Ep3: Mob Hits and the H-E-B

was pretty relaxed. Not a lot went on, so I don't mean to make it sound like it was boring, but it was definitely very yeah, just very relaxed. My dad is the general manager for RDIO Equipment, which is a John Deer dealership, and my mom drives school buses for the Rep City School system. But she's done a ton of stuff throughout her life. I grew up in a family of five, my mom and my dad, and I have an older sister who's thirty and a younger

brother who just turned twenty two. I'm the oldest of nine children, so I have eight younger siblings, and I've always had this role model slash lookout for them, and I want to make sure that they're okay in life and that they're doing the right things. So by being a lawyer, I can apply that to other people. I can look out for other people. But the cultural divide in South Dakota is like East River West River. That's more ranching out there to seem more like cowboy hats

and that kind of stuff. We're here it's more farming, so it's a little bit different culture. I mean, where I'm from, it's considered one of the big towns. You got about, you know, seven eight towns within that fifteen to twenty thousand, and then every place else is pretty ruled. I'm a listener as opposed to being the first to speak. I think people talk too much sometimes, and I think we miss a lot of stuff and we're talking, so I'd kind of rather listen and take everything in and

then then add in an opinion. I'm a first generation lawyer, so no and my family has gone to law school, so this has been a fun kind of new adventure for all of us. I guess I'm also Catholic, and I am really involved in my faith. I think it's important to do that work through the criminal justice system. And also I'm Native American and here in South Dakota there's a lot of issues, especially on the western side of the state, with Native Americans and their treatment over

the years and their problems that they struggle with. My parents had to see a bankruptcy lawyer at one point and ultimately saved their house. So that's something that really stuck with me when I was pretty young. So I started working when I was as soon as I can apply for a work license in Iowa. I started off by a detasseling corn. I did that every summer until I was old enough to get an actual job. Then you've got Vermillion here. It's about ten thousand people, but

Vermilion it's pretty much just a college town. I think the population doubles when the college gets here. So I went to undergrad at the University of South Dakota. So by the time all of a sudden done, I have spent seven years in this town and on this campus, and I can't tell you how much I'm dreading leaving Vermillion. It has truly become home. I mean South Dakota culture in general. People are nice, they're reserved. You don't see a ton of characters are big, colorful personalities like you

do in the city. Yeah, they're very conservative. People don't have the most open minded world view generally because it's a small state. You're not a round a lot. But I think people have good intentions here. They're good people. I mean, nobody's really going to spin in your face and slam the door on you. We are the state's law school. Laura Rose, the feisty University of South Dakota coach, has already uploaded the fact pattern to her entire team. There was a quote that my dad used to use

at Stetson when he was running their program. He used to tell people that when I send you out to a competition, I am putting the reputation of my school in your hands. If you drop the reputation in my school, I will cut your hands off. Now he can get away with that because he's a twenty two year military veteran. Law school mock trial season it's like a hurricane and it's fast approaching. Here's the deal. I'm not going to cut your hands off, but we're gonna have to talk.

Tryouts are over, the team is hand picked. Classes are already in full swing. The law school grind. It's on, but you're in a competition setting. There is no time to be Midwest night. I love South Dakota, Nicce and Midwest nights. One of my favorite things about this area of the country is how polite people are and how much people care about other people. But you know where it doesn't have a place in a courtroom. We're here to argue. We're here to argue about facts. You are

not my friend, you're not my enemy. I don't have to cut your throat precisely most of them. Dozens of schools around the country are preparing for the fall invitational tournaments, were second and third year law students get a chance to compete before the big national competition start in the spring. But I do have to make sure that you're following

through with what it is that I need done. And I do have to make sure that you're complying with the rules, and I do have to make sure that I am not in an attempt to be kind and to be polite, actually giving away points of argumentation. I'm Katie Fang, and this is Class Action Episode three, Mob Hits and the H E. B. Tyler. You look confused, what's up? It's eight am, and everyone is working together to build an air tight case. Picture an old fashioned

barn raising on the prairie. Only this barn is called together with arguments and legal strategy. Nicky owed two dollars. Nick's a bad guy, he's a drug user, a lot of problems that you can attack his credibility. And then you also got the bartender who's a good witness. He's lost doing a very credible kid, and he was saying Tommy is peaceful. Tommy's a very peaceful guy and he's generous. Oh three, you all made faces when he said the word peaceful. Why did we make faces? Justin? Did you

say peaceful in your opening? What have you done? You've opened the door to character evidence, character evidence, but you don't know it because you're a baby too, all right. If you get a criminal fact pack, there is an instinctive desire to start to humanize your client, which you can do. But you've got to watch the adjectives because if I say he's peaceful, and if there's any evidence that he's not, what am I doing? I am giving

