The Jury has spoken! Lincoln Park’s 2025 mock trial team placed fourth at the state championships after a controversial decision to withdraw the vote of a judge, leaving the team at a score of 5 to 6. Still, this makes them the furthest-advancing mock trial team in Lincoln Park history.
Seniors – Keenan Kerr, Nate Swihart, E’Shya Fisher, Karissa Koval.
Juniors – McKenna Ross, Ava Rossi, Mark Veon, Giana Martinec, Nathan Frederick.
Sophomores – Josie Helbling, Addison Lowe.
Freshman – Perci Strohmeyer.
The team, and department, are led by Mrs. Mia Frank, a licensed attorney who practices in Pennsylvania.
“This team is a smaller team than what we’ve had in the last few years, so they take on a lot more responsibility – but I think that’s helped because we keep everything pretty tight, and the information and the strategy is really consistent and focused. …We started fall of 2018, so 2019 was the first year we were in competition. This is like seventh year, then we skipped one year (because of COVID), so this is the sixth year technically, I guess, that we’re competing.”
Many people wonder how a mock trial works considering how complicated the practices are. This depends on if there is a prosecution, defendant, and/or if it’s a criminal trial. In the Mock Trial, the team gets a 100-page case. In the case packet, they get six witness statements. Those statements have three witnesses and then three more for the defense. There’s also more in the packet that explains other aspects of the case, like a case summary, pretrial motions, etc. After reviewing, they pick lawyers and people to play witnesses. The prosecution then comes up with a case theory for what happened and why the defendant is guilty. However, the defense has to come up with the case jury and why their client is innocent.
“We get to work like lawyers would. We look at the evidence, we look at the witness statements, and we come up with a case theory. We write opening statements, we write direct exam questions for our witnesses, and we try to anticipate cross-exam questions for the other side. It really functions like a real trial.” Ms. Frank reports.
The mock trial team was assigned a case involving grand theft. Nate Swihart, a third-year member of the team who acted as a lawyer in this case, responded with a concise explanation: “The case was about this kid who is accused of stealing this necklace that was buried inside his old high school.”
Many interviewees claim to have had the same problem while combating their other team, which is their avoidance of questioning, lies, and time-wasting preludes. Nate states, “…it was pretty difficult because their strategy was to have their witnesses be very difficult on cross-examination, so they took up a lot of our time, so we had to adjust to that. We had never come across that. They were intentionally not giving clear answers or lying, so we would have to bring them the witness statement up to impeach them.”
Various team members were asked what advice they would give newcomers. Mark Veon, a first-year member of the team acting as the defendant, said to “work so hard. The fewer people, the better, because everybody understands the case the best. It’s nice to have one small team together so that everyone knows the information.”
Another first-year team member, Josie Helbing, responded, “…advice I would give to someone new to mock trial is to work and discuss your testimony with your lawyer! It’s so important as it prepares you to answer cross-examination questions in a way that benefits your side. The lawyers are all in control of the case theory which is crucial to how you answer questions.
Nate Swihart had a similar idea, responding, “communicate a lot. Get involved with your lawyer. So, if you’re first starting out, you’re probably a witness, it’s easy just to look at the case, look at the direct examination your lawyer gives you, and that’s kind of it. But if you’re looking to do really good in the trial and to do better in the years to come, I would strongly recommend talking to your lawyer…get involved in class time when we’re doing mock trial.”
And finally, with a golden piece of advice, Perci Strohmeyer warns newcomers not to “cram it all in the night or two before” and “to be confident.”
SIREN reporters Mia Clemons and Lily Fortier also contributed to this story.