Late on the night of Oct. 11, mock trial members logged onto Facebook to see the results of the auditions held earlier that week. Ten days later, at their first practice, the team met their new attorney coach.
Last year, the team was forced to adapt when previous coach Ed Quevedo left abruptly in the middle of the season. This year, prosecuting attorney Mary McDonnell has stepped up to help the team.
After graduating from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, McDonnell became a prosecutor at DuPage County State's Attorney's Office. She used to judge college-level mock trial and thought it would be more fun to coach.
She said she has been impressed with the students in their first couple of meetings.
The pretrial attorneys are junior Karthik Padmanabhan for the prosecution and senior Max Chang for the defense. The prosecution attorneys are senior Michelle Luo and sophomores Jessy Liu and Peter VandeVort, with freshman Brian Chen as paralegal (understudy). The defense attorneys are Padmanabhan, junior Neeki Tahmassebi and sophomore Jackie Han, with sophomore Alice Bian as paralegal.
The clerk and bailiff positions have not yet been filled.
This year’s case deals with art theft and forgery. According to the mock trial case packet, Fletcher Yazoo’s $100,000 painting “Treason” was allegedly stolen from Marty McCulloch (sophomore Cassandra King; understudy: sophomore Angela Liu).
The main suspect — according to Detective Reese Barron (sophomore Isabelle Tseng; understudy: freshman Stacey Chen) — is McCulloch’s intern: defendant Evan Shem (junior Nina Harris; understudy: freshman Shania Jafri). The other main person of interest in the case is Shem’s childhood friend and former roommate Charlie Gibbons (junior Gwynevere Hunger; understudies: freshmen Ruhi Chaddha and Ketki Palande).
Testifying as eyewitnesses for the defense are art collector T.M. Little (junior Janani Velchamy; understudy: junior Samantha Guidry) and a friend of Gibbons and Shem, Sidney Ogden (senior Anshika Maheshwari; understudy: junior Rhea Srivats).
Meanwhile, art experts Bernie Worcester (freshman Katherine Zhou; understudy: sophomore Luyi Zhang) and Jamie Sardegna (freshman Katie Sabel; understudies: sophomores Sarah Chang and Sandy You) offer conflicting opinions on the found painting’s authenticity.
“We are launching into the season much faster [than last year], and it's much harder now,” said VandeVort. “I appreciate the challenge though and can't wait.”
The mock trial team will compete in the Santa Clara County Mock Trial Tournament in February.