the state attorney the moment. I am giving brain in the moment to get up and go Hey, you just said that you love peace and love. It all happens if you were in the freaking mob. You were you you were doing this right, you were with these people, you were doing this. You're giving the opportunity to pounce. Yeah, that's the business he was in. So he's he's not gonna go full wive guy. He's not going to be a made man. He's not going to burn the car

to the saint in his hands. Case file Commonwealth versus Santa Suso a mock trial case torn out of the script of a Grizzly mafia murder story. It's a movie plot and one you may be familiar with. I've always wanted to do a mob case and there's not really been, ever been one that's done at any level of mock trial. My name is Philip Pascua alo Um, the trial competition director at the Director University Thomas Arkline School of Law and the tournament director for the Battle of the Experts.

So the Battle of the Experts is a national mock trial competition where sixteen law schools compete to be the national champion of the Battle of the Experts. So this Fear's case is loosely based on the plot of good films, change the names of the characters and then their stories is slightly different than what you'd see in the movie. For lots of reasons. I hope not on one we're going to clear there. I think Marty's got bigger things to do and then and then read our case file.

But I hope he reads it. That would be excellent. There's a classic scene where the character played by Joe Pesci is insulted in a bar and he and the character played by Radiota killed that person killed. That character. Character's name is Billy Batts. It's still my favorite mob movie for sure. Nothing has come close. My name is Elijnig.

I spent fourteen years as a prosecutor, but yes, I spent most of my career in the Southern District of New York indicting, prosecuting, and trying real life New York City mobsters. That is a great murder scenario for a mock trial, because it's not your obvious, premeditated murder that

was not supposed to happen. When they're done beating him to death, I think the de Niro character sort of says to the Pesci character, would you do I think that's a great scenario because then you have to argue things like intent and premeditation and what degree of murder are we in here? Is it manslaughter? Is it murder? So that's a good scenario because I think there are arguments to be made, but you're getting into trickier issues

that would be argued at a real trial. The purpose of mock trial, I think this to get kids interested in this, to get students wanting to do this in their future careers. And if what are you gonna do, Try some boring fraud case that's based on tax law and account no, give him an interesting case, Give them an exciting case, Give him something out of a movie, and that will spark their interest. Laura Rose has hand picked four of her top students to argue this case.

Bailey Moore that and Justin Peter Right will defend Tommy Santa Suso. What happens is this guy, William Cafierre, we call him Billy. Billy goes to a bar. He gets out of jail and he kind of needs to re establish his boss presence, and Tommy Santa Suso and Nickpatrick arrived. Everyone knows each other, but Tommy's trying to get out of the mafia. He's still in the mafia, but Tommy just wants to be respected, because who doesn't want to be Brandon Hodeck and Bill Murray. Not that Bill Murray

will prosecute Tommy. When I first read this fact pattern, for example, I thought the state slightly had the edge, and then I kept reading it, and then I thought the defense was gonna blow us out of the water. And then I kept reading it and I realized, maybe the state actually has the better case. And so when Billy starts shoving in his face that Houston your chauffeur, Tommy gets mad. They start a brawl, and after this bar fight, then it's only Nick and Billy, and that's

all we really know from there. That's what we know for sure. They walk out of the bar together, and you know that Billy's dead. It's just kind of always work in progress. It's important never to get too in love with a certain theme or theory, because you can always think of something that completely derails everything that you just built. The rest of the team is spread out in the peanut gallery of the law schools practice court, firing pot shots at the new case as going through it,

Does it make sense? Does it make sense with what you read and what questions leading as you're hearing for the first time, Tell me what you're thinking about. So I texted Bailey this as well, But it probably goes both ways. The knife is under the assumption that it's the mother's knife, a knight that she regularly uses, So where's her prince? On the other flip side, though the prosecution say the knife is wiped, there's no prince now

because they're trying to cover it up. Yeah, this might be a stretch, but I was gonna say, who's to say that when he left the far the first time, he didn't take Nicky's car If his car is parked there but further away, he could have taken Nikki's car or I don't remember what I was thinking he did. He still didn't go back to the bar, which is where Tommy's car would have been. So even if you were to have taken him back to his car and not home, the cell phone records still don't show that.

I do. I can't say it's comfortable. It's definitely not comfortable. You put a lot of work into theory in your case, and then it's easy to kind of get upset when someone tries to pull holes in it. Though it's a team sport, it's can quickly feel very personal. So, Laura, during boot camp, it looks as if you're taking all of the students that you're working with and you're having them hive mind this problem that they've been presented with.

