![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
recap: wiley rutledge prelims
Nov. 6th, 2007 09:53 ami had both my preliminary rounds of moot court, and they went as well as i could have expected, given the circumstances. everything was stacked against me first round, and everything was stacked for me in the second round.
first round was the on-brief argument. i always prefer arguing the side i didn't write my brief on, because i don't have to worry about whether my oral argument is consistent with the brief that i wrote. first round we were the petitioner. i far prefer being the respondent to the petitioner, because the petitioner speaks first and doesn't get a whole lot of time to rebut other arguments. i only had the five minutes at the end to give a rebuttal; my first eleven or twelve minutes were just making my affirmative argument about the sentencing reform act. as the respondent, on the other hand, the entire speech can be one big rebuttal. finally, first round we had a very cold bench. i had two or three questions from the bench during my eleven or twelve minute constructive, and none whatsoever during my five-minute rebuttal. it's a lot more fun when the judge asks questions, since otherwise i have to come up with more and more things to talk about, and it's really easy to get bogged down in the minutiae to fill the time and space.
i did as well as i could under the circumstances, though. i never blanked out, i didn't start reading from the brief, and i didn't get bogged down in anything too arcane.
second round, however, was the most fun i've ever had arguing a moot court round. we were the respondent, and off-brief, so i got to bring out my crazy argument that i mentioned yesterday, the abuse of discretion argument. the more i thought about it during the round, the more overarching it got--i ran a case that basically alleged that the statute the petitioners thought applied didn't apply at all, and therefore the discretion that judges have always had to run sentences consecutively or concurrently to a yet-to-be-imposed state sentence was not affected.1 i was getting grilled by one of the judges--it was a really hot bench. i spent more time answering questions of his than i did giving my outlined speech. that was fine with me, though. that was fun. before the round i laughed when i gave the timekeeper my time--my partner wanted eleven minutes, so i took nineteen minutes and cracked that i wouldn't use it all, of course. it turns out i used all of it, and probably could have kept going for another ten minutes.
i was really curious to see what the other team would say on rebuttal to my bizarre case, but that didn't happen. they used all thirty minutes in their constructives, and didn't leave enough time to rebut me. sigh.
we'll see if we break. i really hope we do, because it will make me very sad if yesterday is the only day i get to speak about the problem.
***
1 the traditional case is that the statute specifically affirms judges having that discretion in the case of a yet-to-be-imposed. but, that case admits that it's a question of statutory interpretation, and a question of whether the discretion exists. i didn't want to run that case, because then it would be completely nonsensical for me to argue that abuse of discretion is the correct standard of review. i think that case is just plain wrong, but it's moot court. moot court is a game, and it's a less fun game if i can't run bizarre off-brief cases and fight to the death to defend them.
first round was the on-brief argument. i always prefer arguing the side i didn't write my brief on, because i don't have to worry about whether my oral argument is consistent with the brief that i wrote. first round we were the petitioner. i far prefer being the respondent to the petitioner, because the petitioner speaks first and doesn't get a whole lot of time to rebut other arguments. i only had the five minutes at the end to give a rebuttal; my first eleven or twelve minutes were just making my affirmative argument about the sentencing reform act. as the respondent, on the other hand, the entire speech can be one big rebuttal. finally, first round we had a very cold bench. i had two or three questions from the bench during my eleven or twelve minute constructive, and none whatsoever during my five-minute rebuttal. it's a lot more fun when the judge asks questions, since otherwise i have to come up with more and more things to talk about, and it's really easy to get bogged down in the minutiae to fill the time and space.
i did as well as i could under the circumstances, though. i never blanked out, i didn't start reading from the brief, and i didn't get bogged down in anything too arcane.
second round, however, was the most fun i've ever had arguing a moot court round. we were the respondent, and off-brief, so i got to bring out my crazy argument that i mentioned yesterday, the abuse of discretion argument. the more i thought about it during the round, the more overarching it got--i ran a case that basically alleged that the statute the petitioners thought applied didn't apply at all, and therefore the discretion that judges have always had to run sentences consecutively or concurrently to a yet-to-be-imposed state sentence was not affected.1 i was getting grilled by one of the judges--it was a really hot bench. i spent more time answering questions of his than i did giving my outlined speech. that was fine with me, though. that was fun. before the round i laughed when i gave the timekeeper my time--my partner wanted eleven minutes, so i took nineteen minutes and cracked that i wouldn't use it all, of course. it turns out i used all of it, and probably could have kept going for another ten minutes.
i was really curious to see what the other team would say on rebuttal to my bizarre case, but that didn't happen. they used all thirty minutes in their constructives, and didn't leave enough time to rebut me. sigh.
we'll see if we break. i really hope we do, because it will make me very sad if yesterday is the only day i get to speak about the problem.
***
1 the traditional case is that the statute specifically affirms judges having that discretion in the case of a yet-to-be-imposed. but, that case admits that it's a question of statutory interpretation, and a question of whether the discretion exists. i didn't want to run that case, because then it would be completely nonsensical for me to argue that abuse of discretion is the correct standard of review. i think that case is just plain wrong, but it's moot court. moot court is a game, and it's a less fun game if i can't run bizarre off-brief cases and fight to the death to defend them.
