is non-responsive I didn't ask what the students wanted whether or not simply she was there yes section is sustained we asked yes your honor so principal Gomez to clarify then you were not present at tent city not for the former half but I I showed up later to meet with Mancuso that's where I met with him and when you met with Mancuso he told you he did not observe any over illegal accident response your honor yes this is not being offered for the truth of the matter for suitable 801 C but rather just to demonstrate the environment of tent city that night may respond yes using this statement to demonstrate the environment at tent city is in fact using the statement for the truth of the matter because it is demonstrating that Mancuso statement were true regarding the environment at tent city let me hear your question again at when you know officer Mike whose so he told you they didn't observe any violations of school rules the objection is sustained yes your honor and to be clear the very next day you had the lockers of the defendants searched correct yes because information I had I felt like it was necessary to see what was in the lockers to be clear the lockers were searched by officers make he was so correct hmm I informed him to yes as well as the custodian yes there you need a staff member when you're searching lockers and officer makuu so who is not a staff member also searched the backpacks of the students once didn't he I informed him too but I ended up confiscating the items so returning to my original question and principal Gomes officer Mancuso did indeed before the search of the backpacks know I confiscated the items Oh Gomez yes or no Dobson refused to perform the search of the backpacks not the confiscation of the items objection asked and answered your honor my response yes witness was not responding to my my question with the clear yes or no answer or a clear answer in general so I was people even clarifying the question receive that answer yeah I agree all overrule the objection yes your honor so principal Gomez yes or no you instructed officer Mancuso to search the backpacks of the students I did instruct him to yes and to be clear you instructed him to search it because you wanted to scare the students deceasing their protest isn't that right the students need to understand how severe the situation was and that there were consequences to breaking all of the school's principal gomez returning to my original question mm-hmm you did indeed want offs Amakusa to search the backpacks to scare the students to ceasing their protests well over the 30 years of being principal I've seen that sometimes the best way to make the kids understand how serious the situation is is by it's by scaring them a little mewn was a scary situation Jeff senior on a move to strike the latter part in the witness's statement as non-responsive it didn't ask what her rationale was simply whether or not she did indeed want awesome acusó to scare the students with the search me respond yes asking what she wanted it's asking for her bashing out thus dr. gomez was indeed answering the question I'm gonna overrule your objection yes your honor so if it's moco mess that was your statement near priors one testimony it was it not yes as I stated before I wouldn't backpacks were searched mm-hmm it officer Mike who have a warrant I don't know I was not part of the actual investigation that's why I asked a detective to come do it so Chris McComas just to be absolutely clear did awesome if you still have a warrant yes or no as I said before I was not in charge of the investigation I'm not sure principal Gomez you were there during the search of the backpacks weren't you and you officer Mike whose was under your jurisdiction for the duration of the undercover investigation correct yeah that's why I confiscated the items given all of this is your testimony here today they do not know whether or not Officer McHugh so had a search warrant when he conducted the search of the backpacks I'm not sure because I confiscated the items and I don't need a search warrant and when the backpacks were searched the cell phones of the students were removed correct yes and you asked permission to search these cell phones didn't you of course I would never search a cell phone without getting permission first so you were denied this position correct yes and when you denied this permission isn't a fact that you were then threatened the students with severe consequences excuse me if this subordination continued I'm not sure if threatening is the right word I let them know again how severe the situation was and that there are consequences how people in the past students in the past that have violated rules have had problems in the future because most violations yes or no was that not the statement you made in your priors or testimony I believe if you word it like that I guess so but I was simply letting them know that there were consequences so that wasn't your personal testimony yes no further questions your honor thank you any redirect and proceed you may dr. gomez on cross-examination your motivation regarding this deal was drawn into question why did you feel that this deal was a good fit for Phillips High School as I said previous times before this deal would provide benefits for financially for the school it would give this school in new morale to have a new turf field where the old playing conditions were just simply they were a lawsuit waiting to happen so I think that this deal would would help Philips in so many ways and benefits so many different people and dr. gomez regarding the protest to this deal what were the other groups like besides occupy that were protesting the deal well there were other groups as I stated before but they were registered and they are following all the rules there was no need to interfere with anything they were doing and occupy specifically you're asked about their fliers why did you take down occupy spires my supplies fires were breaking the rules that is why I instructed the custodian to take down the Flyers thank you no further questions you may now a redirect examination opposing counsel questioned you about your policy concerning the leaflets correct yes occupies leaflets were violating the rules prior to meeting Lee Martin correct yes but there were less of them around the school is it yes to my question in principle gone was they were violating the rules prior to Lee Martin yes but as soon as I had enough information I ordered a search as I always do for things that are violating the rules and you only removed occupy leaflets following the meeting well I would have removed them before if I had enough information or if I if I knew about them sure my original question then principal Gomez did only indeed remove of leaflets after the meeting mm-hmm no further questions your honor thank you with witness may step down thank you you may call your next witness your honor and this tiny plaintiff would like to call officer Casey and kudos to the stand you may morning officer Mancuso it's nice to see you again morning could you please state your name and occupation for the court my name is Casey Mancuso and I'm currently an accident investigator for the Phillips Police Department and why didn't your training well shortly after graduating from high school I applied to over 50 training academies in the Midwestern United States and I was accepted to the city of Philips 2012 police officer training academy additionally I am taking some law enforcement classes at the local community college so what did we learn while at the academy I was trained on both the 1st and 4th amendments the US Constitution and additionally I learned six core values that I've incorporated into my daily thinking in practice these are honesty professionalism adaptability attention to detail self-discipline and overall hard work how is it that you ended up at Phillips high school shortly before graduating from the Academy I was assigned to conduct undercover drug investigations at the high school and can you tell us a bit more about these investigations absolutely see every large metropolitan area has drug-related problems in their high schools however our previous efforts in intervention and using students as informants had severely underestimated the impact of the problem I met with principal Gomez and my commander and principal Gomez outlined the drug problem to me and provided me with my full fake identity Casey Sanderson how did you become involved in the case at hand about five to six weeks before the end of the school year my assignment was modified to incorporate a new investigation one that had nothing to do with drugs and what did you learn from this meeting I learned that NFC had recently moved some of its construction equipment and machinery on to the school grounds and found that it had been vandalized with spray paint by a tagger using the initials NSA and apparently this damage and vandalism have been done the same day as an impromptu occupy meeting in the school cafeteria all right now what happened to your assignment in the school after this meeting took place my assignment turned into a more thorough investigation I would infiltrate occupy and report on them and their activities to the principal and write a daily report to my commander all right now what did you learn about the vandalism or other subsequent acts at first the principal and commander expressed their concern that it was just a student we thought that they were smarter than the authorities by using multiple and words and a misleading moniker in this case NSA meaning no such agency however on a more serious note this vandalism seemed to be a felony criminal investigation and occupy we seriously considering several options to physically prevent the NFC and the School Board from going forward their plans all right now how did you investigate into Occupy well because it could be considered a felony I was given more leeway and the methods and tactics that I could use to investigate occupy I went to their meetings and as part of my undercover work attempted to gain the trust of my student targets all right now what did you learn from these investigations at first occupy was in doing or planning anything illegal they would go forward to leave her protests online petitions planned demonstrations that are all common in America today but to continue my investigation I went to subsequent meetings and recorded the attendance there in order to conduct social media research to help me identify with the five leaders of Occupy in this lawsuit today are these are jesse springfield terry silva alex leslie storm Jackson and trilby van Dekker and I've seen all of these students run occupy meetings now how did Occupy plan all of these meetings and protests well occupy would use various social media platforms such as cell phones smartphones and laptops to organize many of their protests and they would also use Facebook and Twitter to create and post about events and the members of Occupy would call other students at the high school in order to get them more involved and get the more encouraged to actually show up to the stadium gate all right now what we're not at subsequent Occupy meetings well there was more discussion on illegal activities such as hacking school computers Your Honor may respond yes these statements are showing intent planner motive and this is an exception to the hearsay rule under eight oh three three they respond your honor yes specifically under eight oh three three they can't be used to actually prove the fact of a matter and that's what mr. Mancuso is trying to prove today but furthermore we believe that the information that officer Mancuso has testified actually occurred after an Occupy meeting it is not attributed to any of the Occupy students specifically the five defendants here today therefore this is hearsay objection is over yes your honor which I could we ask the question yes please so what went on at subsequent Occupy meetings well there was more discussion on illegal activities such as hacking school computers disrupting normal school functions than actually occupying school property now the Occupy organizers would say things like we should do whatever it takes and sometimes you have to break the law in order to get notice and get the man who say once again your honor may respond yes this is not hearsay seeing as it as it is an admission of a party opponent we have clearly established that the occupy five were the organizers and those who ran the group therefore they act as representatives to the group occupy therefore this is an exception to hearsay ask set forth by rule 801 d-2 response your honor yes there's been no foundation to be laid that any of the five defendants here today were even present at the meeting where those statements were made there's been no evidence to show that these students were there running the specific meeting that mr. Mancuso is testifying to and thus it's not an adoptive mission it is hearsay today yes I respond we have clearly established that the occupy five were those who ran and organized the meeting therefore Occupy organizers does refer to the Occupy 5 I think you're going to have to establish some foundation I'll sustain the objection yes your honor who seem to be the main perpetrator at these meetings the main perpetrators seem to be Jessie Springfield and obviously the other Occupy 5 because I've seen these students run occupy meetings before and how do they make plans to physically prevent the NF C well Jessie advocated for a tent city which would involve trespassing on school property and setting up gate setting up tents in front of the stadium gates to prevent the NF C construction equipment and machinery from entering the field and being able to stall install the artificial turf right now how did this whole Occupy versus the NSC dispute affect the school it greatly affected the school everyone was talking about the deal and the protests and what was going to happen even I couldn't escape it especially now it's Jens US history class where I found that we were talking more about occupy then whatever the topic of the day was whether it be the civil rights struggle of the 60s and 70s or the Vietnam War right so how did you participate as a member of occupy well Jesse had given me a template of an Occupy leaflet which I copy and how'd you feel about doing this I felt uncomfortable and I didn't want to do it but it was my job to follow orders not question them and I needed to gain the trust of my student targets by acting as an as a member of Occupy and it wasn't as bad as buying or doing drugs in the school which I've had to do in the past as part of my undercover work okay so while you were at occupy meetings what did you see the leaders do well I've seen these students actually run the Occupy meetings moderate Occupy discussions pass out leaflets on school grounds and actually post up copies of the posters onto the hallway walls and in the cafeteria as well did you notify principal Gomez about these leaders yes I did and what did she do well after I explained that these five students these five leaders were conspiring to engage in illegal activities the principal issued than a warning letter to cease and desist s' cease and desist all the Occupy related activity however that night a meeting was held at the field in which two construction for tent city was agreed upon and a bunch of militant ideas were proposed right so what happened the day after this tent city was constructed the next morning principal Gomez instructed Pat Jacobs the school custodian to cut the locks off of the five lockers of the individual leaders and directed me to search inventory and sees all Locker contents and what happened with these locker contents well we turned the materials over to principal Gomez and upon the students arrival at the principal's office after they were informed that their belongings were in her office she and another school administrator informed that that of the back informed them that their backpacks would be searched which they did while I only observed no further questions at this time Aramis across was intimidation yes your honor [Music] man proceed you may know officer Mancuso I just want to get a layout of the details of the case that you were assigned to specifically as you stated an on direct examination you thought this was a felony criminal investigation of vandalism correct