Can you kind of walk us through that method and that procedure and why you think it's effective to be able to give them a foundation to work from. The reason for the hive mind with the Battle of the Expert's fact pattern in particular, came about for a few reasons. Number One, it's a great way to knock the rust off from the summer. It's a great way to get started and get going and get everybody back to thinking

about those things. Number Two, it's a great way for the students that are so deeply entrenched with the fact pattern to realize, Hey, the thing that you thought was very clear isn't clear from your presentation That inference that you thought was so obvious isn't actually as obvious as you want to make it. Me, is it a good idea?

Because I'm just thinking about this and like, what Ma's really saying here is if you can say that he was here for these parts, say, are there some fuzzy inconsistencies, Yes, but remember he's he's not a saint. He's a drug addict and drug dealer. Was he high on heroin when he was doing this? I don't know, But could you know he's there enough to say, yeah, there's some inconsistencies. But do we think he did it? Your reasonable members of the jury, I'd say yes, and then just kind

of blur. So is it a combination of a confidence builder, an ice breaker, a substantive dive into the law and the evidence and the rules of procedure kind of all in one. Yeah, it's it's everything. It's a kitchen saint kind of approach. It's trial, and that's why it's wonderful because you have to deal with the facts, the law, the But Tommy, on the other hand, he's smart, he's methodical, he knows what he's doing. But it's kind of ironic that our star witness has all the things that make

him look like the bad guy in San Antonio. Jasmineal Gain has finally managed to stream Martin Scorsese's mob classic Good Fellas one of my favorites. Anyway, her St. Mary's University teammates Andy Viscarra and Coldla they feel like it's their legal obligation to break down the plot. Yeah, and this movie, Tommy didn't. Yeah. But in the movie. Even in the movie, I was like, I was like, oh, so Tommy did it. He did it? Yeah, I was like, whoa, that didn't happen. Not in our story. They're adding a

third person up in this joy all right, I killed Billy. Yeah, when he wants anybody there, that's a good can you deserve that. I'm gonna pretend Jimmy saw me to morow like die for this man. That's not very okay. Dury remembers the dream. I'm sorry, I'm gonna start, but I'm trying to really think about this. You're gonna get on this vibe. I'm gonna kill Let me start that again. I'm sorry that sounded weird. I'm gonna kill this bastard.

I'm gonna kill you, you fake tough guy. Those were the last words that the defendant told Billy Cafilero the night that he was murdered. It's a dark knight in Sienna, Pennsylvania. And while walking on the street, you see a bar to the right. It's called the Bamboo Lounge. And from afar you think it's just a mom and pop little bar, something quiet. But inside inside that bar is a whole another story. Inside that bar, it's another world of people.

They have a code violence, drugs, money, and family above all. Breaking that code means breaking that code can cost you your life. They make money from prostitution, loan sharky, theft, and extortion. Now, these families have a hierarchy. It goes boss underboss, conciliaire, capos, associates and soldiers. And these are the types of people that you will find the Bamboo Lounge when you walk inside. The first person, so I

really like the story. That's Jason Goss. He's a St. Mary's grad and a trial team legend, Jason tried cases for the Bear County d a's office, but then he left to join his old boss and take up for the defense. Now, when you got towards the end, you just started basically reading it, it was like blah blah blah, da da da, something's never changed. In whatever spare time, Jason manages to get he and his wife Maritza who's

expecting their first baby, coached the battle team. Sorry, I feel like it goes too long, and I was boring you guys. It is too long. But the only reason is and the reason why it felt that way is because you basically you did something that's it's kind of rare and mock trial. You woa of all what the witnesses we're going to say into the story, which is cool, but you know, one of the things I noticed was is you're talking about grab. You know, you had the knife,

you stabbed once, you stabbed twice, three times. You need to talk about it like that. Right, he got the knife, he stabbed him once, he stabbed him twice, He stabbed him three times, nine inches deep right into his heart. Something like that. Drama at a little I like it. Keep going. I'm jasmineal Green and I'm a three. Oh uh not doing too well today. Uh. We have cold brew just running through my veins right now. Probably gonna get like two to three hours of sleep. Already. Told Andy,

you know she sees me tomorrow. She didn't see me because the first two weeks I was dressing up nice and tomorrow it's it's gonna be bad. And I'm working on top of this, and I think that's what's killing me because I don't have that extra free time. So I don't know how Jasmine's living right now. I got a sabbatical from my job because I physically could not do everything. She's not human, she's not real. But but my job keeps me saying like, when I'm there, I

love it. I'm not worried about anything. I'm like, I'm here, it's just wish there was more time in the week. So, Laura, when you perceive from some of the students, the ones that maybe you predict are going to have a struggle after a law school, do you pivot a little bit and maybe give a little bit more of yourself, maybe a little bit more mentoring, maybe a little bit more individualized attention to maybe get them more prepared for what

the real world quote unquote is going to be. Like, I try to do that with all of my students in all honesty, and it's one of the things that I'm really fortunate with being here at South Dakota because I have the number of students that I interact with.

