On Thursday, Dec. 3, The Wheatley’s School’s SWS (School Within a School) hosted the annual Fall Mock Trial Tournament.
In addition to students from the host school, those from Roslyn High School, among five other schools, also competed.
Last year Wheatley’s club teams, coached by Mr. Bob “Bullet” Bernstein, won the tournament for the first time. The day always starts off the same; a bagel breakfast was served in the multipurpose room and Pat Clarke, the teacher who plans the tournament every year, made a few announcements. The teams then went off to their assigned “court rooms” (mostly classrooms however Wheatley does have a courtroom) where they began the trials judged by Nassau County Family Court Judge Ellen Greenberg, Nassau County ADA Martin Meaney and attorneys Bob Greco and Robert Vella.
This year the students worked on a criminal case. The story was: three high school students were on their way back to school when the driver of the car wasn’t looking at the road and hit a tree, causing her car to flip over. One of the passengers in the car died. Unlike some cases, this one can go either way. The witnesses, specifically the ones that can be declared experts, play a major role in this case as they can either make their team win or lose on the cross examination. Teams have prepared for this day since September, less time then most lawyers get to prepare a case.
After two rounds of teams competing against each other, lunch catered by Williston Park’s Frantoni’s was served as the points for the cases were being tallied.
It was then time for the winning teams to be announced. Going to the final team would be Roslyn’s defense going against Glen Cove’s prosecution. All of the students went to the auditorium where Greco judged the final round. The teams fought hard, but at the end Roslyn came out strong, winning the tournament. When students were asked what they enjoyed the most about the experience it was hearing the judges feedback. The judges’ were critical, but the students all left with a smile on their face and more educated than they were an hour or so earlier.
The members of the Roslyn Mock Trial team coached by Corey Marx included: Alex Goodman, Brandon Tepper, Robbie Miller, Jon Herz, Mitchell Klein, Landon Allen, Michael Fried, Kamyar Ghiam, Nick Furci, Aaron Czik, Alan Louis, Daniela Weinstein, David Jaslow and Ryan Hurwitz.
Wheatley’s SWS team coached by Pat Clarke and Josh Dinetz included: Brianna Clarfield, Leah Kopelman, Michael McCleary, Amanda Liparoto, Kayla Bellon, Ethan Cohen, Eden Cohen, Jessie Lobocchiaro, Jonathon Goodman, Kelsey Beresheim, Taylor Keenen and Avery Tanenhaus.
Bob Bernstein and John Stoudt’s Wheatley Seinor Club Team included: Courtney Schwartz, Chintan Datt, David Rosenzweig, Joy Bestourous, Jeffrey Poomkudy, Emily Wang, Ellie Chen, Thomas Vella, Julian Nathan, Lianna Golden, Harris Weksleblatt, Jacob Chimeric, Ron Aldad and Christina Mille.
The junior club team included Caroline Crimmins, Abhisek Kumar, Brett Katz, Michaela Balboni, Sam Avila, Kenton Wu, Michael LaGinestra, Bruce Kardash, Vani Kumar, Hasseeb Jangda, Jake Gilbert, Brooke Schwartz, Aliza Moezinia and Andrew Hirsch.
