Dos Pueblos Mock Trial Team Wins World Championship

Arguing a fictional case of a white cop shooting an unarmed black teenager, Dos Pueblos High School’s extracurricular mock trial team won the coveted Empire Mock Trial world championships on Monday at New York’s Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. In the final bracket, against Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Seminary prep school and before U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Chen, the Dos Pueblos team defended the actions of the offending officer, who had committed suicide after the fatal shooting. Mock jurors — played by real-life attorneys — scored the students on case knowledge, poise, and their ability to respond to witnesses and insert objections, among other skills. “They’re trained to look at both sides of an argument,” said attorney Maureen Grattan, who coaches the Dos Pueblos team. “In Santa Barbara we don’t know what it’s like for the black community Baltimore, for example. For our kids this was really eye-opening.”