I am very closely involved with all of my trial team members, and I get to do that individualized attention that you're talking about, But you can always pick out those one or two where it's like, hey, you're gonna need a little bit of extra coaching or a little bit of extra support. My office is a safe space

for you. One of the biggest obstacles that I see in a lot of my friends at school and in myself is that imposter syndrome that most women have, where it's like you don't realize that you are smart enough or think you have the best argument, and there's always kind of a push to be better without accepting that you're already goody. And that's been one of the hardest things to overcome. And advocacy is knowing like, Okay, my

argument is good, my style is good. Now I just need to trust it, but make it better and and that's the thing, right And I will empathize with you on the imposter syndrome point and tell you it's not something that goes away. I've got it horribly bad. My friends love to laugh at me because every other week i'd like, the law school is gonna fire me, I'm gonna lose my job, And they're like, in what world? And I'm like, somebody's going to see through that I

have clearly just faked it till I made it. At this point, one of the things about being a female advocate that I've found challenging until we'll still find challenging but less challenging after working with you, is I think the practice of law has had very maybe kind of aggressive and straightforward and loud and boisterous and all of these kind of different qualities that you've seen all the movies, um that lawyers portrayed. But being you know, a female advocate,

as you said, we have a different skill set. And in trial tech, I got a lot of comments about being too gentle or like motherly, or I speak too soft or something, and it kind of leads you to a different skill set of how you take those kinds of things and then make them better in your advocacy and make them dangerous in the courtroom. And I think that's one of the coolest things that I see women advocates do, is you kind of know where they're going,

but you don't know how that final. And here's the thing. I think that part of the reason that we've had to become that is because the idea that if you're aggressive is a woman, You're going to get labeled as a bit. But number one, that's not necessarily true. The jury will give you leeway if the witnesses being ridiculous. You know, the more unreasonable they get, the more reasonable that you get, unless you have to do the control and then it shows the jury I've got the range

to go there. I'm choosing not to go there because I know I'm more effective when I take these different approaches, and that's not a bad thing. The thing that you get to figure out now is is what your range truly is. You you've figured out a couple of octaves that you're comfortable singing in to make the analogy work,

but you can expand out of that. We bring to the room our own biases and beliefs, and if you don't understand that, when you're an attorney standing up and presenting to a jury that is going to decide the facts of your case, you will always lose. For Trial team director A. J. Belito de Luna, running a trial

program means keeping track of several competition teams. The thing that has to be at the forefront of your mind from beginning to add Trust me, they are watching every little thing that you are doing, Every little thing that you are doing. He means coaching up the younger lawyers and trial advocacy classes, but also looking out for promising rookies, your honor, opposing counsel ladies and gentlemen of the jury. She couldn't escape. She wanted to leave, but she couldn't.

He would not have it, so instead he killed her. Rookies like Mariella and Sina's the second year law student from Tucson who knocked it out of the park in boot camp. This is her first opening statement in what may prove to be a very promising legal career. October starts as a typical day for a detective about He goes into the office, probably grabs some coffee, sits at his desk when the phone rings. Someone tells him that

a body was found at the marsh. Unfortunately, in Detective Label's line of work, this isn't uncommon, so he treats it just like any other homicide. He goes to the scene, he examines the scene, he examines the body, suspects foul play, and that's when it hits him. That's when he makes the connection. He realizes Molly didn't go missing just randomly three years ago. She didn't just run away from the defendant. The defendant killed her. Thank you. This is assistant coach

Stephen Lopez, your brothers and your poise up there. You're not moving around. You're very strong, you're very powerful. Your voice feels this entire room, which is awesome. Your theme that she couldn't escape, right, it's okay, right, it's not plunchy, it's not really catchy. But I think the bigger problem with it is he didn't really use it. If that's your theory and that's your theme, then you've got to play that through your whole opening. Great job, right, Sure,

