The mock trial team from Cape Elizabeth High School won its fourth consecutive state title at the 2013 Maine high school mock trial competition in a match against Hampden Academy on Dec. 4. The team will represent Maine at the National High School Mock Trial Tournament in Madison, Wis., on May 8-10, 2014.

In the state competition, teams tried the case of the State of Maine vs. Terry Jackson, in which a passenger in Jackson’s car is ejected and killed during an accident that occurred when Jackson was texting while driving. The presiding judge was Justice Donald Alexander, a justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Hilary Billings from the Federal Defender’s office and Jodi Nofsinger, a trial lawyer from Berman & Simmons, were the two evaluators.

The Cape Elizabeth team is made up of high school students in grades 9 through 12, with 19 students covering 22 performance roles. There are four senior captains on the team: Kevin Hare, Dorothy Janick, Brian Taintor, and Jack Tierney. The four team captains, all in the class of 2014, have been active participants on the mock trial team since entering Cape Elizabeth High School as ninth graders in 2010, and this is the fourth consecutive year that each of them has participated in the state finals. They also have all competed in the National Tournament, most recently in Indianapolis in May 2013.

The Cape Elizabeth team will do extensive fundraising in the next few months to raise the money needed to fly to the National Tournament in May.

Trials are unscripted and teams develop a working knowledge of the judicial system through coaching from volunteer attorneys and experience with real judges in courtrooms across the state. Cape Elizabeth’s team is coached by Mary Page, a social studies teacher at the school, whose involvement dates back to 2003. She is assisted by three lawyer coaches: Richard O’Meara, an attorney at Murray Plumb & Murray; Jonathan Sahrbeck, an Assistant Attorney General; and David Hillman, a former partner at Verrill & Dana and current member of the Cape Elizabeth School Board.

O’Meara has coached Cape Elizabeth for the past 10 years, during which time the team has reached the state finals six times. He spoke highly of this year’s work, saying, “The 2013 group has been one of Cape’s strongest ever, with excellent performances from students in each of the four grades. They all exude such poise and confidence in the courtroom, despite the pressures of dealing with hostile witnesses on cross-examination, unanticipated objections from opposing counsel, and rulings from actual judges. As for the four captains, they all have made an amazing contribution to the program since their arrival in 2010. They, along with the other two seniors on this year’s team – Henry Gent and Daniel Brett – will be sorely missed next year.”

Twenty-two high school teams competed in this year’s state mock trial competition. The teams were Berwick Academy, Bonny Eagle High School, Brewer High School, Carrabec High School, Cape Elizabeth High School, Catherine McAuley High School, Cheverus High School, Deering High School, Freeport High School, Hampden Academy, Hermon High School, John Bapst High School, Kennebunk High School, Lewiston High School, Mt Ararat High School, North Yarmouth Academy, Sanford High School, Scarborough High School, Sumner High School, Thornton Academy, Waynflete, and Windham High School.

The Cape Elizabeth High School mock trial team came in first for the fourth consecutive year at last week’s state mock trial competition.