2021 Virtual Arkansas High School Mock Trial Competition

Virtual

2021 Arkansas High School Mock Trial Competition

The annual Arkansas High School Mock Trial Competition was held on March 6 and 20, 2021. As the legal profession adapted to the changing world, so did the competition. With the closure of many public spaces, the 2021 competition was held virtually using the Zoom platform. Eleven teams participated in this year’s competition. In the Championship Round, Springdale Har-Ber High School narrowly defeated Conway High THANK YOU TO THE School to become the Arkansas State VOLUNTEERS! Champion. Arkansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Dan Kemp presided over the Championship Round. Arkansas Adrienne Morris Griffis, Co-Chair Bar Association President Paul Keith, Anthony L. McMullen, Co-Chair Arkansas Bar Association PresidentMelanie Ann Beltran Elect Designee Joe Kolb, and Senior Beverly I. Brister Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Kelly Brown Merritt served as scoring judges. Robert S. Coleman Har-Ber represented Arkansas at the Meagan Elizabeth Davis National High School Mock Trial Amy Freedman Championship, held virtually on Sarah E. Greenwood May 13-15, 2021, and achieved a 2-2 Michael B. Heister record. Johnathan D. Horton This year’s state case was State of Lori D. Howard Arkansas v. Andie Martin. Martin, a semi-professional MMA fighter, Christopher M. Hussein was charged with second-degree Matthew C. Hutsell murder after Martin allegedly Adam Donner Jackson assaulted someone in a bar fight. The Paul W. Keith prosecution’s theory was that Martin Top photo: Screenshot image of the debriefing Chief Justice Dan Kemp lost control after a championship session following the regional championship Joe Kolb Gabriel D. Mallard game. Martin pleaded self-defense. The case was authored by a group of round. Bottom two photos: the Har-Ber team competing in the national competition. William C. Mann law students and mock trial alumni with the assistance of Mock Trial Subcommittee co-chair Richard Bryant Marshall Anthony McMullen. The students involved were Abigail Hustead (University of Arkansas Class Heather Renee Martin-Herron of 2021), Nathan Johnson (UA-Little Rock Bowen School of Law Class of 2021), Olivia Moore Judge Mary Spencer McGowan (Hendrix College Class of 2022), CJ Parrish (University of Central Arkansas Class of 2023), and Jennifer Merritt Bennett Stuckey (UA-Little Rock Bowen School of Law Class of 2021). This was Arkansas’ first Robert Minarcin original case in recent memory. The Mock Trial Subcommittee would like to thank all of the volunteers who helped make this Barrett Moore possible. Members make our competition special by serving on the Subcommittee, helping to Ashley Elizabeth Norman start programs at their local high schools, volunteering as attorney-coaches, and serving as judges Constance Brown Phillips for the competition. With the 2021 competition year complete, the Subcommittee has started Natalie Elizabeth Ramm planning for the 2022 competition year. Casey Nicole Richmond In addition, Little Rock will serve as host for the National High School Mock Trial Jordan Brown Tinsley Championship in 2023. The Arkansas Mock Trial Foundation, Inc. is tasked with fundraising James D. Tomlin and hosting this endeavor. If you are interested in serving on the steering committee or sponsoring Timothy F. Watson the event, contact Foundation Board President Jordan Tinsley (jordan@tyattorney.com). Matthew D. Wells If you are interested in becoming a member of the Mock Trial Subcommittee or in Nicole Marie Winters volunteering for the competition, contact co-chairs Anthony McMullen (anthonylmcmullen@ gmail.com) and Adrienne Griffis (agriffis@ddh.law).

