14 | The Summation
The Practice of Patience:
The 2021 Florida High School Mock Trial by Judge David Langham, Deputy Chief Judge of Compensation Claims
S
et in fictional Canton County Florida, the 2021 High School Mock Trial problem was replete with challenges. The defendant, Fran Lewis, was charged with murder. She was an environmental activist known for protesting against a local paper company. She also had a pending lawsuit alleging the plant’s pollution was responsible for Fran’s spouse’s death. Months before the murder, she had been overheard telling the victim s/he was “a dead man walking.”
The murder occurred on the paper company’s premises. To make matters worse for Fran, evidence at the crime scene included red spray paint spelling “pig” on a paper company window. This was similar to graffiti in a demonstration, to which Fran had pled guilty to months earlier. A spray can was found on the premises, with a fingerprint that matched Fran. And, on an adjacent logging road, there were foot prints and tire marks that matched Fran’s shoes and tires. There was also a witness that claimed to have seen the defendant at a convenience store close to the paper company around the time of death. The defense was not without arguments. The security guard that found the body conducted an
investigation while awaiting the police and might have had motive to implicate Fran. It was this security guard who located and pointed out the empty spray paint can to police. It was this security guard who enjoyed a promotion thereafter, taking over the decedents former job. The defense’s expert witness performed a volume of experiments, each discrediting the mere possibility that the eyewitness could have seen anyone at the convenience store under the conditions described. The county sheriff had challenges as well. The sheriff had collected the evidence pointed out by the security guard and obtained warrants against
the defendant. The sheriff ’s sole suspect and focus was Fran. The sheriff was reputed to have a long standing feud with defendant and her family. Furthermore, the paper plant/victim was a major contributor to the sheriff ’s election campaign. Fran’s mother testified about both the sheriff ’s bias and provided a significant alibi for Fran. In the First Judicial Circuit, we have had a Circuit competition for years. Teams progress from such competitions to the state and national level. Across the state, teams gathered in 2020 for the competition. However, in the immediate aftermath of the circuit