I have seen your days. I could see it because you just got criticized pretty heavil and you don't like it. I mean, I I take criticism. Well, it's just like, yeah, it's you know, you want to be perfect all the time, but it's just not think so. So I want you to hear something. I sent him a text. What did that text say? I didn't My phone is off, sir, beat ault. She is a champion in waiting. I see

in your face where you're feeling failure. I see in your face where you're like Damn, I didn't do it right. I didn't meet the expectation. It's not good enough yet, but there's great stuff there. So don't get discouraged when you get these com heads. We're never going to tell you that you're good enough until you're good enough. And you know when you're good enough when you bring home a national championship like he did. When we put your trophy in a trophy case. That's when we stopped saying

things to you. It's like you, you tell me what we're gonna do now, all right, that's when you're good enough. Yeah, so great job, now you can give her. Last week was probably my most stressful week so far. More and more things to do, and as we get deeper into classes, it gets a little more time consuming. Also, I was asked to practice with coach Douer and coach Goss as a witness for their Battle of the Experts competition. So I was really excited when I got the email. It

was Aj who emailed me. I was really excited. You know. He let me know that this means you know what I'm doing well. He also told me, don't let this get to your head. You know, this isn't a golden ticketed. You know, we're offering you this opportunity contingent on you doing well and trial at um and keeping up the work. It's definitely been a whirlwind of craziness. I haven't even finished my evidence class. Like this is going to be very scary. I'm a thrill. I definitely feel a ton

of pressure because I have experience. I should be better in theory, I should be really good, should be able to not necessarily carry the team, but at least do a really good part. But because of that competitive nature, you always feel like you're not there. We had practiced yesterday that was a full sort of round, and I didn't think I did as well as I should have. I messed up some really basic stuff that I know

better than to do. I missed certain cues for things, I missed objections stuff that I shouldn't have screwed up. And we have, you know, a couple of weeks to three weeks to prepare and hone that in. So it it definitely that pressure gets to you, and there's a lot more pressure on it because all the leaders of

the program are on this specific team. So it makes you want to be better, but it also it makes you really hard on yourself and does take a mental toll, which is probably a good thing that law schools competitions don't go all year. I have a meeting with my counselor later on today. I haven't spoken to her in a long time, but and I've had to keep putting

it off due to how busy I've been. But in general, it seems like everybody's noticed everyone's mental health is sort of collapsing, far more than it was our one oh year. So I think people seem to be just generally worse off. And I think it's a mix of the continuing pandemic returning to classes knowing that the bar is coming up. It's started one o year. Um. I mean, I saw counselors periodically and in undergrad dealing with stresses and some

medical issues that threw me off. So I saw or I saw regularly, but since things have gotten worse, decided to pick it up a little bit again, just to at least have a third party to be able to vent to. You know, talking to your friends is great, but if your friends are going through the same things you are, it does feel kind of weird to complain to them because they're not complaining to you. They get it. They know where everybody's at their dealing with the same stuff.

But here you are complaining to them. It's just it feels weird, even though they don't mind, it's just doesn't feel quite as effective and it's just off. So, Ellie, what advice do you have to guard against the burnout that does happen in the business. Don't do mock trial. I'm only half kidding. Look, when you're on trial, it's all consuming, real trial. There's just no way around that. It devours your life. I will speak from my experience.

You ignore your kids. You know, you don't take care of yourself in terms of what you eat and you sleep. And I think that mock trial, from what I've seen, can be similar on these kids and on these students. And I don't have an easy solution to that. I don't know how they do it. I don't know how they do mock trial and also keep up with their classes and their social activities and their other activities that they're trying to do at school. So God bless them.

It wasn't for me. You know. If I had to give advice, I guess I would just try to say, don't let it invade your dreams. Try to put it in a box, put it to the side, and keep in mind, as as much as it can feel all consuming and competitive, it is a mock trial and you don't have actual you know, someone's actual liberty at steak or the family of a murder victim at stake. So take a breath, keep it in perspective. But God bless you for doing it. Everything has its season, everything has

its time. Somewhere there must be footage of a young Lord Rose on stage. I can't do anymore in that because my voice is gonna bother me too much. From the time that I was very small, I loved musical theater in particular, and I blame my parents for this, because they took me to see Little Shop of Horrors when I was two. I fell in love with the

storytelling element of that particular world. And like when Dad was first in the military and when I was younger and we would drive everywhere, he would play musical soundtracks, and the storytelling aspect of that for me was everything. Part of my plan was I wanted to work for children's Television Workshop, and so that's where I wanted to be, but I knew that if I couldn't make it work and I was going to become a financial burden to my parents. At that point, I couldn't justify it in

my own head. I graduated from college in May of two thousand nine. I was two years behind when I should have been because my mom got sick before I went to school. She has MS, and I stayed home to help out with the family. With that, I said, I can't. I can't do it, as much as I want to, as much as I would have loved to go there, and so it was better to go with the practical thing, to have the thing that I knew could feed me, and then find a way from my

creative love to become a part of that. And I got really lucky. I got really, really lucky and found a way to do it. The reason I was comfortable going to law school is I knew that the law school that I had chosen was the one that was going to make me an advocate, which was me, which meant that I was going to get to take my talents and all these things that I'd spent time developing and use them for the betterment of other people. It's just not the way that I thought it would happen.