yes that it seemed to be that right and based on this investigation specifically you were asked to look into occupy right as part of the investigation of the vandalism I was asked to infiltrate occupy now would you say that from the police academy you were taught to be select attentive to detail absolutely we're taught to be careful in your observations absolutely so based on your careful observation of what occupy did did you ever see Jessie Springfield commit a single act of vandalism with your own eyes seeing specifically one of these members especially Jessie commit a specific act no I did not so that would be fair to say that none of the four other defendants here today you never saw them commit a specific act of vandalism with your own eyes either have you I did not see them specifically act upon this militant chatter that they were always discussing so yes okay and in addition to that over the course of your investigation of the group occupy you never made a single arrest of any individual correct no we had not obtained a search warrant to obtain an arrest right in fact at the very end of your investigation isn't it true that you actually apologized to your commanding officer for not getting enough information well I did express my sorrow to my commander because we had not obtained enough evidence to obtain a search warrant for the students persons or phones but in this case it was only it was not needed because of reasonable suspicion objection your honor I moved to strike the latter portion of the witness's statement as an improper opinion it's an improper interpretation of the New Jersey vs. TLO case with a legal standard as reasonable suspicion officer Mancuso is not qualified to make such an interpretation yes officer Mancuso is a police officer therefore he is allowed to give his opinion on this it is not a proper response your honor sure this is a legal interpretation of the New Jersey vs. TLO case it's the reason why we're here today it's part of the defendants t ro hearing to stop the search and seizure of the students belongings this is an improperly legal opinion regardless of whether or not officer Mancuso is actually a police officer he can't testify as to Li the legality of searching of students belonging in the school environment the objection is sustained I agree I think the valid objections yes your honor what permit to strike the statement from the record the portion of the statement that you're referring to is ordered stricken yes your honor so officer Mancuso back to that original question yes or no didn't you ask specifically didn't you specifically apologize for not obtaining a search warrant to a commanding officer as I said before yes I had not obtained enough evidence to search the students persons or phones okay now at this point I want to focus on your investigation in three specific phases the investigation leading up to tent city tent city itself and the events after tent city so we'll start with the very first segment at the very beginning of your investigation it was your job to infiltrate the group occupy correct yes as I mentioned before as part of the investigation of the vandalism incident so essentially it was your job to be part of the group and be with them as much as possible right I would say that it was my job to investigate the vandalism so it would be fair to say that you had ample opportunity to observe the actions of this group well as part of my undercover work yes I would act as a member of occupy and leading up to just before tent city based on your observations of occupy you never saw a single member of the five defendants here do they get into a fistfight did you I'm sorry I could repeat that please based on your observations of the group occupy before tent city you never saw a single one of the students get into a fistfight at school did you a fistfight no you never saw any incidences of the students participating in vandalism right as I said before they I never had seen them specifically commit these acts but they were constantly discussing it and you never saw any specific violations of the law that can be attributed to occupy students in the early stages of Investigation correct they were discussing chatter about you know hacking school computers which obviously does violate state law and obviously trespassing on property does violate law as well but back to my original question you never saw specific members in the beginning stages actually act out on any of those did you well I would say that the tent city does violate the law I'm asking about before tent city tent city is involved in that question though before officer Mancuso before your tent city itself did you ever see occupy members acting out on illegal activities acting on their illegal activities no I did not see them specifically do that but they obviously were planning and planning them and they obviously did succeed in following through with one of them so we'll talk about team city and I want to move to the next segment and in a direct examination you mentioned something you said that they were advocating for a quote bunch of militant ideas did I say that correctly well to propose a bunch of militant ideas yes okay and some of these militant ideas were proposed at a meeting just before 10:00 City right they were yes but specifically to that meeting isn't it true that in your own swarm prior sworn testimony you stated that no consensus was actually reached at that meeting well yes the meeting had run out of time and as we've stated before the Occupy group does need a democratic vote in order to reach consensus and the meeting had run out of time so they were not able to actually vote but the only consensus that they reached was to establish four basic rules at tent city correct yes sir and those rules were no drugs it's true no alcohol that's also true no weapons that's true and no violence yes if any of these four would have happened the tensley would have been immediately demolished because obviously the police was involved right intensity still stands today right it does yes so it'd be fair to say that none of those four rules were violated based on the criteria that you just established as I said before if these if any of these were violated it would have been immediately demolished so that's yes to my question none of these rules are broken again yes okay now let's look to the final segment that we're talking about today and that's the search after tent city okay now as you testified and direct examination you searched the lockers right I did yes I was directed by principal Gomez now you seize the belongings from the lockers after interviewing them yes isn't it true that you had no search warrant when you did so as I said before there was none needed regardless of which that's a yes to my question you did not have a search warrant yes there was none needed and after this he took the belongings to principal Gomez's office yes we did and at that point principal Gomez searched the backpacks right she did along with another school administrator so if principal Gomez says that you search the backpacks that's not true is it I don't believe that principal Gomez ever said I searched the backpacks but the fact of the matter is you only observed the search of the backpacks right as I said indirect yes and when you search those back when those backpacks were searched before they were closed one thing could you repeat that please before principal Gomez actually searched the backpacks the backpacks were closed weren't they I believe that they were you couldn't see inside the backpacks right I wouldn't say that I can so when principal Gomez opened the backpacks at that point she pulled out some leaflets the Occupy leaflets yes she pulled out a smartphone she did officer Mancuso isn't it true that when principal Gomez pulled out that smartphone you and your own words questioned under what authority she had to do that I didn't know specifically which Authority she had but I'm sure that there was because I mean I had never actually seen a copy of the school rules but in my high school the principal was always a lot to do that Jackson Aaron would distract a lot of portion of the witness's statement is non-responsive the question simply asked whether or not he made that statement to this degree that he did not know what authority not his interpretation of it not his background of the his path high school a response your honor my witness is simply trying to answer the question the best visibility objection is sustained yes your honor so officer Mancuso I'll ask that question one more time yes or no isn't it true that you actually specifically related to that search you questioned under what authority principal Gomez had to seize that smartphone well as I said in my sworn testimony I did not know specifically what authority she was able to confiscate the items under however however I'm sure that in the school rules it may have been permitted officer Mancuso you don't know the school rules I have not seen a copy but I'm sure that it actually can't testify whether or not it's permissible under the school rules I would say that it's probable for me to strike the latter portion of the witness's statement a speculation you've just testified that he does not know the school rules he's never read the school rules therefore he can't get testimony as to probably are probably not it's admissible under those rules any response that isn't squirrels he's saying he's not sure Jackson is sustained yes your honor so officer Mancuso isn't it true that you do not understand what authority principal Gomez had to seize those smartphones as I said before I did not know specifically what authority she had to search and confiscate the items although it may have been permitted in the school rules as I said before and you don't know the school rules just to clarify I have not seen a copy of them but I'm sure it's in there redirect you may now mr. Tran brought up on cross your investigation into occupy why did you infiltrate occupy well as part of the investigation of the vandalism occupy was the prime suspect and in order to infiltrate occupy needed to act as a member as a I needed to act like a member of them and as part of the investigation of the vandalism in order to find out what their motives were for everything I was supposed to invent infiltrate occupy mr. Chen also brought up things that are being proposed at these meetings could you elaborate absolutely now the militant ideas that were being proposed violated state law as well as the school policies as well why were the students belongings searched well the reasons that the students belongings were searched is because of the previous accusations and the bragging of the hackings of the school computers now as principal Gomez she needs to obtain she needs to keep the safety and the discipline in the school and so she needed to search them here across okay no reprocessing witness may step down okay Thank You iris - you may call your first witness yes your honor at this time the defense calls Jessie Springfield to the stand you may please introduce yourself to the court my name is Jessie Springfield I'm a junior at Phillips High School Jessie who are you here on behalf of today I'm here representing myself and the other four defendants we're all members of the group occupy but it was decided through a vote that I would speak as our representative for the group could you explain for the court what occupy is occupies a group of all different kinds of students at Philips for example we received help from the health and nutrition Club and the political science club and occupy has basically come together to protest a backdoor deal the school's made with NFC so what exactly about this NFC deal does occupy objective as a group were really against NFC coming in and branding their name on our school and also kind of making us buy their unhealthy products during school so specifically pertaining to that first concern what's significant about the branding of NFC's name at Philips well as a school were extremely proud of the fact that our football field is named freedom field specifically to commemorate our community's veterans but with this NFC contract it would change that name from freedom field to fructose field now addressing your second concern what about the unhealthy products of NFC response your honor yes this is laying a foundation for the reasons why occupy is actually going to protest the group itself yes I believe that mr. mr. Springfield has stated that he is against the unhealthiness of NFC's products cover to elaborate on the specifics of NFC's products is not relevant to today's hearing response John sure mr. Springfield simply elaborating on the foundation on which occupy protesting thus it is relevant for him to explain this as to show the nature of occupies protests and to establish why the group was even protesting NFC in the first place the objection is overruled may proceed on you may so Jessie why what about the unhealthy products is occupy objecting to the research that was collected by the Health and Nutrition Club we found out that these products are not only unhealthy but they've been linked directly to obesity and diabetes so after you found out these concerns with NFC how did a Q PI as a group proceed from there after this we set up a meeting with principal Gomez and the school administration and could you explain what happened at that meeting I wouldn't even really call what happened a meeting it was more like getting a lecture from Principal Gomez you know she told us that we didn't understand how the real world worked and that it was basically a done deal you know they tell us in school that were young adults and that we have rights and then they tell us that we have no say in something that affects our entire school so given the school's response at this meeting how did occupy proceed from there well we've learned in our US history class that in order to make a protest effective you need as many people as you can to support your cause so we got on social media we made a Facebook page a Twitter account online petitions we also made leaflets and flyers as another form of our protest once you took these actions what types of responses did you see from the community the response we got was overwhelming it was more than we could have imagined in a matter of days we had 1500 signatures on our online petition from a community of people that all oppose this NFC deal so given the response from the community what did you see in the school environment Jessie the school environment was great in my opinion this was the greatest educational opportunity we had been given because we were discussing real issues like this deal which is what occupy is all about okay so given the response from the community as well as the environment in the school how did the administrators at Phillips respond well as support for the group was really big to skyrocket at that point that's from the school begin to crack down on us and in what ways did they crack down Jesse I mean in what ways didn't they crack down for starters they took down all of our leaflets that around the school and if that wasn't enough they begin harassing members have occupied that we're handing these out before and after school and finally they were censoring occupy because they refused to publish an occupy related article in the school newspaper so you mentioned earlier that you're here representing the four other defendants of Occupy and your representatives today did the school to have any additional action with the five of you yes they also issued a warning to us what what did the warning letters say they basically tried to muzzle us at that point they told us that we were getting serious trouble if we interfered with their deal that we couldn't mean on school property and that we couldn't even hand out our leaflets so after the school takes these attempts to muzzle the group occupy how do you respond to that as a group we were forced into a corner by this school and we knew that our only remaining option was to take this protest public so we created tent city exactly as tent city Jesse tent city was kind of like our version of the Occupy Wall Street movement that we learned about in our US history class we set up tents outside the football stadium as a symbolic form of our protest that the school can no longer ignore so did you attend yes absolutely based