"It is your duty to determine the facts. Neither sympathy nor prejudice should influence you."
Thus spoke Judge James Browning on Saturday as he read to his courtroom and jury.
But Browning was not presiding over a real trial.
UNM School of Law students met at the Second Judicial County Courthouse to participate in a mock trial as part of a class titled Advanced Evidence and Trial Practice. The course is designed for second-year law students and is taught by professor Barbara Bergman and attorney Greg Chase.
Student Jasmine Solomon was one of the attorneys in Judge Browning's courtroom for a nearly eight-hour trial. Solomon said she is taking the class because being in a courtroom is one of her passions.
"I like the fact that (trials) humanize our law, and I like the human drama," Solomon said. "I like the challenge of trying to be persuasive."
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Bergman said Chase took a real medical malpractice case that he handled in Albuquerque and modified it for the students to use in Saturday's mock trial.
The case involves a doctor who misdiagnoses an 18-year-old boy with stomach flu. The young man dies of an appendix rupture two days later, and his mother sues the hospital and doctor.
On Saturday, there were four mock trials based on the case going on at the same time. Students were on teams of two and split the work between them, Bergman said. There were four students in each courtroom - two attorneys for the mother of the boy who died and two for the doctor who misdiagnosed him.
To make the mock trial experience as real as possible for the students, the courthouse provided security guards, jury deliberation rooms and courtrooms free of charge, Bergman said.
"People have been so generous with their time," she said.
Bergman said she was able to get four judges to preside over the trials. Faculty members, lawyers and volunteers played the parts of witnesses throughout the trials. The case's 10-person jury was also made up of volunteers.
Student Kevin Holmes was one of the attorneys defending the doctor. Holmes said that his class prepared depositions, motions, mediation letters and jury instructions in the semester leading up to the trial.
"I've done this enough to where I don't get too nervous anymore," Holmes said. "There are always a little bit of butterflies, but as I've become more comfortable with the courtroom, (trials) have certainly become easier for me."
The jury in Browning's courtroom did not favor Holmes' side. They decided that the doctor Holmes represented was responsible for the boy's death and ruled in favor of Solomon.
But Holmes said he was not discouraged.
"It's a chess match played out in front of a jury and a judge involving some of the smartest people I'll ever meet in my life," Holmes said. "We get to try and do justice for our client - that's what I think is great about it."
Browning gave the law students praise and a detailed critique that lasted almost an hour while the jury deliberated.
He said that Bergman frequently asks him to volunteer his time at the mock trials, and he enjoys doing it.
"I think helping young lawyers is an important part of paying back to the profession," Browning said. "People mentored me and helped me come along in my career."
Bergman said most of the students taking the class want to be litigators - the type of lawyer who works on trials in a courtroom setting. She said students have to learn to handle the pressure of this kind of work.
"It's hard being a litigator," she said. "We had two people come in this week to talk about substance abuse and stress and how to deal with that."
Browning said he's glad these students want to become litigators because they are rare when so many cases are settled before going to trial. Usually, an older and more experienced lawyer will take trials that don't settle, so mock trials are vital to law students, Browning said.
"It's very difficult in our society to get good trial experience, so a lot of it is done in this mock-trial program," he said.
The 15 students in the class prepared for the case all semester and got to test the skills they learned in class.
"Until we do the actual trial, (students) don't get a sense of how it all fits together," Bergman said. "To me, that's really critical."