I thought I would be in the courtroom trying cases all the time, and in reality, I'm much better suited to what I'm doing now, which is taking the next generation and saying you go to it. If I am successful and get tenure here, I could stay here for the rest of my academic career. If I do that, I will know at the end of my career that for thirty plus years, I will have put out every single advocate that's come out of University of South Dakota

Cannuts in school law. So I will know that the evidentiary issues in courtrooms across the state are being handled in a way that's appropriate. I will know that the people who are advocating in courtrooms have been trained this way, and it's going to change the legal landscape here because it's desperately needed. The clock is ticking in Coach Rose needs to whip her team into shape for the battle

of the experts. Good morning, good morning, Good morning, gang, and for all of the competitions that are coming in the fall. Get your coffee, get your caffeine and drink. Make sure that you're awake. We will get through today as quickly as we possibly can. You all know that I'm all about efficiency and making sure that we don't waste our time, and I know that you have other

things that you've got to do. But today what we're gonna be covering, we're gonna talk about cross examination, which is everybody in this room knows my absolute favorite thing that we end up doing in a courtroom, because it's when you have the most controled. So are we all clear about what we're doing this morning? We awake vaguely three else, Let's go around the room. What's your favorite

part about cross examination? Justin The thing I like about the most is I feel like I'm in control, and no matter how hard they're trying to squirm out of things, or if they're trying to be cute with me, it's an easy situation to flip that back on them. Matt, you've had trial tech. What's your favorite thing about cross The power? I like the power behind it. This is Matt Skinner, a future defense attorney and the team's best sniper. Be honest, man, let's go work. Come on, talk about it.

Why do you like the power? What about that is good? I like the power and forever. I've called it the oce Ship moment. Like I instead, you just lay these bread crumbs and eventually it leads to this trap where the witnesses like, oh Ship, I'm stuck. Hi, I don't know what to do here. Yeah. I like the power of having control. Basically you know what's going to happen, they don't, and eventually you're going to lead that witness

to do exactly what you want. I think one of the most intimidating things that you can't really do on Zoom. But they call it working the wells. So like you're well as kind of right in from the judge and

the witness table. Here Coach Rose teaches us how to walk your dog in the well and when you have an unfriendly witness, when you start kind of cornering them on a point, you start walking towards them and you keep the eye contact, and as you keep asking questions, you keep taking more and more steps, and once you've kind of cracked them a major point, you just turn your back to them and walk away. But it's one of the most kind of powerful moments that you can

have in a courtroom. You know, when you go to the zoo and you turn your back to like all the monkeys, and they get mad like that's kind of what walking the dog is like. And hour after hour, coach it was puts her team through a crash course on trial techniques. So if you get somebody on the stand who says, well, Sally told me that Billy Bob told her objection your honor, hearsay within hearsay, may we approach all in the service of building a stronger case

for the Battle of the experts competition. You're on her under federals of evidence in the process knocking the South Dakota nice out of her young lawyers on the team. Why is it unfairly prejudicial? Why is that the case? Explain it? Draw it for me in crayons if you freaking have to, But explain it. If it's egregious, if it touches upon a fundamental right, in particular, if we're in Battle of the experts and justin hears them say that,

the defendant for sure is going to say something. He's gonna be up off of his chair having a heart attack, but he's going to make the objection to make sure that it's on the record. Because fundamental rights, constitutional issues, things that could get people into prison if we were in real life. You gotta be mad about that, and you got to be big man. You've got to say that it's wrong, and you've got to call it out

for being wrong. When I was getting ready to do my first ever jury address as a prosecutor, I asked my supervisor, who had been doing it for a decade plus, I said, this is a stupid question, but what am I supposed to be tomorrow when I give this opening? And he said, what do you mean? I said, I don't know, Like, what's the vibe? What am I trying to do? My trying to be tough guy or cool or what? And he said, Look, as the prosecutor, your job is two things. To be clear and credible, and

that's it. Leave the dramatics to the defense lawyer. Leave the pounding of the podium and the clever stories to the defense lawyer. That's not for you. Your job is a stand up in front of that jury to be clear they understand what your case is about. And to be credible. They believe you, they believe our evidence. That's it. I was once told a friend of mine said, I figured out your style. I said, okay, what is it?