on your observations when you were at tent city could you describe the environment for the court well tent city was really a memorable night because we were out there we were letting the community know what we felt about the deal I got a chance to talk to mrs. Chen about her time in the military I got to talk to the news and I got to talk to members of the community and we saw as a group how firsthand peacefully voicing our opposition could really make a change in the community well after tent city did the school have a response to that yes when I came to school the next morning the lock had been cut off of my locker my personal belongings were missing and I was ordered to go down to Prince gomez this office who was in principal Gomez's office principal Gomez was there along with Casey Sanderson who I had thought was a student at Phillips but who actually was Casey Sanderson does he she was actually Casey Mancuso an undercover police officer working with the school okay so could you take the court through what happened in principal Gomez's office with officer Mancuso and yourself well the first thing that principal Gomez did was order Mancuso to search through my backpack like like I was some sort of criminal and it's not like there was anything illegal in the backpack after they searched the backpacks did they do anything with the contents yes they took some leaflets that I had along with my cell phone what did he do with the smartphone Jesse they asked for my passcode but I didn't give it to them because no one has the right to invade my privacy like that especially for no reason and just to clarify what exactly do you have on that smartphone Jesse it's mostly just personal stuff there was actually stuff that I needed for class that day on it okay now Jesse I want you to look back at some of the rule violations that principal Gomez talked about her direct examination were you here for that yes I was did you hear when she talked about the recognition of authorship on Occupy leaflets yes how did occupy if they did at all try to fulfill this requirement well you see occupied doesn't have leaders we work through a consensus so all agreements are made on behalf of the entire group and since the entire group worked on all of these leaflets we identified authorship by using the name occupy which in this case was the author and in addition to that from your observation that it looked like the school actually put in or actually enforced the rule about authorship no in fact I see useless leaflets all the time in this school and they never have it have an author and they're never taken down just ours furthermore where were these occupy leaflets produced they were all made at a local print shop which was off-site from high school and at what time period did you pass out these leaflets we hinted them out before and after school okay now Jessie I want you to look back at the entire course of occupies protests as a whole were there any instances to your knowledge of vandalism by a member of Occupy actions of every single member of Occupy response Shana yes I believe the question was specifically phrased so based it was based on mr. Jesse's actual observations he's not testifying as to every group or every member of Occupy just based on what he observed may I respond the question did call for the members of any the actions of any Occupy member which would ask for mr. Springfield to testify as to these members actions the objection is overruled yes the question would you actor for me to repeat the question yes please so Jessie based on your observations were there any instances of vandalism by Occupy members from what I observed absolutely not what about once again from your observations violence by occupy members no again the beauty of occupy is that we were able to voice our opposition without any need for physical violence whatsoever nothing further at this time your honor any cross-examination you may proceed my name is Megan Shanklin and I'll be asking you a few questions today at school you become a member of your group occupy correct yes I am a member of occupy and in fact mr. Springfield you're a leader of this group by example correct I wouldn't say I'm a leader um occupy really doesn't have leaders you would say you're a leader by example though correct I guess you could say that yes and in fact you're actually more active than most members I would say that yes and some of occupies other active members includes storm Jackson Alex Leslie Terry Silva and Toby van Acker correct how so I that's do the multiple different names of each individual occupy member response I can ask them separately let me hear your question again I said some of occupies other active leaders include storm Jackson Alex Leslie Terry Silva and trilby van Acker correct the objection is overruled yes your honor I'd like me to repeat the question yes please some of occupies other leaders include storm Jackson Alex Leslie Terry Silva and Toby van Acker correct well again I wouldn't call them leaders but yes they're members now occupy was started in response to Phillips's deal with the NFC right that's correct in fact the first day you heard about this deal you had a heated meeting at lunch with about 20 other students regarding ways to stop the deal right well yes lunch was our free time and you and occupy started meeting every day in your school cafeteria after that right that's correct and through these meetings you decided to create a Facebook and a Twitter for occupy correct yes and we also made online petitions and leaflets rate and this Twitter had about 300 followers right yes and your online petition had 1500 signatures yes we were extremely excited by the response and on direct examination you spoke of an article that you tried to get into the school newspaper you got this article put online correct it was online yes now the school never a censored your Twitter did they no they did not the school never censored your Facebook no they did not they never shut down your online petition no what they did not and that article actually got on the school website right somehow it did appear on the school website yes so all of these outlets of communication are still able to be accessed outside of the school building right that's correct all right now it's everything progressed you and occupy started making leaflets for your protests as you say - incorrect yes we did and you place these in various locations around Phillips yeah where Flyers normally occurred in the school no you never showed these leaflets to dr. Gomez before distributing them did you no we did not all right at this point I would like to reintroduce to the court Exhibit A please note that i'm showing a clean unmarked copy to opposing counsel along with a copy of the errata sheet may I approach the witness you may mr. Springfield can you place out the court what this is these are select provisions from the student handbook all right can you please go to the section titled non school sponsored publications and please follow along as I read sub-clause a under number three anyone wishing to distribute literature shall present a copy to the principal one day in advance of its planned distribution but I read that correctly yes you did all right now please follow along as I read number four all persons contributing articles to such publications shall acknowledge authorship upset articles by signing them and shall refrain from libel obscene idiom and irresponsible personal attacks did I read that correctly yes you did which in this case we did and that was not the first time you've actually seen that rule correct I'm sorry can you repeat your question that's not the first time you've actually seen this rule number four correct what is not in fact your teacher mr. Chen actually showed you that already yes she did at this point I'd like to move to introduce Exhibit B to the court please don't that I'm showing opposing counsel I clean on my copy may I approach the witness made yourself this is a flier detailing some of occupies concerns correct yes it is mr. Springfield can you please point out to the court where your name is on this flier the name of the author which was the group occupy is written here occupy the field mr. Springfield I'm not sure that you understood my question I simply asked if you could point out to the court where your name the words Jessie Springfield are on the paper my name isn't on it the school does not call for student names mr. Springfield I'm not asking about your opinion on the school rule I'm simply asking for you to point out your name on the flier and you cannot do so correct my name is not on the snow how about storm Jackson's name no Alex Leslie's know Terry Silva's no Toby van ackers no so mister Springfield can you point out to the court the name of any occupy member on that flier well as a group we worked on these together these students that you named so in this case to acknowledge authorship we use the name occupy the field so to return to my question the answer was no correct that's correct now mr. Springfield regarding the rule specifically could you please turn your attention back to exhibit a now the rule I just read number four it does say all persons correct yes it does so despite being made aware of this rule occupy didn't give a single person's name on their fire did they know this rule only calls for these persons who contributed to acknowledge authorship which we did by using the name occupy mr. Springfield to clarify occupy is a group correct yes it is occupy isn't a person is it no it's just a group of people all right let's go to one last section the section titled student clubs can you please follow along as I start reading at Phillips and ending up publications Phillips does not permit non curriculum elated student groups to use school facilities for meetings or activities in order to use school facilities for meetings and special events student clubs must register and be approved by the principal or her designee and agreed to comply with all applicable school rules regarding membership and publications did I read that correctly yes now occupy never registered as a student group relevance may be heard yes specifically in the Board of Education versus Morgan's case the Supreme Court was faced with a similar decision like this where a non curriculum based group was under scrutiny for their use of school facilities and that non curriculum based group didn't fulfill the procedural requirements of the school districts in order to become a curriculum based group but in that decision the Supreme Court put no weight on the procedural requirements much like in this case the procedural requirement of applying and only focused on the substance of the group itself in determining whether or not it was curriculum based thus opposing counsel using the line of questioning to establish procedural requirements is not relevant in this case as the Supreme Court put no weight of the evidence on the actual matter in the Morgan's case marathon yes this case is not Board of Education versus merchants opposing counsel may argue the connection the Board of Education versus merchants in his closing argument however this questioning about if occupy ever registered as a student group is simply being used to show the court the facts of the case he may argue its relevance to being a curriculum related group on closing argument response your honor yes all right well I understand this case certainly is not the Board of Education vs. Morgan's case the fact of the matter is that the merchant's case established the standard for being a curriculum or non curriculum based group which is the issue at hand today and which is the issue that opposing counsel is trying to draw from my witness thus it's not relevant today to ask about the procedural requirements as the Board of Education case actually never put any weight of consideration based on curriculum or non curriculum solely based on the actual procedural requirements simply only on the substantive matters of the group matters but I don't think you need to I mean that's a proper point to raise on final argument but for purposes of cross-examination I think the question is proper I'm going overrule the objection yes your honor mr. Springfield occupy never registered as a student group correct no we did not furthermore occupy received a notice from the school right yes we did and that notice data that you're prohibited from meeting on high school property that's correct and at a meeting that night the same night you receive that notice you actually decided to erect your tent city isn't that right yes we decided that we needed to take this protest public at this point I move to introduce Exhibit C to the court please don't that I'm showing opposing counsel a clean and unmarked copy may I approach the witness made you sir now this is a map of Phillips school grounds correct yes it is and can you please point out to the court where your tent city is on this map ten City took place in this away from the grassy area which was in front of the football stadium so according to this map occupies tent city is in fact on school grounds I mean it was away from the high school and we did not use the football stadium itself but I guess you could say technically so that's a yes it was on school grounds yes thank you no further questions any redirect yes your honor I foresee you may Jessie do you still have Exhibit A with you on the stand yes I'd like to draw your attention to what a person can last you in cross-examination specifically rule number four under school sponsored non school sponsored publications okay your honor let the record reflect I'm referring to rule number four on the bottom of page 149 okay and then that rule Jessie could you tell the court at any point does that rule talk about single authors absolutely not it only states that the per student that contributed need to acknowledge authorship and since we make all of our decisions as a group as a consensus we decided that in order to acknowledge authorship we would use the name of the group occupy as to the extent that occupy was following or not following this rule response your honor yes questions simply asked what occupy did to try and follow the rule itself not whether or not occupy and mr. Springfield's opinion actually followed the rule simply what the group did to try and abide by the school he's not giving an improper opinion pursuant to rule 7 no.1 he's permitted to give opinions rationally based on what he's perceived and since opposing counsel did establish the foundation that he's seen the rules before he's read them before he can give an opinion as to how occupies the Flyers themselves are trying to adhere to the rule yes although the question may not have called for an improper opinion mr. Springfield at apply his action to the school's rules and thus did draw an improper opinion on how well his group who he has biased towards how well they followed this rule objection is overruled yes your honor were you finished with your answer yes I was okay so could you is exhibit b snow up there Jessie yes it is could you just highlight for the court specifically a wire on where in that exhibit you tried to follow the school rule well like I said we used the name of the group which who were the authors of these and at the top it says the name of the group which is occupied the field your honor let the record reflect that mr. Springfield has pointed to the top of the exhibit B the section where the name of the group is identified the record will reflect no further questions at this time your honor any recross wouldn't spit up now thank you this is defense have any additional evidence to present yes your honor there's time the defense calls Alex Chen to the standard you may proceed introduce yourself for the court yes my name is Alex Chen I'm a government teacher at Phillips high school and how long have you been in Phelps high school well I actually graduated from Phillips as a student in 2002 and in 2010 I came back as a teacher so what were you doing the interim between these two years well during this time I served in the US Army and completed two tours of duty in Iraq afterwards I took the next opportunity to be honorably discharged in return to the States and returned to the States what did you do then well I attended the Ohio State University and received my bachelor's degree in education and then went on to the University