Writing Exercise for the 2011 Moot Court Tryouts
YOUR ATTENTION IS CALLED TO THE FOLLOWING:
Time Limit for Exercise:
Monday, May 23, 2011, to Monday, July 11, 2011, at 5:00 p.m.
Instructions:
1.
Participants may not discuss the writing exercise with any other person—this includes all
other students, professors, librarians, practicing attorneys, and judges, etc. Participants
may not seek, give, or receive any assistance in writing or researching the exercise.
2.
Even though the writing exercise contains some references to legal sources, this is an
open-universe problem. Consequently, participants will need to do additional research
and Shepardize/KeyCite cases provided in the writing exercise.
3.
The writing exercise must conform to all rules—those listed in these instructions and
those provided within the questions in the exercise. Your writing exercise may be
disqualified if it does not completely conform to these parameters.
4.
If the faculty advisor or a member of the Moot Court Board determines that any
participant did not follow these instructions, received or gave assistance on this writing
exercise, or did not make a good faith effort to complete the exercise (for example,
turning in a writing exercise in which question 7 is not answered) that participant may be
disqualified.
5.
Do not put your name on the writing exercise. In early July, you will be provided, via email (your Stetson e-mail), with a random number that should appear in the header of the
document, in the upper right-hand corner of the exercise. (Yes, the random number
should appear on every page of the writing exercise.)
6.
You will submit your writing exercise to the drop box of the designated TWEN site on or
before 5:00 p.m., Monday, July 11, 2011. Writing exercises received after 5:00 p.m. (i.e.
after 5:00.01 p.m.) will receive a zero, and the author will be disqualified from the
tryouts.
More information about the TWEN site will be distributed in early July when the random
numbers are distributed.
7.
Multiple submissions are not permitted. Please only submit one writing exercise to the
TWEN drop box. If multiple submissions are received, the first submission received will
be the one that is critiqued.
8.
The writing exercise must be typed in 12-point Times New Roman font. All answers
should be double spaced, except for point headings and block quotations (see ALWD rule
47), the answer to part C of question 9, and the answers to question 10. One-inch
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margins should be used throughout the entire writing exercise. Also make sure that the
page numbers appear at the bottom center of the page.
9.
The answers to questions 1 through 8, all citations to the facts and the law must conform
to the fourth edition of the ALWD Citation Manual, with these additional requirements:
a.
b.
10.
Please use underlining (instead of italics) where appropriate in the citations.
Please abbreviate any words in case names according to Appendix 3 in the ALWD
Citation Manual. (If Appendix 3 provides two options—an abbreviation and a
contraction, please use the abbreviation. For example, the case name includes the
word “national.” Looking in Appendix 3, there are two options—Natl. or Nat’l.
In this exercise, use Natl.)
To answer question 10, you will be required to use the most current version of The
Bluebook. (The most current version is the nineteenth edition.)
a.
b.
Copies of The Bluebook are on reserve at both our Gulfport and Tampa libraries.
Two subscriptions of the online Bluebook are also available. To access the
subscription online, please follow the following instructions:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
Go to the following link: http://www.legalbluebook.com/default.aspx
Use one of the following usernames:
Mootcourt9@law.stetson.edu
Mootcourt10@law.stetson.edu
The password is the same for both usernames: 2011tryouts
The security question is also the same for both usernames. The question is
the following: In what city were you born? The answer is “Gulfport.”
Note: Only one person can access a subscription at one particular time.
Tip: Do not wait until the last minute to do question 10.
11.
Whether the judges are reviewing an answer to a short-answer question or a portion of
the appellate brief, the judges will be evaluating the substance as well as the presentation
(see number 12 below). Any and all analysis/arguments must be accurate, substantively
correct, logically organized, and thorough.
12.
Whether the judges are reviewing an answer to a short-answer question or a portion of
the appellate brief, the judges will also be evaluating the writing style or the presentation
of the information. The writing should be organized, readable, and directed at the correct
audience (in this case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifteenth Circuit). The
appropriate tone should be used in both the answers to short-answer questions and the
portions of the appellate brief. In addition, the portions of the appellate brief should be
written persuasively.