He said, your Jersey conversational. I'm from New Jersey. And I said, oh, I don't know that he meant it as a compliment. I think he meant it like I'm not super intellectual. But I said, perfect, that's great. That's what I want to be. Part of the beauty of

our jury system is. I think people tend to think our jury system is mechanical or mathematical, but in fact, every judge instructs every jury use your common sense, use your good everyday common sense that you use every day out there, and and it can really resonate with the jury and you say, why would this defendant take this action? Look, you all know, you're all human beings. You've all been

in scenarios where someone has insulted you. You know how that maybe made you feel that you didn't act on it, but he did. You know, you can use common sense type arguments like that, and it's part of the beauty of our jury system, and it can be quite effective in advocacy. Back in San Antonio, the team piles into Andy's car. They're not searching for facts, They're hunting down snacks brain food for a tournament that will stretch over

three marathon days. Yeah, my grandmother calls it cheap, cheap, it's better than and calls it him. Okay, it's so focused. We need energy drinks. I probably want to try about Okay, we need them for tomorrow because we're not gonna have time to kind of energy drink. I gotta probably get like the double shot espressos from Starbucks, like like like like a pack of them. We also need like snatter because we need Yeah, we need water bottles. We need to haul all the water when I go home. This

is what I missed the most, ya for sure. Okay, so Jasmine wants I want the little I do the double shot ones or I mean their triple shot but I'll be bouncing off the freaking walls and that you just get me alive by one out year. Yeah, the triple shot ones. There you go, all right, I think I got snacks, We got drinks ready to go. Yeah, you want to get your opening right now? What here in everybody do it? You can do anywhere, You can do it anywhere else on our way to get over

your fears. Then just stay in the day. You can get it for something to get to be true or not. Yeah, I don't need a compa no, like like you want me to do an hour or not? I want used to do it at the hotel top and get animated. I'm I'm a rant on all the things and be like, get Mike, I didn't even that it was my car. Come on, coach, Jason Goss is waiting at the hotel.

So the way, the way that it was described in the coaches meeting is not if you plan to use any character evidence of Tommy, if you plan to use any character evidence at all for any witness my entire nae Patrick Across right. Well, so you know the idea is and what they were talking. So Jason, how do

you help these students just get over their nerves? You know what I always tell them is you're gonna You're gonna have it like it just it's there, Like I used to throw up for these things, always did, and I don't now. But I'll tell you what I mean. I tried a hundred fifty cases and I will still feel so nervous every time I do an opening or every time I do across examination. So you know, I don't really know how to tell them because it's kind

of how they do it. I'll tell you that. Tomorrow the first round, we are going against University of Chicago, Kent. So those are your advocates, those are your witnesses. You can't get noticed any My coach before me, that was coaching this team before me, and I remember telling there like, these kids are, they're not ready. They don't know what they're doing, you know, like she said, it's it's weird.

But right when the competition starts, like whatever, it is, all that stuff you told them, it just kicks in and then they just go and they do it. Tomorrow, they're gonna amaze and astonished. They're gonna be great because they're gonna take those nerves or whatever, and they're gonna be on stage and they're gonna be ready to go and they're going to deliver her. Like any collegiate athlete, these law students have something to prove on the field

of play. The battle starts in one day, and on top of all of the legal strategy, there's another major stress factor. These trials are held on zoom and this year, the second year of the pandemic, stakes are higher for mastering the technology. Yeah, last year it was old webcams, bad internet bedrooms, and here we've got like really nice cameras. This is Bill Murray from South Dakota. You're on in a moment to situate myself in the well of the courtroom. So this is us right now present, and we go

to screen share. Already got anything that publish mission published, and we I think they need to click through it instead of waiting. We've got some whiting. We're going to be in the courtroom. It's almost set up for the competition, so I think the school has had some more time to prepare for it. You know, there's been a whole year of zoom trials, so they've had time to think

about it and the best way to go forward? Can we run through the motions once of like where we would be motion and lemon a and then I just don't like how switch it out? Well, let's let's run it quick. Grady, do you want to go in there with this laptop? And then Rose you're presiding. So now all of our teams will be using this set up for all the competitions and hopefully we're back in person next spring, but if not, we've got a very nice setup going forward. Okay, so I'll be given the motion

and lemonade. So I'm gonna be giving it from the Williams in the room, granted obviously, so state ready to proceed, permission to prepare the well, your honor, thank you, your honor, nothing further, and then turn off my camera. Maybe I would unplug this and I'll do my direct they'll do their cross. I'll be seated here. This video quality right this video quality right here not the same as the video quality that we haven't here. That's gonna be too