of Cincinnati to receive my masters so as a government teacher Phillips high school what courses do you teach well I teach us history and political science as well as government besides being a teacher do you have any other responsibilities within the school yes I also sit on the school board that oversees Philip student groups so in relation to that I serve as an adviser to several of these groups such as Mock Trial and more informally occupy so why did you agree to become involved with a group occupy well although I do see some value in an artificial turf field I believe that the right of these students to express their views is far more important you know these are the same rules that we teach them about in schools the same rose rights that I personally fought for and I believe it's extremely crucial that we allow these students to continue to develop these skills so how did you actually become involved with occupy well I hope these lunch discussions you see in I think of these as my own version of FDR's fireside chats during this time the students and I gather and we discuss many current events issues such as civil disobedience in the Arab Spring and we've also had discussions called what would Martin Luther King jr. do so naturally topics like these served as a springboard for discussion into the NFC deal so who was involved with these discussions well Jesse Springfield was a frequent member of these discussions as well as some other members who would later go on to form occupy are you familiar with Jesse Springfield yes in fact he's one of my US history students and I would say he's one of my better students always engaged in inquisitive in class and particularly interested in corporate power and corporate influence on politics okay so following these lunch discussions did you continue to be involved with occupy yes I did in the beginning I helped coordinate meetings between the students and posed to the NFC deal and the school administration and afterwards from time to time consulted with the students in regards to school policy and ultimately intended tensity as well okay so you mentioned meetings what was the nature of these meetings well there were two meetings the first was with the principal and the second one had the superintendent in attendance as well in both cases the purpose of these meetings was to allow these students to articulate their position on the NFC deal and as later their protests would show to be able to request for public hearings on the matter and what was the school's response during these meetings well unfortunately the school shut the students down principal Gomez told the students that the NSC contract was a done deal that there wasn't anything they could change at that point so following this response from the school did occupy take any further action to get their message out yes seeing as the school was not responding to their concerns occupy decided to try to garner support for their cause to spread their word just like we've seen in historical movements such as during woman suffrage so they started passing out leaflets posting up flyers and signs and even creating an online petition as well so from your perspective as a teacher as Jen could you describe the impact that occupies protests have had on the environment of the school well as the NFC deal was a controversial issue naturally students did form sides and there was some tension and dispute but nothing of a major degree of distraction I would say and did this tension ever affect your classroom teachings well I do recall one instance in what students early on when the group was just forming did get off-track discussing protest activities but even then I was able to draw the students back to the original discussion at hand and was that the only time occupy was ever brought up in your class well as civil disobedience is a part of my classroom curriculum discussion naturally Jesse and some other members have occupied it from then on off entire classroom discussion too occupies activities but as a teacher I actually see that as extremely encouraging to know that my students are able to take what they learned in class and apply it to their own lives okay so based upon your observations did occupies protest ever results in violence in the school from what I saw I do not believe so sir did you observe any disruption of property from views defendants no sir I believe not did you observe any physical altercations no sir so following occupies protest into the school respond yes in fact the school came down pretty heavy-handed on these students at once school started taking out Occupy's flyers and signs added additional surveillance around the school and I tried to request for another meeting for the students with the principal but unfortunately was denied this request later on I then learned that the school sent out a warning letter to some of the members of Occupy as well so specifically following this warning letter then did occupy continue their protests yes and after several failed attempts to reach out to the school administration occupy decided next to take their protest public and did so through their symbolic demonstration of opposition to the NFC deal known as tent city okay so your earlier mention that you attended tent city could you describe the layout for the court yes tent city was set up on the grass or excuse me is set up on the grass north of the football stadium and it's actually set up sort of like a military bivouac site when I first attended there about 10 to 12 tents with 40 or so protesters and all and based on your observations could you describe the environment at tent city well tent city was incredibly calm and peaceful when I attended the event students they're just interacted with one another in a calm manner and with other members of the community that happened to attend as well in fact some of the students just did their homework while they attended the event and while you were there did you ever engage in with any of the students yes I had the excellent opportunity to sit down and have a discussion with some of the students about how 10-city Ecco the historical protests we've seen in our nation for example the civil rights sit-ins and during the time that you were there did occupy take any action as a group well there were ground rules set forth at the event and these were the same rules that were set forth at the Occupy Wall Street movement so the rules were along the lines of no violence no drugs no alcohol rules of that nature and to the best of your knowledge where these rules ever violated by the Occupy members from what I saw absolutely not I'm actually extremely proud of my students and how they conducted their demonstration so earlier mr. Chan we heard from principal Gomez about school policy concerning the usage of 10-city grounds the grounds upon which density occurred are you aware of this policy yes there are actually two policies governing this area one in regards to your curriculum versus non curriculum related groups and the second in regards to access to the field in the surrounding grounds no mr. Chen do still have exhibit a as was the radish e in front of you yes I do so are you familiar with a policy concerning curriculum and non curricula at groups yes as I am on the school committee board so what's the distinction between a curriculum and non Christian related group well Kirkland related groups have the benefit of access to school facilities for their events and functions and how does one become a curriculum way to group well there are actually several methods that one can use but in this case I believe the one that were the most qualified would be the qualification that the group itself has to essentially be an extension of class discussion and cover material that is taught in that class so in your opinion based upon your observations with of occupy would they fall into the category of curriculum related well absolutely and why is that well occupies protest activities were essentially born through my class discussions if you take a look at for example their protest activities are there demonstrations their methods of garnering support their actions parallel similar actions that were taken in history during a historical protest we've seen such as the Vienna more protests a civil rights movement woman's suffrage or even the more recent Occupy Wall Street movement so you also mentioned a second policy concerning these stadium grounds specifically could you elaborate what that policy is yes that policy is a general policy that states that anyone can have access to the football field and surrounding grounds as long as there are no events scheduled on that night and the nighttime City occurred were there any other school events scheduled no there were none so looking back on 10:30 then it occupies usage of those grounds for tech city violate any school policy well I do not believe so I mean occupy meets the spirit the essence of what a curriculum related group is all about and even if we disregard this rule the general policy states anyone can have access to the football field if there are no events scheduled so in that respect occupy did not violate any rules no further questions your honors any cross-examination [Music] I proceed you may morning mr. Chang my name is Arnaud sir kara and I'm gonna be asking a few questions today all right so you're pretty familiar with Jessie Springfield seeing as he's one of your best students correct yes that is correct and you've become somewhat of an informal advisor to his group occupy yes ma'am and being the informal advisor you could say you know quite a bit about occupy right yes I would say so so let's talk about occupies actions occupy did post flyers around the school correct yes that is correct and occupy engaged in protest activities yes they I believe they did and their protest activities occurred both in and around the school that is correct and the school is tense wasn't it yes as I stated earlier and students begin to take sides on this issue yes as NSC the NFC contract was a controversial issue all right and students would argue with each other in the hallways about this issue you are correct ma'am and some students would interrupt occupy meetings in the cafeteria that is correct and all anyone wanted to talk about in classes occupied the NFC and the stadium deal yes those three topics and Jim Jesse and other students use every possible opportunity to tie the class discussion to occupy activities yes as I stated before I really do see that as encouraging as a teacher that's yes yes that is correct so at this time I'd like to introduce Exhibit A yes I do have a copy all right so could you please tell the court what this is yes Exhibit A is select provisions of the Philips high school student handbook and could you follow along as I read from page 150 starting under student clubs at Phillips does not permit noncurriculum-related student clubs to school facilities for meetings or activities in order to use school facilities for meetings and special events student clubs must register and be approved by the principal or her designee and agree to comply with all applicable school rules regarding membership and publication varied that correctly yes you did you claimed that school policy allows all students access to the field and no events are scheduled right yes that is a general policy that's been put into practice at Phillips however I did just read that role correctly didn't I yes you did so according to the school throws policy that I just read you need to be a registered curriculum related group donar relevancy may be heard yes while I understand the courts previous ruling concerning board education versus merchants relevancy to this specific instance I would like to rear a z' the objection to preserve the record a response Your Honor my opposing counsel can argue the relation to Board of Education Verma vs. merchants on his closing yeah the record will reflect your your continuing objection to that regard regarding this your objection to this testimony the objection will be overruled yes your honor may ask question again yes so according to the school the Philips school policy that I just read you need to be a registered curriculum related group to use school facilities yes that is correct right and in order to be considered considered an official student group you need to apply right yes to be recognized by the school and in order to apply you must be approved by the principal and that is what it states yes and the group must draft the Constitution that is a rule that's put into pas excuse me put into practice and you must elect student leaders yes and mr. Chen you are on the committee that oversees official student groups right that is correct so you were aware of these rules at the time you met with occupy yes I was and you explained these rules to them I did at an after school meeting I attended yes to this day to your knowledge has occupy ever drafted a constitution no they did not actually agree with all of the requirements such as drafting a constitution and they've never elected leaders have they no they felt it did not best represent the group no yes that doesn't know and occupy has never been approved by principal Gomez that is correct and in fact occupy never even applied to be considered a registered curriculum related group but dr. Gomez is married that is correct so let's talk about you you only allowed to advise a registered curriculum related student groups correct yes as a formal adviser and principal Gomez had requested that you bring any prohibited activity by occupied to her attention correct that is correct and this prohibited activity included meeting or distributing literature on school property right that is correct and you'd seen occupy students copy flyers I had seen them do so yes and you had seen occupy students then posting their flyers on the school walls that is correct and you had seen these occupy students meeting in unused classrooms and they weren't supposed to yes only an unused classrooms however however when they were not supposed to correct that is correct all right now mr. Chen you are in school roughly five days a week right yes that is correct roughly eight hours a day yes I would say so yes with all this time you had you never notified people gomez about these prohibited activities did you yes I was unwilling to assist a school administration that was unfairly targeting these occupy students it's not my question you never notified principal Gomez at any point about occupy committing these prohibited activities did you that is correct all right and just to clarify your teaching contract requires you to enforce leaflet and facilities rules against non registered student groups that is correct so therefore you broke your own teaching contract didn't you by not enforcing the leaflet and facilities rules yes I did not want to participate in assist this school in doing so that's a yes you broke your teaching contract yes that is correct thank you no further questions your honor you redirect yes your honor you may Chen do you call poses counsel quest question on cross-examination concerning the debates in the hallways of Philips high school yes I do based on your observations of these debates did they disrupt the school environment not that what I recall the NMC controversy was as I said a big issue so naturally there was some dispute but it never resulted in a major degree of disruption the public all opposing counsels question regarding these protests and in relationship to your classroom yes I do sir did occupies discussion ever affect her classroom in a negative way overall there was no negative impact I only recall one instance in which I had to even steer them back into the original discussion besides that one instance you describe how occupies discussions affected your classroom well as I stated earlier I find it extremely encouraging that my students can take what they learned and apply to their own lives and so I actually would enjoy seeing that they are able to do so and be able to contribute to class discussion in this manner their further questions your honor witness may step down at this time we'll take two minutes so that Canton counsel can prepare your closing arguments if the timekeepers would keep track of that for me as appreciated ohayo high school mock trial championship coordinated by the Ohio Center for law related education