TTU moot court team wins state collegiate competition
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Tennessee Tech University moot court competitors are arguably the best in the state after winning the Appellate Moot Court Collegiate Challenge over teams including Vanderbilt, Sewanee and Lipscomb University.
Sponsored by the Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature, the challenge allows select legal teams of undergraduates to argue as petitioner and respondent about a legal problem developed by the Tennessee Bar Association. Of the nine teams in the competition, TTU’s Team 1 earned top honors and Team 2 reached the four-team semi-finals.
This year’s case was US v. Martin, a Fourth Amendment case involving a drug dog sniff leading to a “knock and talk” at a defendant’s home by DEA agents that resulted in an arrest and seizure of drugs.
“We had students arguing both sides of the case: that it was a justified knock and talk and then a legitimate arrest in the public place of the defendant’s open door of his home and conversely that it was a violation of the defendant’s expectation of privacy to be secure in his home and his person,” said TTU team adviser and political science associate professor Lori Maxwell.
“The students had to be prepared with 16 cases to answer anything the justices might ask them and also to be prepared with what aspect of the cases the other school’s teams might argue,” Maxwell said.
TTU Team I student winners were Joshua Evans and Emily Tate arguing for the Petitioner,and John Jolley and Matt McClanahan for the Respondent.
TTU Team 2 semifinalists were Brandon Griffin and Lakesia Morrison arguing for the Petitioner and Jonathan Frank and Jessica Silvers for the Respondent. Monica Mueller and Jessica Bryant were team researchers.
Cookeville lawyer Mark Gore served as team consultant.
