The air in the Superior Court of San Diego County’s courtroom thickened with anticipation on Thursday, February 6th, at 5:37 PM.

The jury entered — suits rustled and claps boomed as all rose to greet the reverent Judge Theodore M. Weathers — a veteran judge with over 25 years of judicial experience in his courthouse. As he took the seat in front of the competitors, sandwiched between a flag of the United States and a flag of California, the mock criminal case that the Bishop’s Mock Trial Team had been preparing months for — People v. Gold — was officially underway.

The case put Logan Gold, a hotel owner and assistant campaign manager for his spouse, Harper Dorais, on trial for the alleged kidnapping of Taylor Alexander, a political rival in Emerald Bend, California — an imaginary town created for the competition. The prosecution team, led by pretrial attorney Ben Brown (‘25) and trial attorneys Riley Ross (‘26), Lukas Manasian (‘26), and Sophie Arrowsmith (‘26), alongside witnesses Nason Li (‘25), David Lai (‘25), Dominic Simopoulos (‘26), and Bella Combs (‘25), and clerk Claire Li (‘28), argued that Gold had abducted Alexander to prevent them from attending a crucial debate, while the defense team, which was La Jolla High in the first round, argued that Gold had evidence proving his innocence and claimed that Alexander had staged the kidnapping to damage Gold’s reputation.

In the pretrial motion, Ben had to cite key legal precedent, including Miranda v. Arizona and People v. Musslewhite, to try to admit a self-incriminating statement made by Gold in police custody that La Jolla High argued was inadmissible because Gold had invoked their Fifth Amendment rights.

The Bishop’s team spent months preparing, carefully crafting arguments and anticipating counterpoints and objections. “Since auditions on September 17th, every class has been a team effort in building our theme and theory,” stated Lukas proudly, “Everybody on this team has played a major role in helping us become the team we are today.”

As an attorney, Lukas found several aspects of the competition particularly rewarding. “Getting an answer out of an opposition witness that you can tell they didn’t want to say is really satisfying,” he shared. “Another rewarding part is getting an objection sustained. As the closing attorney, finishing my argument by asking the court to render a verdict guilty — it’s a mix of nervousness and excitement.”

Sophie, another trial attorney, agreed with him. “I made both of my direct examination witnesses slip up and was able to get basically confessions out of them which was very rewarding,” she said. “Mock Trial feels like a real team effort, and I thought everyone on my team did great.”

While preparation is key, the unpredictable nature of a live trial means being forced to constantly adapt. Lukas noted how the opposing team challenged him by anticipating his questions and having their witnesses address key issues before he could cross-examine them. “This caused me to have to think on my feet and change which questions I was going to ask,” he said.

For Sophie, one of the biggest challenges was striking the right balance in her tone. “As someone who does speech and debate, I tend to be combative and pretty argumentative in my tone of voice,” she explained. “But in Mock Trial, you still want to be friendly to the witnesses, so I had to adjust my approach.”

Freshman Elaine Wang thought that the competition was an eye-opening experience. “It’s been an absolute pleasure to be on the Mock Trial team, and I’m really glad I got the opportunity to join as a freshman,” she said. “It’s inspiring to watch the upperclassmen — people who are more familiar with Mock Trial — handle things. I’ve been getting a lot of support from experienced members, and I’m really grateful for them.”

Despite a strong performance, the Bishop’s Mock Trial team ultimately lost their opening night of competition — a decision that shocked many in the courtroom. “Everyone was like, ‘WHAT?!’” Sophie said, reflecting on the unexpected outcome.

However, the loss did not dampen the team’s spirit. “Our team has been working hard and is excited to compete,” the teacher coaches Ms. Nicole Uhland and Ms. Priscilla Wrosch said in an email ahead of the next round. “We had an amazing round one last week and are ready to go.”

But that was just the first round of a series of four competitions. On February 11, the Bishop’s defense team, featuring Reyn Harmon (‘25), Kiran Dhupa (‘25), Summer Hu (‘25), and Nirvana Shiwmangal (‘25) as the attorneys, Ethan Yang (‘27), Claire Stallings (‘26), Audrey Donnelly (‘26), and Lyla Beamer (‘25) as the witnesses, Grace Ebel (‘27) as the bailiff, and Claire Li (‘28) as the unofficial timer, took their turn, dominantly beating Eastlake High School’s prosecution team.,

Last week, Bishop’s had two more rounds of competition — first the defense team on Wednesday and then the prosecution team on Saturday morning. After winning both of those rounds, the Bishop’s Mock Trial team placed fourth out of San Diego’s 42 mock trial teams — just enough to advance to the semifinal knock-out round later that day. The winning of the knock-out round would qualify for the California State tournament in Los Angeles, which Bishop’s has only been to once in the past decade.

Unfortunately, the Bishop’s prosecution team narrowly lost to Francis Parker’s defense team — the #1 seed and eventual champion. Despite the loss, Bishop’s won the most individual awards of all 42 teams at the Awards Ceremony on Saturday, with Ben winning the “Best Pretrial Attorney” award, Dominic winning “Best Witness” award, Grace winning “Best Bailiff” award, and Claire winning “Best Clerk” award.

Saturday’s loss marked the end of Bishop’s season — a season that started in September and has been in full force since. While Bishop’s did not make the California State tournament their ultimate goal, they did better than they had in years, advancing to the semifinals and winning a historic four individual awards.

So it is safe to say that the Bishop’s mock trial team had a season to remember. See you in court again next year!