we are at the Statehouse in downtown Columbus I'm Stefanie Bouguer with the Supreme Court of Ohio right now the students of just a couple of minutes to get ready for their closing arguments in the case Philip school district vs. Jessie Springfield orange High School has been arguing for the plaintiff Philips School District and it will argue that it's temporary restraining order against the protest should be granted and that it did not violate the students 1st and 4th Amendment rights Sylvania South View High School arguing for the defendant Jessie Springfield has been arguing that the students 1st and 4th Amendment rights were violated and that the school district's temporary restraining order should be denied after our teams deliver their closing arguments the judges will adjourn for a short time to deliberate during which time I will have a chance to talk with some of these students who've been participating today when the judges are finished our coverage will continue as they give comments and announce our winning team right now let's go back to the floor as we hear our closing arguments [Music] [Music] you may please the court as my co-counsel stated there is a time and a place for everything as we saw today occupies tent city protests is that neither the proper time nor place your honors today we have proven two things one that all four factors necessary to granting Phillips's temporary restraining order have been satisfied by both clear and convincing evidence and two that the defendants have failed to prove even a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims and thus their tiara should be denied as for Philips astillero we have demonstrated the Philips does indeed have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits to occupy is not a curriculum Laden group and thus is not entitled to access school facilities in Board of Education versus merchants the Supreme Court upheld that a group is not per accumulated if it has as his purpose the advocacy of partisan theological political or ethical views your honors partisan political views are the basis of occupies existence you heard Jesse Springfield come to the stand today and argue for occupies political opposition to the NFC and its CEO is Phillips thus occupy is unquestionably noncurriculum-related furthermore you heard today who occupy it was a constant disruption to the school day in both the halls and the classroom testified to by dr. gomez Alex Chen and KC Mancuso Phillips's actions today are rooted in its school handbook the Equal Access Act and pertinent Supreme Court precedents and the Equal Access Act explicitly does not limit a school's authority to maintain order and discipline on its premises because it is not quick humilated and because of its excessively disruptive nature occupy is not entitled to access school facilities like the grounds that it's ten city is currently standing on your honour's phillips high school will undoubtedly suffer irreparable harm if this restraining order is not granted not only did dr. Gomez testify to the importance of the five hundred thousand dollar deal with the NFC and the safety improvements that I could bring but she also stressed the providing education to the students is Phillips's main objective if occupy continued of the disruptive actions it will inflict a level of harm on both the school and the students that can never be undone here on the other hand granting this motion will cause no harm to any of the members of occupy as you heard from Jessie Springfield occupy was never limited using the internet for communication ever its ideas furthermore there has been no testimony whatsoever suggesting that occupy was ever limited for protesting in public places outside the school because these alternative means are available it is apparent that the defendants will not be restricted in the communication of their opinions as for the defendants own TR oh we have demonstrated that there has been no unconstitutional restraint on the students freedom of expression under the First Amendment as dr. Gomez testified it was the time place and manner of Occupy speech that called for the enforcement of school rules not its content thus occupy speech was indeed open to Philips it's reasonable time place and manner restrictions as per the guidelines set by Clark versus community for creative non-violence to the claim of the Fourth Amendment violation the Supreme Court in New Jersey vs. TLO established the legality of school searches does indeed depend on reasonableness reasonable reasonableness is determined by whether the search was justified at his inception and whether the scope of the search was reasonable under the circumstances the locker and backpack searches in today's case were indeed justified as inception as the students had broken countless school rules you heard this today from dr. Gomez from Alex Chen but most notably your honors from Jessie Springfield himself furthermore the search was justified in scope due to the fact that following detective Mancuso's undercover Gatien he had reasonable suspicion that occupy was planning to break more rules and potentially laws your honors there's a time and there is a place for everything on school grounds during school hours it's simply not the time nor the place for the non curriculum based group occupy to conduct their disruptive protests therefore the plaintiff respectfully requests for the court denied the defendants motion for temporary restraining order and grant the motion of Philips thank you thank you defense counsel you make your closing argument may I proceed you may an opposing counsel may it please the court an opposing counsels opening statement she talked about the need to satisfy a healthy and safe learning environment but in fact the most integral part about that learning environment is the ability for students to express their beliefs to express their ideas in the words of Supreme Court justice brennan our schools are to be the marketplace of ideas with all due respect to opposing counsel the school is always the time the school is always the place for this exchange of ideas and for this marketplace because that's what creates the future leaders of this nation but despite that school today trying to stifle this stifle the marketplace and stifle the learning process when we examine the four elements of a temporary restraining order today as established by the Coleman vs. Wilkinson case we'll start with the very first substantial likelihood for success on a trial the merits and our burden today is through clear and convincing evidence but when we apply it to the First Amendment rights at hand whether you're looking at the plaintiffs motion to enjoin 10 city or the defense's motion to maintain our leaflets the law remains the same the plaintiff has failed first because they failed to prove him substantial and material interference in the school because while principal Gomez wants to testify to the disruptions that are present look at the actual testimony of individuals who are present at the school like officer Mancuso miss Chen or Jessie Springfield because the fact that there is no violence that there was no vandalism most of all officer Mancuso never made a single arrests a noted any specific actions of illegal activity tent city has been standing for two weeks during that course of time Prince McComas has not received a single complaint about any instance of a violation of school rules or the law in fact it mirrors the symbolic speech that was protected under the timber versus Des Moines case much like the armbands that the students had on themselves second the plaintiff espero today in their application of the Clark versus community case because while they are entitled to reasonable time place and manner restrictions those are only possible if the application is content-neutral but that's not what happened principal Gomez never took action against the occupy students until the corporate influence of Lee Martin pushed her to do so she's trying to shut down tent city she tore down the leaflets she shut down the newspaper article not because of disruptions but because of the message of occupying and inherently is a not content neutral finally under the Board of Education versus Morgan's case the supreme court put no weight on the procedural requirements that the plaintiff wants to argue today but rather simply on the substantive aspects of the group and miss Chen told you today that occupy is curriculum based because they stem specifically from a regularly taught course that's offered at Phillips high school and finally applying this first element to the fourth amendment the unreasonable search and seizure of the student's belongings under the New Jersey vs. TLO case schools do have the right to search students belongings if they have a reasonable suspicion of violations of the law or school policy but the school had nothing more than a hunch nothing more than an ideal what they thought was going to be in the backpacks closed personal belongings that they couldn't see into and they found no evidence linking any case of Andorra's and occupy any incidents of hacking to occupy and they're trying to justify their search just because they found a few leaflets that the students had produced out and had them with them on their persons next if we move to the element of irreparable harm the argument for this element as well as the prejudice of third parties is essentially the same a bruising counselor talked about the irreparable harm in the form of $500,000 but that in the very nature is not irreparable but look instead to the today but the schools trying to stifle their creative ability in a marketplace of ideas and the loss of freedom of speech for single minute for a single hour for a single day that's incalculable to the students that can never be repaid back to them whereas the school's irreparable harm the prejudice simply lies in a dollar amount that can be repaid back to them and finally your honors if we apply the final principle which is out of public interest the final element of the temporary restraining order becomes clear based on the petitions of Occupy based on the community support for the back for this opposition against this backdoor deal that the community supports occupy but in addition to that throughout the precedence as mr. Chen talks about in our history class whether it's the civil rights movement the women's suffrage movement or the protest against the Vietnam War time and time again history has shown that we protect the voices of the minority the voices of the daring individuals who dare to stand up and voice their opposition against oppressive bodies that are trying to constrict them so your honors today we ask you to rule in favor of that marketplace of ideas we ask you to we're in favor of defendants today to grant this temporary restraining order to preserve that marketplace because the school's actually is a time and is the place for the protest activities to occur because there's been no disruption but rather it's the place for these marketplace of ideas and these robust exchanges to occur thank you thank you players council you may your honors opposing counsel came to the sand today and they told us a story it told us the story of a greedy principle motivated by a corporation that went out to violate students rights because she didn't like what they had to say they equated today's case the Supreme Court case tinker versus Des Moines in tinker the Supreme Court ruled that a school could not ban students wearing of armbands based on the absence of evidence that any of these armbands disrupted the school day but your honors that is not the case we have at hand as you heard today from almost all the witnesses called occupies flyers and activities did disrupt the school day occupies flyers violated school rules occupies actions blatantly went against the school handbook and this disruption and handbook violations are what make Phillips's actions not in violation of the First Amendment like in tinker but basic time place and manner restrictions furthermore these handbook violations and this disruption are the irreparable harm in today's case to the plaintiff the irreparable harm is not the dollar amount the irreparable harm is a disruption to the learning environment that will ensue if the students continue with their protest furthermore opposing counsel argue today the occupy was somehow curriculum elated but despite what miss Chen a teacher who openly admitted to violating her teaching contract tried to say no where in her classroom could you open a textbook to find the NFC's deal with Phillips this group clearly felt fails the merchant's test furthermore occupy didn't even attempt to register with their school to be creek room elated opposing counsel attempted to say that this didn't matter but the fact is that not registering and then having this tent city was in blatant violation of school rules and the question is if occupy was so certain but they were a curriculum related group why didn't they just attempt to apply to register thank you thank you at this time my colleagues will retire to begin deliberating on their scores [Music] I will remain on the bench for three minutes during which time any protestor objection may be brought to my attention by a team attorney the team attorneys may communicate with all performing team members involved in this actual round but may not communicate in any way with legal advisors teachers or anyone outside their performing team members feel free to use the three minutes if at any time during the three minutes you decide that you don't have any post trial injection you can simply indicate it at that time [Music] the 2014 Ohio High School Mock Trial Championship on the Ohio Channel we just heard closing arguments for the mock trial case Phillips School District vs. Jessie Springfield right now the judges have retired to do their scoring and while they're do that we're gonna have the opportunity to hear from Lisa a Schulman and get her take on the students performance Lisa thanks so much for rejoining us what were your overall impressions as you heard the two schools today make their arguments this was an incredible championship round these students were exactly what we had hoped and anticipated they were polished they were confident they knew this case inside and out and I put them in a courtroom with any practicing law in the state of Ohio it was a fabulous fabulous day I I made an observation as I was watching the arguments of our our two schools very polite isn't that a normal thing that you will see not only a mock trial but in a real trial it is we it is part of the respect for the court and the respect for the rule of law and so these students have been taught and have learned that when I'm talking to this bench when I'm asking questions are raising an objection with respect to a piece of evidence I do it in a very professional very calm and very respectful way all right so let's let's summarize again a little bit about the school's arguments if you could kind of capsule what what they talked about today certainly there are two strong arguments in this case the first one is centered on the First Amendment of the Constitution and it really is what's the proper scope of a student's First Amendment rights within the schoolhouse framework in this case the students are saying that the school has imprinted upon their First Amendment rights by putting in cameras by policing their fliers and restricting where they can put the information up the school on the other hand says we have the right as educators to put appropriate parameters around a student's free speech then the second one is the Fourth Amendment and that's the one with respect to what the proper scope of a school's right to go in and do a search of a school's locker a student's Locker their backpacks or any of their materials in this case obviously the plaintiffs are saying it was impermissible for the schools to search the lockers to look for the pamphlets and the materials and the school is saying we had to we didn't know what was on hand we didn't know where this was going and that's within our right to control the school for safety reasons amongst others when they started the research to put together their arguments basically they had that lack of case study they just had kind of a general thing to go off of from from there then they built their case the materials