Pictured, clockwise from top center, Will Anderson, Christian Talley, Jason Jones, Carson Fallo, Daniel Caballero, Brian Mu and Aaron Long. (Scott Harvey not pictured)
photo by David Laprad
McCallie’s State Champion mock trial team competed in the National High School Mock Trial Championship May 4-6 and performed well enough to earn 16th place overall.
The tournament, held in Albuquerque, N.M., included 46 teams from nearly all 50 states as well as teams from Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and South Korea. The McCallie contingent squared off against teams from Alabama and Kansas, as well as St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic from Guam which placed eighth, and Hinsdale Central from Illinois, the ninth-place team.
Members of McCallie’s varsity team included seniors Will Anderson, Daniel Caballero, Carson Fallo, Brian Mu and Christian Talley along with juniors Scott Harvey and Aaron Long. Faculty advisor is Jason Jones. Christian Talley was singled out as one of seven Outstanding Attorneys in the competition.
The case for the national tournament centered on the assassination of a Department of Homeland Security agent on a Native American reservation by a former CIA operative who had turned to contracting work. The assassin became an informant after capture and testified on behalf of the U.S. government against a House of Representatives member whom he accused of seeking his services to cover up a million-dollar fraud in a natural-gas theft conspiracy.
Additional personnel in the case included a witness to the murder who was also the victim of an attempted assassination himself, an ethically-flexible FBI agent and a computer hacker who meant to protect the assassination victim.
New Mexico’s Albuquerque Academy claimed the first-place trophy. Atlanta’s Grady High School was second and Breck School of Minneapolis placed third.