The courthouse was real as were the attorneys present and the judge who presided over the trial.
On a recent Saturday morning, nearly 20 Pinewood Preparatory School sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders descended upon the Charleston County Courthouse, the young men clad in coats and ties and the young women wearing dresses.
Pinewood’s Middle School Mock Trial team had spent the previous couple months poring over the notes of a fictions civil case involving a high school rivalry that may have been at the crux of an incident in which someone’s residence was vandalized.
Among the materials the students had at their disposal to prepare for the trial were photographs of the vandalized residence, receipts estimating the cost of the property repair and several York County Sheriff’s Department reports.
Pinewood was one of four schools to take part in the mock trial competition, which was scored by volunteers from the local South Carolina Bar Association and held at the historic courthouse on Broad Street in downtown Charleston.
The Pinewood students took on a variety of roles for the competition – some playing the role of the plaintiff/prosecution and others assuming the role of defense attorneys and witnesses. The Pinewood students on the defense team competed against another school’s plaintiff/prosecution team and vice versa.
Only a few of the Pinewood students participated in last year’s mock trial competition and many of the newcomers say that although the trial was simulated, it felt very real.
“When we started, I was so nervous I couldn’t keep my legs from shaking,” said student Elizabeth DeLillo. “Once I was able to make myself imagine that I was (in the classroom), I calmed down.”
Going into the competition, the students were provided with each party’s “side of the story” and were responsible for generating their own questions based on those notes.
Students were judged in a variety of areas including the lawyers’ objections and how well they projected their voices, said Hope McIntosh, a Pinewood teacher and coach of the mock trial team.
“The coaches cannot have any contact with the students once the competition begins so it’s really all on them,” McIntosh said. “The mock trial program combines public speaking, thinking on one’s feet and learning to sort the important details in a case from the (extraneous) details.”
Student Callie Clarke said taking part in the competition met her every expectation.
“I thought it would be fun to gain insight into what law is like, compete against other schools and get to visit the courthouse,” Clarke said. “It was a really great experience.”

Contact Michael Tannebaum at 873-9424 ext. 215 or mtannebaum@journalscene.com