provided by the Ohio Center for law related education includes a brief for both the plaintiff and a brief for the defendant that contains the law that contains all of the case materials on the legal research is all prepared and given to the students they also within those briefs there are references to the most significant Supreme Court cases and the students are limited to using those materials as they prepare their legal arguments for the the mock trial all right but the other things that came up during the trial like the objections that comes directly from the students it does as we talked about before the trial began part of what the scoring judges are going to be looking for is the mastery of trial procedure so we saw students stand up and when they say object they were looking for what's the basis of that objection that's when you heard I object because it's hearsay or I objected because it's asked and answered so you raised the objection you tell them why you think it's an improper piece of evidence and then the other side has the opportunity to respond and we saw that both today as well they also provided some exhibits was that part of the material that you gave to them it is we provide exhibits and part of the trial procedure and practices do I lay a proper foundation for that do I know the procedure for getting that piece of exhibit into evidence and we saw that the students do that just fabulously today so the judges are gonna have a very tough decision I would think what about what about you do you think that that's going to be a difficult decision for them what are they what are they talking about right now well first of all I'm grateful that I'm not back there trying to make this decision because I believe it's going to be down to the wire when we have students at this love of the competition we're talking points we're talking just matter of points they're going to be the judges in the scoring room today are looking at exactly what we talked about before I'm the mastery of the law the mastery of being able to put the application of the facts to that law trial procedure and then just their presence and their ability to ask questions and respond to questions also we have the rules of the witnesses you know the witnesses who testified today are part of that scoring process as well so the judges are back there talking about the persuasiveness of the witnesses what are the witnesses mastery of the case you know do they know the facts and their role in the whole and how do they respond to the questions both on direct and cross-examination well it'll be exciting to find out how the judges decide to score on all that because the kids did a great job and of course the Ohio Center for a law where they get education did a great job for 31 years putting together this mock trial competition well we're very very fortunate that we have an incredible group of volunteer lawyers and judges who every year devote countless hours to creating the fact patterns upon which the case is based they write every witness statement they do all of the research they write all of the briefs they put all of those materials together and quite frankly we couldn't do it without them today our volunteer judges who are serving on the panel they play such a critical role in everything that we do so we're very very grateful thank you so much Lisa and as we learned earlier from Jared writes the program director of the Ohio Center for law related education each of our judges today came together to volunteer their time for this high school mock trial competition so let's learn a little bit about each of those judges Steve Tilson is president of the Ohio State Bar Foundation he practices law in galleon Ohio with the firm of hot and Hrothgar Varrick Tilson and Garber ik he graduated from Delaware high Hays High School received his bachelor's degree from Ohio Wesleyan University and his law degree from the Ohio State University Tilson is active in many bar associations and committees again especially in the Crawford County area Jonathon Hollingsworth is president of the Ohio State Bar Association he received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University his Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan and he's been in practice of law for 29 years including many of those with the firm Porter right Morris and Arthur and in the most recent years in his small firm setting out of the Dayton he is the past president of the Dayton Bar Association presiding judge Jerry McBride is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati where he earned a bachelor's degree and masters in public administration he's a judge for Clermont County Common Pleas Court previously a judge for a Municipal Court Judge MacBride was also a county commissioner in Clermont County he is a member of the high school mock trial competition committee and Judge Deborah auspi is the administrative judge of the Family Court in Marion County Common Pleas Court she received her Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from the Ohio State University and her Juris Doctorate from Ohio Northern University Judge auspi began her legal career as a clerk for the Law Aid Society of Columbus she opened up a private practice she serves as Marion County mock trial district and regional coordinator so those are your judges for the 2014 mock trial championship now let's hear from some of the students who participated today and if you would please introduce yourself and the school that you are actually representing today sure uh my name is your on Chen I am a senior at Sylvania Southview High School and and you were part of the defense team yes we represented the defense on behalf of Jessie Springfield today so how do you think it went uh obviously when you get to the state finals it's a very close round so I guess we'll wait to see the result okay anything that surprised you during this this final of this competition because you guys have presented you went through the district you went through the regionals and then you have the state finals where you've already presented this in the last couple of days how did how do you think it went in in comparison to all of those other times um I mean obviously very orange is a very very good team we've been kind of prepared for this though because we've been doing a lot of preparation in the long run our coaches have done a really good job of preparing us to try and make sure that we're not surprised by anything but of course each team's interpretation of the materials and everything is also unique so there are some nuances about the trial that do surprise us a little bit but I think participating in the state competition has been good practice for us in the long run so if you go on to the national championship is going to be coming up in a couple of months yeah yes we will hopefully if that does happen I'll be will be participating in that and how many teams did Sylvania self you have you had and all together company we had a total of four teams all four of them made it to regionals and then two teams advanced from regionals to the state competition well good luck let's we can't wait to hear what the judges have to say about your performance today thank you so MUC thank you alright and now we're going to take a quick talk with someone from the orange high school because they're all wearing green green is where orange is wearing green today so we appreciate your time if you would please introduce yourself and what school you are my name is Arianna sir kara and I go to Orange high school alright and you were presenting on the plaintiff side for the Phillips High School School District so what did it take to get ready for today I was so nervous but like I couldn't even think of anything this morning so I was just kind of trying to be calm all morning but then I got in there and I I wasn't even nervous anymore I just did it so no nerves you were all set to go I was more nervous at districts and I was in the state championship and outside what about your team what did it take to kind of all come together and and prepare for this type of competition well we're all good friends so we get along really well and we practice like four times a week every week to our practices so we put in a lot of hard work so it definitely paid off yeah and I've heard the comment that you you students could be taken to any real trial at any time and present your arguments before a real panel of judges does that is that's that's high praise it is I hope it's true they say that at the end of every trial and I hope it's true good to know for the future arjan a good luck thank you so much for talking with us today all right so let's talk to the man himself jesse springfield of course obviously if you step up step on up I won't bite I promise and let's give you a real name and what school you go to I'm Zach Pacheco and I'm a sophomore at Sylvania South you okay and Jack is this the first time that you've participated in mock Drive I know this is actually my second year so this is a completely different case than what you had to present last year what did you think about the experience this year in your second year well I feel like this case was a lot different but I feel like the first year really prepared us a lot better so I wasn't as nervous going into this year all right so a little less nerves happening yeah yeah what about the other team what how do you think everyone kind of compared well the other team was phenomenal I mean obviously it was a very close round but we've went up against a lot of good teams at state so far so we're just lucky to be here at this point so while you didn't get to present a legal argument you had to kind of get into character what did it take to become Jesse Springfield well actually I love playing witnesses because you have to really get into the character and think what this character would be thinking so it's a lot of work but it's fun well good luck and we'll certainly find out very soon what the judges think about the competition today okay thank you well as you know we talked earlier about the room that we're in it's the hearing room for the Ohio Senate the Senate building is connected to the Ohio State House through the atrium which was constructed in the 1990s these three buildings the State House the Senate building and the atrium comprised Capitol Square since we're coming to you from such a historic location we thought we'd take a moment and learn a little bit more about these buildings the Ohio channels coverage of the 2014 Ohio High School Mock Trial Championship will resume in a few minutes [Music] the Ohio Statehouse was completed in 1861 at the beginning of America's Civil War the Statehouse is considered to be one of the most significant architectural accomplishments in the early republic its Greek Revival Doric architectural details and proportions give the impression of permanence elegance and grandeur deserved by the original state legislature who passed a law on January 26th 1838 to build the new Statehouse restored to its 1861 appearance the Ohio State House maintains its historic character as it continues to function as the center of state government in Ohio the Ohio State House is situated on a 10 acre parcel of land that was donated in 1812 by four prominent Columbus landowners the Statehouse is upon foundations 18 feet deep built in part by prisoners sentenced to labor the Statehouse features a central recessed porch with a colonnade of a forthright and primitive Greek Doric mode built of Columbus limestone that was quarried on the west banks of the Scioto River a broad and low central pediment supports the drum shaped cupola which contains a skylight that lights the interior rotunda unlike many u.s. state capitol buildings the Ohio State House owes little to the architecture of the United States Capitol it was designed and built before the US Capitol was enlarged to its present form with a large white dome that would become ubiquitous on government buildings in America the Ohio State House has been termed a supreme example of Greek Revival style because the city-states of ancient Greece were the birthplace of democracy this style had great meaning in the young American nation Greek Revival is simple and straightforward and looks nothing at all like the Gothic Revival buildings popular in Europe at the same period the broad horizontal man of the building and the even and regular rows of columns resemble such buildings as the Parthenon in Athens no ancient Greek building would have contained Windows but they were a major part of Greek Revival for a more practical reason before the electric light bulb sunlight was the major source of illumination more than a century and a half old the Ohio State House has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the US Department of the Interior this honor recognizes the long history of the building and the continued role we'll have in the life and lawmaking of the state of Ohio [Music] [Applause] [Music] surrounded by brilliantly white marble you're standing in one of the most impressive spaces in the Capitol Square complex it is enclosed by a ceiling of detailed murals which surround a stained-glass Great Seal of Ohio skylight before the massive renovations during the 1990s it was not known that there was a skylight in this space because it had been covered from the inside and outside with pieces of plywood restorers speculate that the skylight had been covered because it was in such a state of disrepair that it leaked who might possibly fall out it has since been repaired and secured as you gaze upward you'll notice the murals on the ceiling of the grand stair hall these four murals represent art justice manufacturing and agriculture each painting shows a woman holding various related objects also used for decoration in the Senate building is gold and aluminum leafing although the gold leafing appears to be quite prevalent there are only slightly more than three ounces of gold in the building today the Senate building is home to thirty one of Ohio's 33 senators the Senate President and Senate Minority Leader both have office house I hope you enjoy that virtual tour and you can find many more Statehouse ture videos at ohio channel org and also on itunes by searching for capital ohio well we we snagged a few more students and they're gonna be talking about their experience and if you would please give us your name and what school year were okay my name is Shivani Bhatia and I'm with orange high school and so you were not actually on this team you were in the audience so what role were you prepared to do well I was prepared I'm actually an attorney on the defense side so depending on the coin flip it like decides which side goes so today I didn't really know what was gonna happen but our plaintiff won so I was observing today but you did get to participate through the state final competition at one point to do that yes yes yesterday we actually participated for the final four so yeah yeah so what do you think of your teammates how they do today I think they did amazing I'm really proud of my team we've come so far and we worked so hard and like I really have I'm really proud of what everything we've accomplished yeah and you're a senior yeah and how many years have you been participating a mock trial four years actually so I started as a freshman mm-hmm so how has it progressed for you when you first started as a freshman to now the air a senior how have how how's this participation and this kind of competition helped you well the cases have gotten longer definitely so statements have increased so there's we've had to put in like a lot of more hard work and time and effort into everything which is well worth it and I think we've all become really dedicated to it like we started in the beginning and now we're just so into mock trial and it's it's like we'd love to do everything relate to my trial yeah it's a lot of fun no it is it really is yeah great well thank you thank you yeah come on in we'll talk to another orange who's wearing green excellent thank you so much for coming over no problem your name please I'm Amy whoo I go to Orange high school and I represent the defendants normally okay so you were also in the crowd watching the other students so how did you how what's your assessment of today's competition I thought today's competition was really great I thought it was a very close trial