Laguna Blanca’s 2012 Mock Trial Team competed competition Feb. 25 at the Santa Barbara Courthouse.

The competition is directed by the Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF), a California based organization that was created to help students acquire a working knowledge of our judicial system.

This is the 12th year Laguna has participated in the competition.

Members of the team met with coach, Ms. Martha Elliott to practice on Sundays and weeknights.

She provides students with her insight on law and the judicial system.

This year’s case, People v Buschell, was a murder case.

Laguna’s defense hoped to prove the defendant Ryan Buschell (Justin Shand) innocent of killing his best friend Becca Ables, while the prosecution was determined to prove the defendant guilty on two counts: the first count being murder, and the second count being possession of a fire-arm without a permit.

Laguna’s prosecution team went against San Marcos, and the defense team against Cate School.

In the morning, the prosecution’s final verdict found the defendant Ryan Buschell guilty on the count of murder and not guilty on the count of possession of a fire-arm without a permit.

For the defense, the verdict found the defendant not guilty on the count of murder and guilty on the count of possession of a fire-arm without a permit.

Laguna’s prosecution team went against Dos Pueblos in the afternoon, the defense went against Santa Maria High School.
The verdict turned out to be the same in the afternoon for both sides.

This placed Laguna in fourth place overall, just missing the cutoff for semifinals.

Prosecution witness Zoe Serbin received the Best Witness award.
“I was really surprised I received the award because there were a lot of really good schools in the competition with many witnesses. I was not expecting to receive the award,” Zoe said.

“The team will face challenges next year because we are losing seniors who were on the team and we need to fill those spots,” Zoe continued.

“I was very proud of the team for competing even under circumstances in which we

lost some team members close to the competition. I was proud of their performance having the toughest line-up of any team in the competition in terms of who we went against: being Cate, Dos Pueblos, and San Marcos,” said Ms. Elliott.

Ms. Elliott hopes more members will join and that the School will give academic credit for being on the team.