Mock Trial Judge Gets Drunk With Power

Yesterday I volunteered to judge a collegiate mock trial tournament. I was the presiding judge in the second round, which meant I ran the court room, ruled on all of the motions, etc. It was a fun review of the rules of evidence, and it was awesome to walk into the room and have all these incredibly earnest college kids stand up--for me! ME!

By and by, the prosecution was introducing some exhibits that the defense kept objecting to, arguing they were impermissible character evidence. I kept overruling the poor kid. And in truth, I felt kind of bad about it. But my rulings on their objections didn't affect their scores, so I thought I might as well let them play this stuff out. Plus the character evidence was kind of interesting (and, ahem, legally admissible), and I liked to see the prosecution bumble around trying to introduce the exhibits. When the defense renewed his objection for the fourth time, he asked for permission to voir dire the witness.

I put on my "thoughtful" face (Voir HUH? Gulp! What the f*** does that mean!?!? OK, OK, just appear confident, be cool. Let's just see how this goes...) and then granted permission. I could hear a collective gasp and mutterings among the peeps: She's letting him voir dire the witness! He approached the witness and asked her some questions about the exhibit. Then he went back to his table and renewed his objection to the evidence. I overruled him. (Ruthless! I know.)

After the round, we sent away the score sheets and the other (scoring) judge and I gave them some feedback. This was interesting for me, because of course I'm looking very lawyerly up there, and yet I don't feel like a big-firm attorney in a pinstriped suit, I feel like I just finished college last week. I kept up the charade and remained very professional throughout the feedback session until near the end when Mr. Voir Dire asks: So, did you think it was appropriate for me to voir dire the witness? I just laughed and said, "Dude, I don't even know what that means. I was just playing you."

Not much else to report. Engaged in more office piracy this week, emerged with better chair and second ficus plant for office, yay! Ate at Brasa yesterday, tasty. Watched Cloverfield last night, good. Reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, fun. Am going through phase where have to make popcorn every night in pan on stovetop, yum. Am thinking about cheating on Y by joining different gym, minefield, too many work peeps, am terrified of running into them in shower room, experience could happily die without.