I'm really proud of my teammates I think they did a great job I think all the witnesses did a great job so I'm really excited to see what happens okay and what grade are you in I'm in 12th grade I'm a senior okay and have you been doing mock trial as well since a freshman I started sophomore year and then so that's I've been do it for three years why did you decide to participate in mock trial honestly some of the my teammates who are on this team this year just came up to me and were like you should definitely join mock trial it's amazing club we love it and so I was like okay I guess I'll join and so they dragged me into it better yeah glad they dragged you into it I'm so glad this has been one of the best experiences of my high school career I would not trade it for anything so how was this gonna help you once you graduate what are you gonna go to college to do I'm not sure what I want to go to college for but right now I think it really helps with my public speaking I think it helps with team camaraderie being able to kind of be critical of certain things and like a lot of introspection on what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong and being able to change that so I think it really helps a lot of skills okay well good luck on the future endeavors thanks so much for talking with us let's let's talk to another team member from Sylvania South you come on up and if you would give us your name please my name is Kathryn dong all right and what was the role that you played today for the defense Jessie Springfield yes I am played the teacher Alex Chen right so what did you have to do to prepare to be teacher Alex Chen well there's a lot of practicing being professional and seeming like especially like a military background because that's what Alex Chen is and so I think we prepped a lot in that area were there any questions from the other side that kind of surprised you like you'd not been asked that type of question before um actually I think most of the questions had been asked before so I was just kind of seeing if I could be quick on my feet yeah and did you have to prepare was there a script that you prepared in the team how does that work um we prepare the directs but crosses since we had we can't gauge like what will be is we don't have scripts for that what would you tell someone who has never participated in mock trial before about the experience I think it's a really great experience because you get to meet a lot of different people and it also helps you in public speaking skills and being able to present you know your material not only be able to substantially prevent presenting but like also performance wise and who knew you you're gonna be live television and you did a great job thank you so much I appreciate your time let's let's talk with another Orange high school team member and if you would please your name and what grade are you are in my name is Christoph tom ii i'm a senior right now and what role did you play in today's trial I played the police officer Casey Mancuso for the plaintiff what did the officer have to say about this you basically were were testifying for the school district correct yes officer actually had a lot to say as previous people have mentioned that the witness statements were increased and I mean after playing a police officer for three years in the past three years of mock trial this year was definitely a lot different because a lot more went into the legal argument rather than just who said this we said that so you're being typecast as a police officer does that mean that you're gonna be going into law enforcement or is there a legal career in your future I haven't really decided on a legal career i'm i've been interested in becoming a pediatrician since i was in the sixth grade so i'd rather pursue that but you know I'm kind of keeping my my views open and my eyes open on any sort of yeah so were you on the the team last year that came to the state finals I know I didn't come to the state finals but I did go to a state's rid three teams go to States from Orange last year and so I was on I was on Team Madrid so okay all right well good luck thanks so much for your time today I appreciate that let's let's talk to our next participant if you would please school name and grade my name is Chloe and robust and I am from Orange I'm a senior and what role were you in today I was the stickler principal Jamie Gomez you actually seemed rather Pleasant don't you how do you think the performance went today I I did my best I thought that we all the whole team did really well and we prepared and we did what we could we did our best was there anything in particular that really stood out for you in this whole process that you're like wow I did not know that well the crosses are definitely always a surprise because you never know what they're gonna ask and the the other team had some awesome questions that I actually have never heard before some of the questions were we're new and we're difficult and are you did you say you were a senior uh-huh okay so what's what's next for you after you graduate I am going to Loyola Chicago you know Loyola University in Chicago and I plan on going into International Studies and actually studio art and how has your participation in the mock trial helped you get ready for that next step it actually has a lot to do with it because I I've actually been doing my truss and size of freshmen and my speaking has increased like tenfold my ability to just say what I want to say and my interest in international relations definitely is connected to them so this is a prediction time what do you think orange or Sylvania South you I'm not sure if I could say I seriously have no idea it was so close and both sides were so prepared and they went into it they gave it their all and I commend both teams your international studies in political being politically neutral fabulous good luck thank you all right well let's talk with a member of the Sylvania self-view highschool team and you were in I think I saw you at the timer's table did I not yes I was the backup time few perks but I'm also an attorney on the plaintiff side so I didn't perform this round today well let's give everyone your your name and what grade you're in my name is Eileen Goyal and I'm a junior what kind of time commitment was it - to take care of everything that you needed to do to get ready whether you were the backup timekeeper or you were on on the defense of course that being a plaintiff attorney there's a lot of time that goes into I spend hours every week at my coaches out almost every day more probably close to ten hours a week and coach puts in a lot of time with everyone on the team and yes for teams so it really means a lot yeah four teams with how many how many kids do you have on your team we have six some of them at five some of seven but it's anywhere between five to seven usually and so how did your team get ready for today's competition well it was just a lot of practice in rehearsal we had scrimmages almost the entire week coming up we practiced a lot with our coaches went through our directs with our rolls crosses with the other witnesses there's just a lot of preparation in practice you know you said that a little bit of mentioned about your advisory or teacher you want to give a shout out with with name of course Danny Lyle Dennis Lyle and Vicki while his wife and Tony totally okay so you had a lot of backup to help you get ready for today of course it was really helpful okay great congratulations good luck well we'll be hearing soon from the judges as they come back to the courtroom you look very official in your uniform and a police uniform so if you would please give me your name and what school you go to my name is ridwan Sadiq I am a junior at Sylvania South through high school okay and you did not get to directly participate in today no ma'am I just wore this just in case with my plaintiff okay so with a coin toss being on the defense then you weren't able to so but you had a good good seat in the gallery kind of watching how things went what do you think anything in in anything surprise you oh not really I thought it was very close I thought both sighs presented a very compelling arguments I thought it was a nice very closed up until the end actually and what kind of experience is participating in the mock trial because you guys started like many months ago getting ready doing the research as you know as I think some of our team members have mentioned you've done a lot of practicing I mean if he could you put like a time frame on that as to like how many hours after it was a lot after school oh yeah it was a lot of after school we'd have to give up a lot of time on the weekends especially I just because our coaches are so busy within the week I mean really at first to kind of think that it's somewhat relaxed process but went up until the end you know it gets a little tense and so you know just trying to rush until then to make sure you know everything accurately well thank you so much for your time today I appreciate it and good luck come on up we'll talk to some more students because there are so many students here today it's wonderful and you had some people in the audience you were supporting you as well if you would give me your name your grade in the school that you are my name is Eve Gleason I'm a senior and I go to Orange high school and were you on the plaintiff today or were you are you you were ready for the defense yeah I'm actually playing Pat Jacobs a witness on the defense and today I was the bailiff for the plaintiff okay I do I so you were helping with the time yeah keeping time okay and it looked like everyone was very polished they were all set to go I didn't see you have to you know hit the buzzer or anything - or the big hook to get people off everyone well yeah I mean I am the timekeeper for the plaintiff so in every trial I do time keep for them and just like through districts and through regionals and even like it the first round of the second round of the state's it's so interesting to see how different the teams get so like by this point everyone is just on top of it everyone is so polished and I can clearly see why both these teams are here all right well good luck to to your team and to the others as well thank you so much I think that you are actually the advisor for the orange high school all right so tell me a little bit about how you think the kids perform today we're very proud I thought they did an outstanding job today they've been working at this since September so this is kind of the culmination of all of the hard work they've been putting in you know when we work after school late at night for the last month's and forgive me I meant to ask you if you want to you know fess up to to your name please oh I'm sorry I'm Dave shortest and advisor for for orange all right and did I understand correctly that you had multiple teams at the state finals this week actually we only brought down one but we had 10 teams total that we had at the districts that we entered in so we had close to 90 kids involved with my trial this year which was amazing how do you get that many students ready for something like this it's a challenging task but we have a lot of great volunteers legal advisors that come and help and dedicate their time to helping these kids learn the case learn the law and really help them to the best of their ability why do you participate year after year to do this I think one of the key things for this is that you see how excited these kids get about the law and then you get to see a lot of these kids then go to college and be part of mock trial for college which we have kids participating in now and finally some of the kids that now are practicing attorneys that come back to help our team so it really shows you how practical and experience it says outside of the classroom and how many years have you been participating personally this is about 14 I think that we've been doing this so it's the second year we've been down here at the state championship and it's just an amazing experience all right well good luck to your team thank you so much for for coming over here today and good good morning thank you so much your your names my name is Denny Lisle I'm the legal adviser and actually the founder of the South II mock trial program how did your students do today I've always won this really critical of the students so they did well I always strive for perfection and so I don't think we quite got there but it was a good strong competition it was a strong finals I think both teams were really up to it and from that and I'm pleased what they did they seemed so polished so poised so ready to go what kind of what kind of pointers did you give them before they went up there well with this group they've actually been competing since July we were fortunate to go to the International Championships in October with this group and wanted actually and so the pointers have been an ongoing process there and we bring in outside attorneys this past weekend we brought in a panel where there was a judge for attorneys that we're monitoring it we brought in a superintendent so we have all the different perspectives so they have a we have a lot that pointers that they get from a lot of people I bet well especially if you're taking them to other competitions I mean I'm sure that helps get them ready and get them a little bit more comfortable with what they have to do so you were talking about it was the Empire invitation that is correct yes explain a little bit about what that is basically about nine years ago a young man by the name of Justin matarese decided that he would have a World Championship and it literally is a world championship they invite the top teams from all the states as well as schools from Ireland Canada Australia Korea and the like they go through a selection process the elite teams advanced to it and then we then go through four rounds in there and then there's a fifth round for the championship so an international field of competition it is very strong in fact we make it a point the very first year we were there we had a chance to select our opponent we made sure it was Ireland we wanted someone different this year we made sure we practice against Ireland we went against Canada that's part of the experience was to be able to have that whole world experience and of course that's what New York City also brings to you too so obviously the Empire Invitational in New York City with that international field that you had what what what did you take away from that competition other than the big trophy I guess well I think we learned probably two things chemistry these individuals here I actually this year's team that won I had less than average less than one year a person when we won the Empire so we only had we had ten kids with nine years of experience that's very little so but where we wanted awful was chemistry the second one was preparation we put a tremendous amount of time in that one and just isn't this problem each case is different the Empire was about a man vehicular manslaughter we had to learn all about alcohol and driving and in this one we had to learn more about the criminal field more about the you know education lines so we always try to do as much preparation as we can so you mentioned chemistry would how do you think the chemistry was for the team that came to the finals today from Southie oh it was good there's always a little bit of internal conflict which i think is good they they're pushing each other there they're all competitors they may or may not have mentioned they were all in debates there so most of them as this is now like the fifth or sixth week in a row that they've been in a competition format so so they're all kind of competitive against each other and questioned a lot of the teams they saw here a lot of the people they saw here were actually some of their fellow debaters that they saw and as legal adviser why do you participate in the mock trial competition it's an emotional answer they're sorry the my daughter who's down there she was she wasn't the best athlete so we kind of wanted to do it with a I want to get bill to spend time with her so years ago I started a program that was 19 years ago and with the goal of trying to make sure we'd win a title with her we went to so now it was she's actually our last champion though that was 2004 so that was a