much of a difference. But if we have a setup in Yere so that we have that quality camera and here I'm mine and I will stop my bidge, it's equally as tense inside that hotel room in San Antonio. Okay, So right now we're setting up the witness rooms. So we have to set up the backdrops and the cameras and the microphones in the rooms of the team members who will be witnessing in this competition. Every little detail matters, the lights, the cameras, the backdrops, even the makeup and

hand movements. If you can see it on zoom, chances are you're going to be judged on it. So John has built this like contraption that's gonna hold up the back drops that another one of our classmates made. It's supposed to look like wood. It's like a wooden back drop. It has the skills of justice in the middle of a little circle. Um, how would you describe it, John, So it's a piece of vinyl that's wrapped around a

frame built of pbc uh imprinted on. There is wood paneling with the scales of justice kind of like superimposed on it, kind of like you would see in the wood paneling in the back of like a courtroom or

like an office space. I just gonna get all these sprinkles out, so it's gonna be behind the advocate and so the advocate if the advocates right here, I'm gonna hang or put the ring light up, which I can do actually behind you see what I'm saying, because that ring light also has a spot on it before the

camber to screw. And we went through our defense case opening of defense, our crosses than we did our direct examinations, and Andy closed on defense and kind of got some more stylistic feedback Like for my any Coach Stewart told me that I can bring it up a notch and my energy maybe like sound a little more powerful, and also she wants me to move around more. I have to do less because it's like stop doing this with

your hands. I was like, I just want to emphasize it's like teetering on jazz hands because I'm like, there's this, there's that, like there's like explosions coming out of your hands, and then this is just like you're thinking, we have a thought. You're think it's like you're pulling like a like a little band between your hands, like you're exercising your forearms or something. We've got a feedback, Like one of the judges commented on a girl's eyelashes and her hair.

You have to be like very very natural, natural makeup. That's what they want for sure. Hair tucked back because last year my coach she was like you have gray hair, which is true, thank you um, but he was like, you need to like move it from your face. You don't need to have it blocking your your face because it's just tracting and natural makeup. No heavy eyes, shadows, nails, need to be professional, nude, nothing crazy with the clothes, just like blue or black suits and then like a

white top. They had to prove like our outfit. They even approved our other advocates tie. He's had to send his thie colors because you can't have something too distracting because they know, like the judges will be like, I hate that Tie, I hate you, Like it's over for us. So we got we're not going to sleep tonight. Um texting my nail guy because he's like, next, we're all right here. I love this man. I do the only thing left to do in South Dakota. I am a

bundle of nerves. Besides the usual panicking is to fuel up for the brutal days that law ahead. I'm feeling pretty good. I think we're ready to go. I'm ready for some pasta tonight and then then we're ready to roll. It's LaCOSA noodles like La Cosa Nostra. Rose makes this like infamous pasta sauce and you can like smell it through the school whenever she she brings it. So she made that sauce for a team dinner tonight before competition, and Bill calls them look coastra and noodles. I make

comematee spaghetti sauce. It's one of my ways of decompressing and de stressing and I was also couring and blanching a hundred and seventy nine pounds worth it tomatoes, and so I have fast tracked some of that to make homemade spaghetti sauce. We're gonna have a spaghetti dinner because it just felt appropriate. With the fact matter. It's kind of an insane time. Everything gets a little discombobulated. Everything is a little stressful, everything is a little bit heightened.

But it's also a lot of fun. But what I'm most looking forward to is regardless of if it's Bill or Bailey, whichever one of them first gets to say you're on, or a moment to prepare the well and get up and stand and be in a poort room and make an argument in front of people. That's what I'm looking forward to. I think it's a ton of fun just doing all of our run throughs with the team.

I've never competed, but it's fun watching a case come together, and then it's fun listening to what someone else has done and then flipping it on them. I mean, it sounds a little like mean, but it's fun to just tear something apart. I'm aunt, and here's why I'm aunt. Guys, you're ready. You're absolutely ready for this. There is nobody who's going to be able to know this fact pattern

as thoroughly as you know this fat pattern. There is nobody who has come back and to put in the amount of hours outside of typical practice time that you guys have. Rely on that and rely on your knowledge. You guys are ready to go. They'll let the bells and whistles worry. We're about to screw some people over big time, and I cannot wait to watch what happens. That's next time. Class Action. Class Action is a production of I Heart Radio and Sound Argument, Created, produced, written,

and edited by Kevin Huffman and Lisa Gray. Executive producers are Taylor Chacogne and Katrina Norvell. Additional story production by Jennifer Swan, Kristin Cabrera, Jason Foster, and Wendy Nardi. Sound design, editing and mixing by Evan Tyre and Taylor chakogn This episode had additional field production by Kristen Cabrera, Paul Ebson,

Alfredo de la Garza, and Malia Lukomski. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows