During a cold December morning, Fresno State junior Cameron Flowers and senior Simran Kaur deliver their closing arguments defending the right to privacy for Mindy Vo.
Vo is a pharmacist who was recently arrested for buying and selling birth control in the state of Olympus. If you’re wondering where you’d find the state of Olympus on the map — you won’t.
Olympus is not a state. And Vo is not a real person.
The State of Olympus and Mindy Vo are both part of the 2023-24 moot court case for students participating on moot court teams across the country.
History of moot court
Moot court was first created at Harvard Law school in 1820 as a way for law students to learn and experience what it’s like to argue a court case. In 1899, Harvard Law School professor
A.V. Dicey observed that Moot court trained students “in every kind of argument.”
Moot court is often confused with another court simulation competition, mock trial.
But moot court and mock trial are different. While mock trial simulates a jury or bench trial with evidence and testimonials, moot court requires participants to argue and apply the law on a fictional case.
Moot court usually simulates the proceedings of appellate courts or international dispute resolution bodies. The focus of a moot court argument is the application of the law.
Teams and schools are assigned a class case by the American Moot Court Association. Although the cases students argue are not real, students are expected to use real-life court decisions and laws to argue their cases.
“The class case is kind of made to interpret actual real-life cases that are waiting to be decided on,” said Jesus Camacho, Fresno State moot court team president.
Training tomorrow’s lawyers
For this year’s case students were asked to argue whether and how the United States Constitution guarantees the right of privacy including the right to use contraception.
Students also had the choice to argue if the fictional law for the case, the “REAP WHAT YOU SOW Act” violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Students are split into teams to prepare, write and present – whether in competition or in class – their arguments before judges who then choose which team argues the best case.
Students at Fresno State have the opportunity to take the moot court class and/or participate on the moot court team.
Students who join the moot court team participate in the competition. The American Moot Court Association is the premier competition where schools across the country compete for titles in brief writing and oral advocacy.
Participating in both gives students the opportunity to practice and develop the skills that would benefit students in various career paths. Moot court is particularly popular among students who hope to attend law school.
“It’s better to get judged in a safe environment and learn the ropes, than go out and try to be a trial attorney or judge and then have to deal with the real thing and do poorly,” said Samuel Molina, a judge for the 2023 moot court competition held in November at Fresno State.
During the 2022-23 season Fresno State ranked 23rd in the nation for brief writing out of more than 100 colleges. About 1,000 students across the country participate every year.
Moot court skills are skills for life
Moot court has been lauded as a learning ground for students to develop essential public speaking, critical thinking, written and verbal communication, and teamwork skills.
“Before, I don’t think any of us had any idea how to read a case,” said Josh Hernandez, vice president of Fresno State’s team. “They’re very wordy. You’re basically learning a different language. It’s legalese. And you also learn how to speak and write in that language.”
In addition to learning the language of law, students also become superb researchers.
This year’s case took a look at a real-life dystopian hypothetical proposed by Justice Clarence Thomas in 2022.
In 2022 the Supreme Court ruled to overturn two previous landmark rulings – Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. This was done after the court ruled in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case that the right to abortion was not a form of liberty and was therefore not protected under the 14th Amendment.
In his written opinion, Justice Thomas proposed that “in future cases,” the Supreme Court “should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous.’”
For this year, students were assigned to research and argue whether landmark Supreme Court decisions like Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird or Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith should be revisited.
Both Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird dealt with a person’s right to contraception and the right to privacy.
In Eisenstadt v. Baird the court argued that unmarried people’s right to obtain contraception and information on contraception is protected under the 14th Amendment:
“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Griswold v. Connecticut has been argued to be on shakier ground because the Constitution does not protect the right to privacy outright.
The 1964 opinion written by then Supreme Court Justice William Orville Douglas, argued that, although the constitution doesn’t explicitly protect privacy, it is implied through various amendments.
When students prepare their arguments they present the facts of the case, what the law says, the application of the law and their conclusion. The winning cases are usually arguments presented in a structured manner.
“The most prepared person is the one who’s going to win,” Flowers said. “In an actual competition, you don’t go up there with something to read off. It’s all off your head. We practice. A lot. I don’t know how many rounds I practiced before this, like before our actual competition.”
Participants are then asked a series of questions by the judges meant to keep them on their toes and scrutinize their interpretation of the law on the case. Judges usually choose the interpretation with the strongest argument as the winner.
That’s the thing about the law. Law isn’t an objective binary of what’s morally right or wrong, rather it’s all about the interpretation of the law.
“In layman’s terms, it looks overwhelming and like a different language, but when you actually take a look at it, everyone is interpreting it,” said Whitney Sanders, a 2023 moot court judge and Fresno State alumna. “Interpretation is a huge part of it. Learning that has taken such a veil off of understanding.”
Sanders said her participation in moot court helped her understand the gravity of legal interpretation. It’s not just people who understand law like appellate lawyers and Supreme Court justices that interpret laws. Government officials – some who have no legal background at all – translate laws. And those who work in the criminal justice system enforce laws.
Ultimately moot court students develop the skills to understand, argue, apply and interpret laws.
“I think this prepares them very well,” Molina said, “so they can understand what it’s going to look like when people are actually staring at them and listening to every word that they have to say.”
The Fresno State Moot Court team will be competing at the California Classic taking place in Long Beach in April.
To help support the team’s travels to compete across the nation, contact coach Dr. Gina Wallace at gwallace@mail.fresnostate.edu or 559.341.6483. The team is open to all Fresno State students.