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View of the Pandemic from the Technology Trenches

By Timothy N. Holthoff

Timothy N. Holthoff is the Court Information Systems Division Director for the Administrative Office of the Courts

It has been a year since the Arkansas Supreme Court issued its first statement on COVID-19. Friday, March 6, 2020, began like any other day in the Justice Building after a long week of in-person meetings. The day ended with the Chief Justice asking our courts to review continuity of operations plans and prepare for a pandemic. Less than two weeks later our courts were ending in-person proceedings. In other states, there were frantic attempts to purchase laptops, build infrastructure, and buy virtual private network (VPN) licenses; but in the Arkansas appellate courts and many of the State’s district and circuit courts, the judiciary was prepared for the pandemic.

When we shifted to remote work, our biggest concern was the ability to adequately support the bench, the bar, and the public. What we have realized, though, is that the biggest challenge for the Court Information Systems Division of the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) has not been the remote work, or even supporting thousands of users, but has been staying connected as an organization and time-boxing our work. While it is advantageous for staff and courts to be able to time-shift some work, when working from home it is more difficult to disconnect. Naturally, we have concerns about work from home on networks that are less secure and devices that are less secure, but through user education and awareness, other enterprise security measures, and an amazing team of IT professionals, we are almost able to sleep at night—or we were until the recent major government intrusions came to light.1

Over the last decade our focus has been on enabling the courts to work from anywhere. We have done this by replacing desktops with laptops, creating a remote disaster recovery site, providing VPN connections so the laptops could connect securely to network resources, and deploying web-based case and jury management and efiling software. We have identified and built redundancies in our infrastructure for power and Internet connectivity, and we have invested in cybersecurity tools and our cybersecurity team to do the best we can to protect our court data. We have also made a concerted effort to take advantage of cloud computing opportunities such as Microsoft Office 365.

Our transition to remote work could not have gone much better because we were prepared. In May 2019, Chief Justice Kemp sent a contingent from Arkansas to the National Summit on Pandemic Preparedness, held at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. For several years, the appellate courts and the AOC have been developing, testing, and refining their disaster recovery and continuity of operations plans. The Summit allowed us to validate our preparation. Our attendees confirmed that our focus on enabling remote work would be instrumental in continuing court operations during a pandemic.

When we were notified that the Justice Building would be closing because of the

pandemic, in a conversation with the Chief Justice, I reassured him that IT had been preparing for that day for many years. Had it occurred even five or six years earlier, the impact on our courts would have been much more severe. Except for a few key staff routinely onsite, most of the work of the appellate courts has been conducted remotely since the pandemic began. Our preparedness was tested even further during our unprecedented winter weather during the week of February 14, 2021. With the Justice Building completely closed, both appellate courts issued their opinions with everyone working remotely.

Remote hearings have been key to our courts’ ability to continue work. Videoconferencing was not new to us, but it was not routine in court proceedings. When the pandemic began, we had just started a pilot project with two circuit courts to conduct virtual hearings in dependency neglect cases. Our two-judge pilot project became a statewide Zoom rollout. Last year thousands of court hearings were conducted remotely using Zoom and the appellate courts conducted remote oral arguments that were live-streamed to YouTube.

One of the biggest impacts on our courts was a massive rollout of efiling to nearly one third of the counties. Early in the pandemic we were challenged with coming up with a way to speed up rollout of the system. The solution was to focus on subsequent filings. We were able to shorten configuration and training time because Saline County Circuit Court was willing to test this idea.

Courts that have taken advantage of remote hearings and electronic filing have benefited most from remote work through the pandemic. By using the AOC-provided services, many of the courts could reduce the number of staff required at the courts and still be able to carry on much of the work of the courts at a near-normal pace.

