Dickinson Law’s moot court team was named a finalist in the Philadelphia Regional American Bar Association’s National Appellate Advocacy Competition held Feb. 18 to 20 at the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania U.S. Courthouse in Philadelphia. The team, composed of second-year law students Christian Burne, Francesca Kester and Tara Burns, also won the award for best written brief in the region, and ranked first throughout the entire competition as a result of their brief score and first oral argument score.
Led by coach David Fitzsimons, 1984 alumnus and an attorney at Martson Law Offices in Carlisle, the team begin practicing for the regional competition in October, starting with two practices a week and gradually increasing to five practices a week. Third-year law student Steven Caouette assisted in coaching and served as the team’s bailiff at the competition.
The ABA’s National Appellate Advocacy Competition emphasizes the development of oral advocacy skills through a realistic appellate advocacy experience. Competitors participate in a hypothetical appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Each team writes a brief as either respondent or petitioner and argues the case in front of the mock court.
This year’s national problem dealt with two rulings issued by the U.S. Supreme Court on certiorari—a writ or order by which a higher court reviews a decision of a lower court. The first ruling examined if a police officer has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his department-issued locker at his place of employment; the second examined when a police officer’s actions in the course of his employment constitute a hate crime under the federal Hate Crime Prevention Act.
“We tried to practice in front of as many different ‘judges’ as possible to prepare ourselves for a wide range of questions and styles,” noted Kester. “We practiced in front of cold benches (when the judges don’t ask any questions), hot benches (when judges fire questions throughout the argument), and U.S. attorneys in Harrisburg.”
The team’s brief was written on behalf of the U.S. and argued that the officer did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his department-issued locker, thus making the footage admissible. The brief also argued that police officers can and should be charged with hate crimes whenever their actions amount to the elements of the statute. Due to the current state of race relations in America, police officers—or anyone, for that matter—need to be held accountable for their actions whenever they choose to act a particular way because of another person's race. To support this position, the team spent many hours researching case law and analyzing the positions of lower courts.
Many Dickinson Law professors helped to prepare the team for success, including Dermot Groome, Peter Glenn, Tom Place, Katherine Pearson, Mary Kaye Polacheck and Jennifer Davis-Oliva.
“Because our problem was criminal in nature, Professors Groome and Place really helped us to shape our argument,” said Kester. “We wouldn't have been a prepared if it wasn’t for the guidance of so many members of the law school faculty and legal community.”