On March 10, Westview competed as one of the two top teams in San Diego County in the San Diego County Mock Trial Competition. After a trial that was more than two hours long, the team came out as victors over Torrey Pines High School. 

This year 36 high schools competed in the county Mock Trial competition over the course of three weeks. In Westview’s Mock Trial club, students assume the role of attorneys, witnesses, clerks, and other roles in court during a hypothetical case to gain literacy about the legal system. The case that is argued changes annually, and the trial for this year is about a first degree murder.

In every team, there are two sides—prosecution and defense—composed of three trial attorneys who conduct cross and direct examination and one pretrial attorney who argues a related Constitutional issue for the case. Every side also has four witnesses who are cross-examined and either a bailiff or a clerk.

Westview’s Mock Trial team began to prepare for this competition in early September with the hopes of winning the county competition to progress to states.

At the start of the season, the team prioritized creating a case theory, writing scripts, and understanding witnesses. During meetings, members split into attorney-witness duos to cross-examine each other.

Cora Reyes-Castelloe (10), a first-year Mock Trial member and the expert witness for defense, said that these intensive practices contributed a lot to her success. 

“The most helpful thing in my preparation has been my teammates and their feedback because they’re all intelligent people and hearing what they have to say has been super helpful,” Reyes-Castelloe said. 

Before rounds, Reyes-Castelloe said she practiced a lot by herself, with her teammates, and with attorney Felix Long (12). 

“I spent hours working with Felix, practicing our direct [examination] and building a good case. I then spent hours studying my statement, so I knew my facts,” Reyes-Castelloe said. “When I was crossed  by my opponents, I could present information in a way that’s helpful to our side, but remain unbiased. Felix and I have done really solid directs [both rounds] and the scores have reflected that as well.”

After an intense schedule of two Mock Trial meetings per week and an additional hour each day to practice her statements, Reyes-Castelloe developed confidence in her role as a witness.

“When I was starting out, I was a bit pliable during cross examination,” Reyes-Castelloe said. “I was admitting some facts that didn’t really help our side and being a little bit too timid. So [some helpful advice I got] was to take the facts that I knew and stick up for myself during cross.”

Throughout the season, Reyes-Castelloe grew accustomed to her role and could answer the questions during cross confidently.

“I began to anticipate the questions I’d be asked during cross examination, which made them a lot easier to respond to,” Reyes-Castelloe said. “I was also not afraid to be a little bit difficult. As unpleasant as it sounds, you kind of want to give the attorney on the opposing team a hard time.”

After competing in the preliminary competitions, Reyes-Castelloe received Westview’s only perfect witness score and a Most Valuable Player award.

Jayden Xia (12), the award-winner for best prosecution pretrial attorney, said he agrees that Mock Trial’s intensive rehearsals were the reasons they performed so well.

“In the beginning of the year, I could barely get through the round without stuttering,” Xia (12) said. “Our coach was really good at scheduling a lot of practices so we had a lot of chances to run through the trial. After tweaking my pretrial speech throughout the season, I probably retain 5% of my original draft.”

During pretrial, the judge questions the attorney in an attempt to find weaknesses in their argument. Xia said that his practices helped him anticipate different scenarios from the judge.

 “Whenever I go into my practices, whether it be with the judge or Anjali [Bose], they would always be trying to poke holes,” Xia said. “I would either try to come up with a response to cover the hole, or just scrap the argument altogether and try to look for a different angle. It’s just this constant refining and looking for the strongest and most persuasive argument.”

Mock Trial Vice President Cara Tran said that she’s proud of what her team was able to accomplish.

“We’ve had a hard year with a lot of difficulties but a lot of people stepped it up—especially witnesses and the pretrial,” Tran said. “I think it’s because of everyone’s collective hard work that we made it so far into the season. All of us are just looking forward to the states and seeing what we can accomplish there.”