Court technology professionals are now pondering what changes will remain after the pandemic. Are we finally moving to the promised paperless courts? Are remote hearings going to remain? How might we better serve our judges, attorneys, clerks, court staff, justice agencies, and the public with modern technology? How might we better secure court data from foreign state

Endnote:

1. In December 2020, two major breaches suspected to be executed by Russian state actors came to light. FireEye, a major cybersecurity firm, revealed that its hacking tools had been compromised. While investigating its own breach, FireEye discovered that SolarWinds, a major provider of technology management and monitoring, had also been breached. Christopher Bing and Joseph Menn, U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye discloses breach, theft of hacking tools, Reuters, available at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fireeyecyber-idUSKBN28I31E (Dec. 8, 2020); William Turton and Kartikay Mehrotra, FireEye Discovered SolarWinds Breach While Probing Own Hack, Bloomberg, available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/ articles/2020-12-15/fireeye-stumbledacross-solarwinds-breach-while-probingown-hack (Dec. 14, 2020). ■

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Taking the Bench Amid a Pandemic

By Judge Daniel Brock

"As we (hopefully) leave the virus behind over the next year, perhaps we’ll take with us a renewed sense of unity, civility, and grace toward one another. "

Judge Daniel Brock was sworn in as the Circuit Judge of the First Division in the 17th Judicial District on January 1, 2021.

“No matter what happens, at least everything will go back to normal after today.” That’s what my wife told me on the primaries election day, March 3, 2020, while we awaited the results of our eight-month campaign for circuit judge. By all means, I was ready for normal. If you’ve ever been part of a campaign, you know it can be an intense marathon of daily sprints for months on end. It’s an incredibly rewarding experience, but you’re ready for the conclusion when it’s over. Mine was highlighted by the birth of our son at the end of January 2020—a mere five weeks prior to the election. To say the first quarter of 2020 was a whirlwind for us would be an understatement. As we all know, that whirlwind came crashing to a halt—and not in a way that brought about any sense of normalcy.

Things have a way of taking time to travel to Arkansas. Compared to the coasts, we have typically been on the trailing end to receive new things, such as new music and styles, to name a couple. That kind of delay can also be insulating. Even when the first COVID-19 case was discovered in the U.S., it was not altogether clear whether it would make it to Arkansas or whether it would remain a coastal, big city problem. I remember being on a treadmill one night watching ESPN when it was announced that the NBA was suspending its season due to COVID-19. Major sporting leagues don’t whimsically cut off significant revenue streams. I knew in that moment that this virus would impact all of us—even in Arkansas. Within a couple of weeks after the March 3, 2020, election, COVID-19 had gripped the entire nation.

But this article is not about the shutdown of 2020. It’s about my experience as a new judge taking the bench during the COVID-19 pandemic in January of 2021. I’m Daniel Brock, and I’m the circuit judge of the First Division in the 17th Judicial District. My docket consists of civil and probate cases in White County and civil and criminal cases in Prairie County. At 38 years old, I’m relatively young for a circuit judge. My private practice largely consisted of commercial civil litigation. I thoroughly enjoyed the practice of law. While I was comfortable there, being accustomed to the ebb and flow of my caseload, I was mindful that I likely did not grasp all the behind-the-scenes duties and responsibilities that go into keeping a court running smoothly.

In my ideal scenario, I would have worked closely with the outgoing judge in the final months leading up to January 1st to get a feel for the day-to-day operations behind the bench. Unfortunately, new COVID-19 cases drastically increased in the fall and winter of 2020. As a result, any unnecessary close contact became impractical. Understandably, I did not spend significant time in chambers prior to taking office. Even so, my predecessor and his trial court administrator worked hard to leave the docket and administrative tasks in great condition for an efficient transition. Still, outfitting an office, hiring new staff, and

creating new processes and procedures is a formidable project for any new judge—and one you better figure out quickly. Lucky for me, my trial court administrator, Diana Snelson, and court reporter, Betsy Watson, are amazing people and were essential in getting our office up and running full speed so quickly.

The Challenges

By the time I took the bench in January, we were all aware of the operational hardships in our industry brought about by COVID-19. Social distancing, occupancy restrictions, mask mandates, and quarantine protocols are the obvious ones. Social distancing greatly affects how many attorneys, clients, and witnesses can be in a courtroom. Social distancing requirements lead to occupancy restrictions that oftentimes prohibit individuals from attending court unless they are essential to the case. Masks make it difficult to hear and clearly understand one another. Masks also affect the factfinder’s ability to weigh the credibility of witnesses because you cannot read their faces when providing testimony. Quarantine protocols triggered by close contact with an infected person can upend a hearing or trial at the last second with little to no notice.

