After a fierce competition at Santa Barbara’s historic County Courthouse on February 28, Dos Pueblos High School’s mock trial team heard the results. They were county champions — for the fifth consecutive year.
In the county’s 43rd annual mock trial competition, high schoolers acted as attorneys, bailiffs, clerks, witnesses, and even courtroom reporters and sketch artists working a fictional first-degree murder trial. This year’s case concerned a celebrity cooking show judge’s death by poisonous mushroom; the prosecution alleged that a contestant concealed the lethal “heartstopper” toadstools in a mushroom tlayuda. Teams prepared and argued both sides of the case as well as a pretrial legal matter.
Dos Pueblos surpassed six teams to claim victory in the tense contest. San Marcos High School lost out in the finals, and Bishop Garcia Diego High School placed third.