All of the BSM mock trial team’s hard work has paid off. On Thursday, February 15, the team won the Section Final Tournament and punched their ticket to compete at State.

Undefeated throughout the regular season–they went 4-0 in their competitions–the team ranked in the top five teams in their section going into the tournament, but the tough competition still gave them a challenge. “We won by a small margin, but we won,” senior captain Sophie Herrmann said.

The team will be traveling to the State Tournament on March 1 and 2 in Minneapolis. This year the case for this mock trial season involves a truck that runs a red light, hitting and killing a woman in the process. The case is criminal and revolves around the counts of criminal vehicular homicide and careless driving. “The case is very timely, as it involves the use of a cell phone and the potential for distracted driving,” mock trial leader Ms. Mary Murray said.

In mock trial, high school students play the roles of prosecution and defense in a court case. Each school sends a six member prosecution team and a six member defense team to the Hennepin County Government Center to compete against other schools. Each team consists of three witnesses and three lawyers.

During the competition, the groups run through a real trial in which the witnesses are called first by their own team’s lawyers and then by the lawyers from the other school for a cross examination. Senior mock trial captain Jack Rickman typically tries to screw up the other team and get them to say the wrong thing during the cross examination. “It’s very much like a real trial. The difference is that the mock trial case is normally well-balanced whereas in a real court the case would be a lot more biased to one side or the other depending on what the facts are,” Rickman said.

Each part of the trial is scored out of ten points by two judges. Each witness and lawyer is scored on both the cross an direct examinations, adding up to a possible 260 points for each team. The two judges typically choose the same winner, yet at times, such as in the BSM team’s recent section victory, the judges choose opposite teams. “The ballots were split and usually there is a third judge that can tie break, but there wasn’t, so the presiding judge broke the tie in our favor,” Herrmann said.

The BSM varsity mock trial coaches are Ms. Mallory Narang and Mr. Michael Kruckow. Kruckow is a lawyer who works as in-house counsel for his family’s gravel and trucking business, and Narang is a former mock trial competitor and current lawyer that works for a tech company and reviews labor software. Both coaches have been with the BSM mock trial program for three years. “They’re great. They do a lot for the program,” Rickman said.