My courtroom is spacious, so we can accommodate and work around most of the challenges. But quarantine protocols very quickly proved to be the primary and unpredictable disruption to the docket. Within the first week of taking the bench, I managed to come into close contact with someone (not in the courthouse) who soon after tested positive. Suddenly, all our efforts to plan around COVID-19 restrictions to conduct safe in-person hearings to begin my term were for naught. I had to hole up in a room at home for at least the next working week. We quickly contacted the attorneys and converted all the scheduled hearings to Zoom videoconferences. Each of the affected attorneys graciously worked to accommodate the change in schedule. As a result of the bar being accustomed to virtual court over the previous year, the last-minute transition was seamless. We missed no hearings on the docket due to my physical absence.

I did not contract the virus from my close encounter, so I returned to the office soon thereafter. But it did not take long for quarantine protocols to grab the spotlight again. I have children in daycare. If there is a close encounter at daycare, your kids must quarantine at home. It is not easy to find folks who want to watch potentially exposed kids. Foreseeing the inevitable, my TCA and I converted all of our operations to run remotely. That way, if either or both of us must be off-site, we can have court, review pending motions, sign and enter orders, communicate with attorneys, and continue moving the docket forward. It should be noted that at the time of this writing, White County is not an efiling county. Naturally, that procedure has been tested several times and has worked out great. Many judicial offices are set up this way now out of necessity. But just a year ago, it was unheard of.

While we managed to work around a pandemic, I must admit we could not conquer the ice and snowstorms of February 2021. Although we were available and working remotely, court appearances were halted for approximately 10 working days. We can learn and adopt new technology, but we Arkansans are still not winterweather savvy.

The Silver Linings

Our industry is notoriously sluggish to adopt new modes of operating. And we’re proud of it, as though we are the last line of defense for a lost way of life. The protectors of . . . WordPerfect? But seriously, in some ways we truly are preserving principles that are otherwise slipping away in our society, such as decorum, etiquette, and civility. We’ve also avoided taking on more efficient ways of conducting business because that’s not the way we’ve always done it. Then enters a pandemic putting a dramatic stop to nearly all of our standard operating procedures. In a matter of weeks, courts began using videoconferencing to give life to their dockets again. Attorneys also turned to videoconferencing to consult with clients and conduct depositions. Suddenly, being a virtual practitioner wasn’t viewed as a newage lawyer’s aspiration. It was everyone’s reality.

Early on, I decided that my big-picture judicial philosophy would be one of service. Service to the law without my personal leanings. Service to attorneys through diligence, accessibility, patience, and grace. Service to litigants by being present, fair, and receptive. No doubt, this is influenced by my faith and the condition of our country throughout the past year. If COVID-19 has done anything, it has exposed us to a collective sense of vulnerability. Some attribute this to the emergence of an invisible virus that does not discriminate against whom it negatively affects. Others blame their vulnerability on the perceived emergence of an overreaching government exerting undue control. There are various other rationales, but the overarching, unifying effect is a distinct feeling of lack of control. We can directly relate to one another, not just through our collective hardships but out of a shared sense of perseverance. That means we also have an opportunity to extend compassion and empathy for those around us in a way that may not have been as accessible before.

Moving Forward

At the time this article is being completed, new COVID-19 cases have been on a steady decline. Multiple vaccines have been approved and distributed. The Governor recently announced that the mask mandate ended. We’re beginning to see what we hope is a light at the end of the tunnel. As we (hopefully) leave the virus behind over the next year, perhaps we’ll take with us a renewed sense of unity, civility, and grace toward one another. ■ Vol. 56 No. 1/Spring 2021 The Arkansas Lawyer 23