{"id":9435,"date":"2021-06-22T16:50:49","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T16:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2021\/07\/01\/law-order-south-pacific-for-furman-alumnae-and-mock-trial-students-in-american-samoa\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:41:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T19:41:41","slug":"law-order-south-pacific-for-furman-alumnae-and-mock-trial-students-in-american-samoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/law-order-south-pacific-for-furman-alumnae-and-mock-trial-students-in-american-samoa\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Law & Order: South Pacific\u2019 for Furman alumnae and Mock Trial students in American Samoa"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a life-or-death case. Jordan Ryder stood accused of pushing his daughter off a cliff during a hiking trip. When the trial started, nobody knew how it would end.<\/p>\n

Both sides came prepared to make compelling arguments, having been counseled in advance by two alumnae of Furman\u2019s Mock Trial program, Grace Cheney \u201921 and Allyson Stevens \u201921.<\/p>\n

\"Allyson

Allyson Stevens \u201921<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Grace

Grace Cheney \u201921<\/p><\/div>\n

They had to advise the participants over Zoom, from a distance \u2013 about 6,600 miles \u2013 through seven time zones and a few language barriers. The entire courtroom contingent, including the defendant, witnesses, judge and attorneys, consisted of students from the Faga\u2019itua High School<\/a> in Pago Pago, American Samoa. And the proceedings, as the name \u201cmock trial\u201d suggests, were not legally binding.<\/p>\n

In a moment, the results of that trial. But first, the facts:<\/p>\n

The transpacific trial prep started with a visit to Furman\u2019s Mock Trial Website.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Glen

Glen Halva-Neubauer<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI got this inquiry from Pago Pago,\u201d remembers Glen Halva-Neubauer, Dana Professor of Politics and International Affairs and founder of Furman’s Mock Trial program. \u201cAnd my first thought was, \u2018What time<\/em> is it in Pago Pago?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The request came from two high school teachers who were Googling for information about conducting a mock trial for their students. Kaylla Turituri and Brittany Hisatake landed on Furman\u2019s Top Mock<\/a> program, which has taught advanced trial advocacy skills to high school students for 19 years. The teachers registered as coaches, and the planning began for the first mock trial ever held in the history of the island of American Samoa.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Professor Glen explained more about Furman and its Top Mock program, we were very interested in obtaining his help to conduct these types of competitions here on the island,\u201d says Turituri. \u201cWe were able to set up a Zoom meeting within 24 hours and work around the time difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Time would be a challenge in more ways than one. \u201cThey wanted to teach Mock Trial skills in a month,\u201d Halva-Neubauer says. \u201cIt would usually take a month to just get them up to speed on the rudiments, but I thought, hey, this is just too cool. These people are on the other side of the world, and they reached out to us. This isn\u2019t how we have done it in the past, but we are not so inflexible that we cannot envision a different way to think about conducting a mock trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halva-Neubauer knew two experienced students to lead the classes: Cheney and Stevens.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast summer, both Grace and I were counselors for the virtual Top Mock experience, so both of us knew how to teach high schoolers about Mock Trial in a way that is accessible,\u201d says Stevens, Top Mock\u2019s lead counselor. \u201cNone of the students we had before were from U.S. territories, so we were very interested in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair worked over two and a half weeks, from mid-May to early June. Zoom calls with the teachers took place one to three times a week, and the counselors would sit in on the classes at least once a week.<\/p>\n

Although English was their second language, the students spoke it proficiently, says Stevens \u2013 but they had the same trouble even native speakers do unraveling the often-bewildering language of the American legal system.<\/p>\n

\u201cMiss Turituri did ask us if we could create the position of an interpreter for the witnesses and attorneys in our mock trial, to speak in their native language\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Sessions included introducing the basics of mock trials, showing videos of actual court cases, role-playing different courtroom officials, and developing the script for the students\u2019 final project, Midlands v. Ryder.<\/p>\n

Both alumnae say they want to visit the island in person someday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite part was learning more about American Samoa,\u201d Cheney says. \u201cEvery time I left teaching, I found myself Googling and learning everything there is to know, because I think the U.S. territories are not talked about very often.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students took Midlands v. Ryder to the High Court of American Samoa<\/a> on June 16. \u201cJordan Ryder\u201d walked away a free man \u2013 and a group of high schoolers across the Pacific came away with a fresh curiosity about the American legal system.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllyson and Grace, bless their wonderful hearts, were awesome,\u201d Turituri says. \u201cThey have somehow given the students the courage to stand alone and, for some, discover a newfound love for the courtroom.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a life-or-death case. Jordan Ryder stood accused of pushing his daughter off a cliff during a hiking trip. When the trial started, nobody knew how it would end. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,67,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-alumni","category-mock-trial","category-politics-and-international-affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}