Riverside area high school students compete in mock trial contest

High school teams from Corona, Hemet, Murrieta, Riverside and Temecula will match wits and effort their best legal maneuvering Thursday for a chance to win the title in the Riverside County Mock Trial Competition.

The 41st annual event began during the last week of January at the Larson Justice Center in Indio, the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta and the Riverside Hall of Justice.

Since then, the field of competitors has narrowed to eight teams — Great Oak High School in Temecula, Hemet High School, MLK High School in Riverside, Murrieta Valley High School, Notre Dame High School in Riverside, Poly High School in Riverside, Ramona High School in Riverside and Santiago High School in Corona.

The Elite Eight Round will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Riverside Hall of Justice. The semifinals will follow with four teams on Tuesday, and the final round is scheduled for Feb. 23 at the Riverside Historic Courthouse.

Notre Dame High won the competition for the first time last year, topping the legacy champions, Poly High, whose teams have claimed the greatest number of first-place titles since the competitions began locally in the early 1980s.

Nearly 400 students from around 20 high schools started out in the county’s mock trials, which were in-person this year, after being held virtually in 2021 and 2022 to comply with school districts’ COVID-based health policies, according to the Riverside County Office of Education. The 2020 competition was held prior to the school closures.

The Office of Education, in partnership with the Constitutional Rights Foundation, Riverside County Bar Association and the Superior Court, sponsor the competition annually. 

The county began holding student-level mock trials in 1983, and more than 13,500 youths have participated since then, according to the Office of Education.

This year’s contest has challenged participants to successfully argue the fictitious case of People v. Franks, involving a cruise ship actor accused of beating and robbing a fellow performer, but with a host of evidentiary variables.

Teams consisting of eight to 25 students play the parts of deputy district attorneys, defense attorneys, bailiffs, witnesses, clerks and investigators. Contestants are given an allotted time, generally four to six minutes, at each stage of a proceeding, including opening statements and closing arguments and cross-examinations.

Practicing attorneys and judges assess students’ performance and award points in accordance with criteria established for the competition.

Students from public and private high schools are permitted to take part.

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