Pre-Trial Oral Argument
Each Empire trial begins with a Pre-Trial Oral Argument (POA) that lasts approximately 8 minutes and concludes before the main trial. The POA will involve either (i) potential evidence or testimony in the main trial with the judge’s ruling determining its admissibility, or (ii) an issue involving constitutional law that shares facts with the main trial, but is not legally related to it.
Past POA Issues
Prior POA issues include argument over the following:
Admissibility of a defendant’s cell phone site location data in a federal terrorism prosecution (motion to suppress);
Admissibility of a defendant’s journal, written while in prison, in a §1983 civil rights case (motion in limine);
The right of a public university to restrict a white nationalist from speaking on campus (temporary restraining order);
Admissibility of part of an expert scientist’s opinion (Daubert motion).
Pre-Trial Oral Argument (POA) 101
Timing
Each side has 8 minutes for their oral argument, plus 2 minutes of courtesy time that may be granted by the Court.
Parties are given 45 seconds of uninterrupted time in which they can summarize their argument. Judges are free to ask questions after 45 seconds has expired.
Materials
In preparing their argument, advocates will be given the following:
Exhibit in question (where applicable);
Motion raised by the moving party;
Opposition to movant’s motion;
Relevant case law – Includes excerpts from judicial opinions.
The problem is closed universe. A team may not introduce outside statutes or case law.
Impact of Ruling
After oral arguments, the judge will take a break no longer than 3 minutes to evaluate the presentations and weigh the legal issues.
The judge will then announce a ruling. Where the issue involves a piece of evidence in the case, the judge’s ruling will impact the admissibility of the exhibit at trial. Where the issue is unrelated to an exhibit, then the trial will simply proceed.
After the POA, Guest Witnesses (GWs) and GW directing attorneys will be asked to return to the courtroom.
Responsibility of POA Attorney
One student from your team will present the POA prior to the start of the regular trial.
The POA Attorney is required to conduct at least one examination (a direct or cross), in addition to delivering the oral argument.
They may not direct the GW on the side in which they’re delivering the POA.
Scoring the POA
The POA is an intellectually rigorous part of the Empire competition, which requires students to navigate a dense set of materials and respond to intense judicial questioning. As a result, we felt that the POA should count for a larger percentage of a team’s score than a standard 10 point category. This year, each team’s POA score will be multiplied by 2. So if a student receives a 7 from a judge, it will actually contribute 14 points to a team’s ballot.