very difficult time and then Chris my son had been in the program to there so but with Janelle that's how it's arted I was very dedicated but even before that I had 9 years of college training - yeah sorry about that not a problem and that is so wonderful that you have taken the time to to work with these students year after year and I know they made you proud of their today it's been a family affair this year more than ever my wife she had a paralegal background she's actually taking over our openers worked with them closely and she's been instrumental doing that she feasts them when they come to our house we do most of our practices are at her house somebody that's there well good luck today for the competition all right so we're still waiting for the judges to come back into the main court room because we we'd like for them to decide today if it's going to be orange high school or if it is going to be Sylvania some feel in our Mock Trial case so we asked Lisa Asheville Enza to come on back and and is this unusual for the deliberations to go this long well I think what it does show us is we knew that this was going to be a closed trial and so the fact that we're still waiting for our judges to reach their decision and come back out is telling us that this is going to be a razor close finish for these two schools and I think we can all we all know that because of what we saw in the courtroom today so I think we're probably minutes away but I'm only guessing at this point so I'm sitting here waiting and debating and excitement just with everybody else yeah I think in the kids you can hear them in the background they're all buzzing and excited and getting ready we've got some big trophies to give one other what other kinds of recognition do you give the students there to participate today the teams both the attorneys and the witnesses and the bailiffs and the timekeepers today both the runner-up and the championship they each will get a gavel that is engraved from Osceola Ian thanking them for their participation and then you still use the large trophies go both to the state runner-up as well as the state championship last night we presented plaques the state of Ohio plaques went to the the toots excuse me the two other schools who were in the Final Four but did not were not successful to come today so they also receive it as well and then we we also know that when the students go back to their home schools there are assemblies and you know recognition from their fellow students and the teachers and the principal so the celebrations will go on for days to come yeah they mentioned that they were headed the the team that's gonna go back to Cleveland had mentioned that they're gonna stop a grandpa's cheese barn so we're just gonna give them a quick plug and let them know that the kids are coming and so I gave them some pointers as I go they're quite often so it's a yummy place and it's always interesting because in the morning before the child begins it's usually pretty quiet that you can set and then once it's over the adrenaline loops and then they're just having a great time that's really definitely could have heard that that proverbial pin drop earlier before everything started at nine o'clock this morning and so now I said they're just they're all talking and laughing and having a great time and I mean that kind of that come up that you know bringing those kids together to to work on this kind of project I mean that's that that's part I would imagine of what you're hopeful that they all kind of gel and come together they do it truly is it's a team experience they each of them are bringing different strengths to the table you have that analytical piece and so when they first get the case file they're looking at it and then they're developing theories of the case together they're very what arguments work what arguments don't work and then they begin the actual public speaking pieces of it so they're practicing with each other just being able to stand up and talk in front of an adult is a new skill that the students are learning and obviously the more they practice they better they get so then they scrimmage against each other and then from that then they scrimmage with local lawyers within their communities and all of that some preparation for the district competition and in the district competitions they'll compete at least two times they have to win both of those trials to move on in advance to the regionals and that's two weeks later then they go to the regional competition and the students have to win both of those trials again before they make their way here to Columbus for the state and so since Thursday these students have done this trial five times which is in and of itself a pretty remarkable accomplishment so for today's winning team they will go to the national championship which is coming up in a couple of months in Wisconsin is it the same case how does that work for the national competition it's a clean slate and so there'll be a brand new case that has released a first part of April and so all of the students across the country start off with a brand new case new witnesses new attorneys and so then they have a very very short time period in which to learn a brand new fact pattern a new law and prepare their arguments before they head up to Minneapolis Minneapolis well we certainly will look forward to that that's coming up here thanks so much Lisa s Holman who is the executive director for the Ohio Center for Law early data education well thank you thank you for such a wonderful day today okay it's been a lot of fun well I I think the judges are gonna be coming back so let's go to the main court room and find out what they have to say [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm going to reserve my comments for last and let the scoring judges make their comments first the only thing I'll say to start with is obviously you both did a fantastic job this every year when I do this I think it can't get any better than what I've seen before and and I leave feeling wow this is this was if not the best it has to be right up there so I think the you both both teams did a fantastic job I will start down at this end if that's okay great competition it was very difficult for us to decide you were all very very well prepared you've obviously read the materials new year materials but you also grasped the law and that is very impressive to all of us sitting up here not only the rules of evidence but also the case law you clearly came prepared we were very impressed with the level that you showed here today we are probably thinking that some of you are going to be attorneys someday and kind of hope so because we'd like to see this come into the bar I can't really find anybody at fault for anything I mean it was excellent as I said it was just very very difficult to score and as we've conveyed that to you later you'll see that so thank you for doing this and and participating in this program it's wonderful for you but it's also wonderful for us to see that we have a good base coming up through the ranks and hopefully replacing us as we retire thank you I hope I don't retire too soon judge first off congratulations this was an absolutely wonderful experience for you and was an absolutely incredible experience for me I'm a former legal adviser for five years dating back a few years I won't tell you how long it's been since I've served but what I'm most impressed about in mind I'm most happiest about is that as the president of the State Bar Association I go around the state talking to lawyers and and community leaders all the time about educating our children about civics education preparing you to inherit the government and take over and be leaders in the future and when we come to a program like this and we see such stellar folks such as yourself demonstrating your acumen and your knowledge about the government and your understanding as to how it all works even though you haven't been one day in law school you impress me greatly I'm just so proud to have been asked to serve I appreciate all that you've done and I'm sort of excited I want to get on to the announcement as to the results on I'll tell you as an Ohio State Bar Foundation president and trustee this really comes home to me the Ohio Center for law related related education programs are terrific and I love that because we are financial supporters of ocl ari worked very closely with them and to see this end result of the Mock Trial program this year is just wonderful we are supposed to give observations about the strengths and weaknesses of the teams I can't really do that I see no weaknesses and in any of the teams I think either of you your your strengths were just wonderful and it even extended beyond I think mastery of the materials you were civil to each other your demeanor was dignified you were all persuasive excellent work product terrific preparation great delivery and we have this very detailed scoring tabular tabulation sheet and I will say that I could find no way to put anything other than excellence on every single category for every single person I thought you all were terrific what a privilege for us to be here in this capacity what a great day to you know do this it's just wonderful thank you yeah the there are no weaknesses at all on either team I mean it's you're just great right all four attorneys all four witnesses and some of the things I mean I've the coordinator at the district level in the regional level and of course we help judge in a couple trials in the state competition before this one and things that were immediately noticeable to me you're there weren't as many objections as in some trials but that's because the attorneys were just so sharp in terms of the questions the witnesses were so sharp in terms of their answers and when you did make objections both sides just did a wonderful job of arguing your objections and the witnesses you know we're so believable in each of your roles and there weren't very many you know when you look at objections invention of facts objections you didn't have any of I don't think any of those in this trial and that's just because the witnesses were so good in terms of answering the questions and and responding to the questions and again the attorneys were really good with their with their questions so exemplary great job parents you obviously and family members you have good reason to be extremely proud of your children and I know you're really appreciative because your parents have been and family members have been supporting you and all of this for all the support they've given you and I can't help but mention that because know how much work they put in the teacher and legal advisor for each team did a fantastic job and if you would all join me and if you would stand up so we can recognize you does your good work was very apparent in the in this trial also so at this point Todd before we proceed to announce the award winners first I want to echo the judges comments and congratulating both teams of the more than three hundred three teams that participate in the competition this year I think it's absolutely clear that we saw the best to compete today I also want to thank as the judges did all the teachers lawyers parents and other supporters that helped you get here we know they were part of this process also and a very critical one I want to thank our judging panel for their support and all the other judges that helped us throughout this competition on behalf of the Ohio Center for law related education I would also like to thank our sponsors the Ohio Attorney General's Office the Supreme Court of Ohio the ACLU of Ohio the Ohio State Bar Association I'd also like to thank the Ohio State Bar Foundation for their support throughout this process at this point I'd like to invite judge MacBride to step down from the bench and we'll proceed to recognize each student on the team I'll ask an advisor from each team to come up introduce his students each student who participated will receive a gavel from Judge MacBride at the conclusion of that we will announce the individual Award winners both for outstanding witness and the James E Philips outstanding attorney award now for that we will announce the 2014 mock trial state champion at this point from the plaintiff orange High School I'd like to invite Dave cordis up to introduce his team shortest I just wanted to first of all I wanted to thank our advisors to to kind of piggyback on the comments that we're here one of the things that our chief legal advisor couldn't make it because he's working in Denver so that's one of the things Chuck Jared who's been vital of the program also vcast rakia who works with me who's here as an assistant advisor Pippa Carter and Alicia Turner who's not here so we've had a lot of great volunteers and just to kind of add to that if we could give her a round of applause for all the volunteers that have helped with this program right now I'd appreciate that I just who announced our team attorneys first of all those that participated here first of all ariana.sea Kara [Applause] secondly Megan Shanklin witnesses today Chloe Antipas another witness today Christophe Tomczyk are amazing bailiff who also played a witness on the opposite side Eve Gleason and two more members who are attorneys on the other side first of all Amy whoo and finally our club president who was also in the state finals last year Shivangi Bhatia [Applause] seven amazing seniors thank you guys [Applause] from the defense I'd like to invite Denny Lyle to introduce his team thank you I think I speak for orange and myself that we are greatly appreciate the efforts that the OSHA Larry does Lisa ash Willman and Todd it's been instrumental in providing us with a wonderful educational opportunity there I'd also like to congratulate the orange team they were phenomenal in this round and it's obviously a very exciting moment for all of us and we'll see that in a moment I'd also like to thank my coaches who are not too here today three of which haven't been able to travel with us one was Dan Ellis one was Tony Turley and one was Fritz Byers however perhaps the most important one is my wife [Music] [Applause] and her name is Vicki there itself I'll be introducing my performers today my senior and lead attorney is your on Chen [Applause] counsel was junior Eric Zhu Zak was Jack High senior and playing the role of Alex Chen was Catherine dong our other two performers for this team we're Schilling Goyal junior attorney on the opposite side final member of this team is ridwan Siddiqui who no doubt was the officer Mancuso given his uniform and I would like to thank the members of our team to did qualify for state the orange team coincidentally there so there who also were here today in support thank you so much [Applause] this point we will recognize the individual award winners an award will be presented to the highest-scoring witness and the highest-scoring attorney from today's trial our outstanding witness from orange high school is Khloe and Rob us successful award I'm sorry the glass award our James E Phillips outstanding attorney this award is named for the founder of Ohio's high school mock trial with a perfect score of straight hands on every ballot from Sylvania South you High School is your engine [Applause] it's now time to announce the 2014 Ohio High School Mock Trial state championship winner the 31st state champion of Ohio High School Mock Trial is Sylvania salvia [Applause] at this point congratulations Sylvania please join me in congratulating on a great season orange high school go up and get your award this concludes the 2014 mock trial state championship thank you all congratulations once again you've been watching the Ohio channels coverage of the Ohio high school mock trial championship competition congratulations to the winning team Sylvania Southview High School they will head to the national championship in Madison Wisconsin to purchase copies of this program or to view it for free online visit us on the web at ohio channel org where you can also view live and past video coverage of your ohio government thank you for watching and we see you next year [Music]

Channel: OCLRE

Views: 39,768

Keywords: Mock Trial, High School (Degree), Ohio High School Mock Trial, Ohio Statehouse (Building)

Id: aQEXUpyOlLc

Length: 201min 21sec (12081 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 14 2014