Our DBHS Mock Trial team competed in the Top 16 round Tuesday, November 16, 2021. Our DEFENSE TEAM went against a private all-girls school's prosecution team. WE WON !! It was SO close; the other team was very talented.

Our team will compete in Los Angeles County’s TOP 8 Thursday, November 18.

The judge ruled in favor of OUR defense after the pre-trial motion. The judge ruled in favor of OUR defendant at the end of the trial. Judges' rulings do not have bearing on who wins the round. Often, the judge rules for reasons he or she has created based on their own reading of the facts or a personal agenda. The reason we mention the judge's rulings from the evening is because in both instances, the judge prefaced his decision with "based on the arguments presented in court tonight."  No greater compliment could we have received!

It really was a stellar night for DBHS. Every student was amazing.

• Pretrial: Reyna Wan- striving to be more assertive and exude confidence...that's what she did. The high point being her rebuttal. Rebuttal must be based on opposing counsel's argument, it's 2 minutes. Reyna used every second of her 2 minutes to list every shortcoming to the Prosecution's argument. It was amazing!!!

• Natalie Zhou- trial attorney, gave the opening statement flawlessly. A notable moment was when she objected during opposing counsel's redirect with the objection, "question is outside the scope of the cross." She was 100% correct!

• Vishnu Nair-trial attorney. This guy is so smooth! One of the scorers singled him out specifically because he is so good at cross examining both in what he asks and how he asks it. At the end of the night, our opponent gets to choose an MVP from our team, they chose Vishnu Nair!

• Emily Zhang-trial attorney. Nobody works harder than Emily. She is the unofficial team leader. Her closing argument that evening was magic! She quoted the other team's closing to point out that they were wrong, so impressive. A scorer singled her out (only two students in total were singled out during the comments made by the judge or 3 scorers, Vishnu and Emily)) as a role model for how a defense attorney is supposed to act (FYI, that would be indignant but not abrasive). Emily had been awarded MVP in a previous round. 

• The witnesses: Chloe Schaefer: expert for the defense. This girl has such style and charisma: imagine a young Audrey Hepburn. Mia Artale: a neighbor of both the defendant and the victim. This freshman is just the right amount of spunky and thoughtful neighbor. Tamim Hatim: restaurant owner, jewelry maker, tea drinker and friend of the defendant. If you are ever having a bad day, this is the person you want to drink tea with! Julian Medina: the defendant, an individual who has been taking care of his ailing mother until she died after the landlord turned off their power.  This succulent expert is so believable you couldn't possibly accept that he intentionally killed his landlord with a Mojave rattler.

• Our bailiff, Johnny Kwang was awarded a perfect score.

Our Prosecution has performed twice. Thursday, our DEFENSE TEAM will be performing. 

We would like to thank and congratulate our staff advisors Latitia Thomas, Margaret Ku and Ken Carlson, in addition to Deputy DA Angela Brunson! Thank you for preparing our Brahmas for this marvelous opportunity!