|
PRESS RELEASE
For more information, please contact: Gwen Osborne, director of public affairs, (312) 906-5251
Chicago-Kent Moot Court Honor Society places first and second in national competitions
CHICAGO–April 1, 2008--Teams from Chicago-Kent College of Law are continuing the law school’s successful 2007-08 appellate advocacy season with two impressive showings in national competitions held March 28 to 30.
Second-year Chicago-Kent College of Law students Ted Koshiol and Jessica Tyrus are the winners of the Evan A. Evans Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition held at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison.
Chicago-Kent students Jessica Tyrus and Ted Koshiol are the winners of the 2008 Evan A. Evans Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition
Thirty-six law school teams from many of the top appellate advocacy programs in the country participated in the tournament, which is named for Judge Evan A. Evans, a 1899 graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1916 to 1948. Judge Evans was noted during his years of private practice for both his brief-writing and his outstanding oral advocacy.
The students argued a freedom of expression case in which a young man challenged the constitutionality of a municipality’s attempt to regulate residents’ attire.
After strong performances in three preliminary rounds, Chicago-Kent defeated teams from moot court powerhouses South Texas College of Law and Loyola University Chicago in the octofinal and quarterfinal rounds. Teams from Chicago-Kent, St. Thomas University, South Texas, and Brooklyn Law School advanced to the semifinal round. The Chicago-Kent team beat St. Thomas and advanced to the finals to face Brooklyn, which it defeated to win the national championship. The team was coached by third-year Chicago-Kent students Ben Reichard and Tim Wright.
Twenty-six teams participated in the 2007-08 Herbert J. Wechsler National Criminal Law Moot Court Competition, held at the SUNY-University at Buffalo. Chicago-Kent teammates Andrew Booth and Brody Dawson delivered five arguments in a single day. After presenting outstanding arguments in the preliminary and quarterfinal rounds, the team defeated Loyola University Chicago in the semifinals to advance to the final round. Booth and Dawson lost narrowly to a team from George Mason University. In addition, Dawson won the Ryan Mullins Memorial Award, which honors the competitor who displays the best sportsmanship. The Chicago-Kent team was coached by third-year students Lee Doren and Joshua Jones.
The competition is named for Herbert Wechsler a constitutional scholar, former director of the American Law Institute and the drafter of the Model Penal Code. It is the only national moot court competition in the United States to focus on topics in substantive criminal law. Problems address the constitutionality and interpretation of federal and state criminal statutes as well as general issues in the doctrine of federal and state criminal law. This year, law students examined the constitutionality of a state’s capital rape statute in light of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
|
