Troy University’s Mock Trial team recently competed in a scrimmage tournament held at the University of West Florida and took home four awards.

This is the second year of competition for the 22-person team. The scrimmage tournament served as a practice event before the regional competition in February.

The scrimmage topic featured a civil court case of an inheritance dispute between two siblings, and the participating students portray either witnesses or attorneys in the competitions.

“Attorneys are responsible for pretrial matters, preparing opening and closing statements, writing direct and cross examination questions and more,” said Dr. Adam Rutkowski, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and one of the team’s coaches. “Witnesses must take on the character of one of the hypothetical witness characters and prepare responses to direct and cross examination questions.”

Camden Cummings, Andrew Cerf and Nicholas Defore received a Witness award, and Caitlyn Harris received an Attorney award.

“I think that this experience is very beneficial for students who are interested in law,” said Cummings, a senior criminal justice major. “I had a great time traveling to Pensacola with our team and getting to compete against other students who have been working just as hard as us. The scrimmage we competed in gave us a test run and experience before we compete at regionals in the spring. I cannot express enough thanks to Dr. Rutkowski and Professor Harden for all their commitment to preparing us for the trial!”

While the team is associated with an academic trial procedures class held in the fall, students of all degree programs can take the class and are eligible to join the team. Students meet once a week for a two-and-a-half-hour practice session with coaches Rutkowski and Dr. Lisa Harden, Lecturer in Legal Studies. They also meet in small groups for several hours each week preparing opening and closing statements, direct examination questions and answers, cross examination questions, objections and responses and more.

Collegiate mock trial is a trial court simulation competition. There are over 700 teams from 400 different universities across the United States. The AMTA, the governing body of intercollegiate mock trials, hosts regional and national tournaments for teams across the country. Over 7,000 undergraduate students compete in these events each year.