  In the middle of a pretty poor mock trial...for as smart as these kids are, they can't oracize an argument. The last trial, putting George W. Bush on trial, turned into a not guilty verdict only because the prosecution didn't debate the right points...they were better debators, but they failed to answer any of the questions asked of them. The current trial is against Saddam, and it's pretty weak as well. Hopefully they can write. Yes, that is cruel...they're 15, 16, or 17.
They're not listening to the conversations, they already know what they're going to say, so they don't listen to the testimony, and thus their cross-examination is pointless. I've seen much better...I don't expect them to get up and do it at a level I can, but at least at the level I did in 1996. The expectations that these kids will have over them over the years...30 percent of them will fail to learn a work ethic, and another 30 percent will become downtrodden because of their inability to meet the hype. Someone call for a sidebar! I was a vicious debater. My first year was spent arguing incessently about moral codes and what was right, becoming quite unpleasant when someone would speak nonsense. I mellowed my second year, allowing me to become a greater jackass. I could tear apart any weak point in a case, even if it revolved around the use of a pronoun in the resolution. I defeated a case on sending aid to China to assist with water purification because I used their definition of China to look at a specific entity recognized by the UN, and not Tibet, Hong Kong, or western areas that are often disputed with Russia.
I don't know if we even discussed the case, just what was meant by China. We won. I loved cross examination, not because I was a good questioner, but because any wavering of theirs I was able to belittle vehemently in later speeches. One girl said, in response to a plan of mine to bring the age of drivers to 18 (thus eliminating all "juvenile" drivers), "C'mon, this isn't important.
It isn't like kids having knives. " After rebuilding the little of my case she tried to attack, I brought up an opinion article from the Philiadelphia Inquirer where the author lamented over the day "...where all we had to worry about was a kid drawing his initials into the desk with a pocket knife. " It was better if you lived through it. The kid up there right now is talking about what physical pain is. I am the embodiment of it right now, listening to this trial. 
