NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
Contact Doris Huffman
Executive Director
402/475-1042
doris@nebarfnd.org

STATE HIGH SCHOOL MOCK TRIAL CHAMPIONSHIP
COMES TO OMAHA DECEMBER 6 AND 7

Judge Wadie Thomas, Jr., Separate Juvenile Court, Douglas County, has announced that the State Mock Trial Championship is coming to Omaha on Tuesday and Wednesday, December 6 and 7. Judge Thomas is serving as the host coordinator for the event that brings in the winning teams from 12 Nebraska regional Mock Trial competitions that took place between October 1 and November 25.

Mock trial teams competing in the State Championship are Region 1, Chadron High School; Region 2, Ogallala High School; Region 3, Perkins County; Region 4, Stuart High School; Region 5, Grand Island Northwest High School; Region 6, Lyons-Decatur High School; Region 7, Columbus Scotus High School; Region 8, Papillion-LaVista South High School; Region 9, Humbolt Table Rock Steinaur; Region 10, Raymond Central High School; and Regions 11 and 12, Skutt High School and Westside High School.

Each team is composed of between six and eight students, and the team members are accompanied by their teacher coaches, attorney coaches, and parents and friends. Teams entered in the state championship will argue at the Downtown Doubletree both sides of the case, Pat Christianson vs. William Jennings Bryan Public High School. This original case, written by a team of Nebraska lawyers, centers around the Student Council election at William Jennings Bryan Public High School. The principal has told Pat Christianson that he will be allowed to participate as a candidate for president only if he eliminates his religious rhetoric from the campaign. Christianson refuses to comply with the school’s mandate, and maintaining that his First Amendment rights have been violated, files a lawsuit.

Approximately 80 area judges and lawyers will serve as presiding and performance judges for the mock trials on December 6 and 7. Judge Laurie Smith Camp, U.S. District Court, will preside at the final round of the championship trials at the Roman L. Hruska U. S. Courthouse on the afternoon of December 7. The public is welcome to attend the final round of Mock Trial competition.

The team that wins the 2005 State Mock Trial Championship will represent Nebraska in the National High School Mock Trial Championship in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in May, 2006. The 2004 championship team from Stuart School represented Nebraska in the most recent national competition in Charlotte, North Carolina, this past May.

Nebraska State Bar Foundation President Dean G. Kratz confirms that Judge Smith Camp, is the keynote speaker at the State Mock Trail Championship banquet taking place on the evening of December 6 at the Doubletree Hotel. Kratz says that, in conjunction with the banquet program, all 12 teams entered in the championship, their teacher coaches, and their attorney coaches will be recognized for their outstanding accomplishments. Kratz further explains that the mission of the Nebraska State Bar Foundation is “to serve the citizens of Nebraska and the legal profession through the administration and funding of innovative and creative programs directed toward the improvement of the administration of justice and the fulfillment of the American vision of equal justice for all.” In meeting its public mission, the Bar Foundation funds and administers the State Center for Law-Related Education, of which the State High School Mock Trial Competition is a key component.

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