Joana Vassao also contributed to this article.
Knock! Knock! The noise of the gavel told the Malden High Mock Trial team that the verdict was reached. On January 20th, the Mock Trial team was dismissed from school to prepare to face Malden Catholic at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, they lost the tournament.
Mock Trial is a course offered at Malden High School led by Richard Tivnan who is also a History teacher. In this class, students get the opportunity to act as attorneys, witnesses, victims, and judges in a fictional case that’s assigned to them.
Weeks prior to the trial, the team would practice and run through the case during class as well as practice sessions at the Malden Public Library. Senior Nour Howard was a witness in the case and shared that she would have her siblings ask her the questions pertaining to her character to help her memorize when she was not in class.
“As a witness, you have to make sure you’re not only aware of the information in your affidavit, but you also have to make sure to be aware of the information in every single affidavit because the cross-examiner will surprise you with questions or statements from other witnesses,” Howard shared.
The case was based on a previously used fictional murder of an elderly woman, DK Liberson, who had many health issues. Liberson’s nephew was investigated for her murder because he controlled all her medication intake. Based on that murder, Netflix wanted to do a show on the case years later.
In the case being argued, Ava Maru, who would play DK Liberson was allergic to almond milk and died on set. Malden High Mock Trial was set to charge the director, Audrey Raysau with the first degree murder of Maru. Raysau allegedly did not use Maru’s EpiPen while she was struggling to breath and decided to administer a Rapid Aller Pen instead.
Malden Catholic argued that the defendant, Raysau, was not at fault for the murder. Howard, who played an understudy to Maru recalled that the defense was trying to blame her character, Lugansky Cook, for the murder because Cook was “stirring up drama for clicks” because they were a social media influencer.
Malden Catholic, having one of the best teams in the state, was able to work with five attorneys who helped the students study every aspect of law, ultimately helping them win the tournament. Tivnan revealed that a former student, Terrica Dang, who is enrolled at Suffolk Law School came back to work with the team before the tournament and also accompanied them on the day of the trial.
Junior Kailey Bae shared that the team could have done better with responding to objections from Malden Catholic, but they did great with doing the objections and having a clear voice and tone which she felt they had improved on “a lot.”
Though Malden took hits from Malden Catholic, they were able to persevere throughout the rest of the tournament. “Our opening and closing statements were really good. You’re supposed to not really have anything in your hand, and you just go up and tell the whole story of the case in front of the judge. We were in a real courtroom. We did great on those, I thought we did really well,” Tivnan expressed.
Senior Nour Jaayfer, who presented the opening statement and the cross examination, also communicated that the defense’s opening statements were very good and that the team did great at presenting themselves in the courtroom. “For prosecution I feel like we could’ve prepared memorization and objecting more, but overall I feel like we prepared very well but now we know what to do for next time,” Jaayfer shared.
“I think the trial went pretty good considering it was my first time being in an actual trial, and the fact that we went against a team that’s good at mock trial and ranked high, but I do think we have some parts to improve on,” junior Maliya Kazadi, who was a part of the prosecution, voiced.
While juniors and sophomores will likely take the class again next year and have more tournaments; Malden Catholic was the last tournament for seniors in the class. Howard expressed that even when she will not be there next year, she knows they will “improve and do better next time.”
“I’m excited to see the new kids start to learn how to do it. Some of the kids next year will be in their second or third year. So having those kids will help the newer kids when they come in. I’m just looking forward to next year and building on what we did this year,” Tivnan shared.
If the environment and roles of a courtroom interest you in any way, share your interest with your current history teacher so they can offer you an application for the class where Tivnan will review your application and eventually determine if you are eligible for the class for next year.
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