13.
There are 10 questions in this writing exercise.
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14.
Before starting to read the writing exercise, review the first page of the “MCB
Competition Appellant brief final” document. The first page provides the context for the
writing exercise. The exercise is based on your teammate’s brief—a brief for the
Appellant/Defendant, Geoffrey Lutts.
15.
These instructions should not be removed from the writing exercise.
16.
If you have any questions regarding the instructions for the writing exercise, please send
your questions, via e-mail, to Professor Bowman (bowman@law.stetson.edu). Please use
your Stetson e-mail account and put “Moot Court Writing Exercise” in the subject line.
Questions and answers will be posted on the tryout web page or e-mailed to the
participants while the website is “frozen” (until June 6).
17.
Please submit all questions by Friday, July 1, 2011, at 5:00 p.m. Questions received after
that time will not be answered.
18.
Before submitting the writing sample, complete the following Certificate of Compliance
by typing your random number in the blanks below:
On my honor, I have read and complied with all of the instructions in this writing exercise.
Student Number ________
On my honor, I have neither given nor received aid on this writing exercise.
Student Number ________
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Writing Exercise
Question 1 [4 points total]: Read the document named “MCB Competition appellant brief
final” (the document you received from your hypothetical teammate). The document was
received two weeks before the briefs are due, as expected. With that in mind, please answer the
following two questions:
A.
[2 points]: Knowing that the deadline is rapidly approaching, what is your
reaction to the document that you received from your teammate?
[Insert answer A]
B.
[2 points]: How would you proceed if this situation were to occur in a real
competition? When answering this question, assume that you also just learned
that your teammate will be out of town on a cruise the week before the briefs are
due and he or she will not have e-mail or cell phone access.
[Insert answer B]
Instructions: Type your answers to the questions directly below the question. (Delete the
bracketed information.) The answers must comply with the instructions provided above, and
each answer cannot be longer than 150 words.
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Question 2 [6 points]: Revise (redraft/rewrite) the issue statement found in the “MCB
Competition appellant brief final” document. Please format the statement using the “whether”
format.
Question 3 [8 points total]: Looking at the facts section in the “MCB Competition appellant
brief final” document, answer the following two questions:
A.
[2 points] After reviewing the facts section, explain what is substantively wrong
with the section. (“Substantively” refers to the organization and content of the
section, not to technical aspects such as grammar/punctuation or citation format.)
The answer must comply with the instructions provided above, and the answer
cannot be longer than 150 words. (Delete the bracketed information below.)
[Insert answer A]
B.
[6 points] Revise (redraft/rewrite) the facts section. Follow the instructions
provided above and the section can be no more than 500 words. (Delete the
bracketed information below.)
[Insert answer B]
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Question 4 [2 points]: Before going any further, please draft a one-sentence conclusion for your
teammate’s brief. Please type the conclusion below.
____________________________________________________________________________
Question 5 [6 points]: Even though your teammate says that the general roadmap and miniroadmap below are “polished” (which means that your teammate edited and proofread the
paragraphs), please “polish” these paragraphs.
Instructions: You cannot add anything substantively to the paragraphs or change the order of
the paragraphs. Basically, work with what you have. “Polishing” includes correcting the
grammar, punctuation, word choice (or persuasiveness), and attribution, both
frequency/placement and format.
In order to “polish” the paragraphs, insert footnotes at the end of each sentence. Type the
corrected sentence in the footnote, followed by the appropriate citation, if necessary. If the
sentence is grammatically correct and only needs a citation, type the appropriate full or short
citation in the footnote. If you see Citation?, in addition to correcting the sentence (if
necessary), explain in a footnote whether a citation is needed at the end of the sentence.
[The general roadmap and mini-roadmap from your teammate’s brief have been copied
below:]
ARGUMENT AND CITATIONS TO AUTHORITY
The 4th amendment to the United States Constitution states in relevant part: “The right
of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . . .” Citation? In explaining the protections
afforded by the amendment, the court has stated that “physical entry of the home is the chief evil
against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed, 407 U.S. 297, 313 (U.S. 1972),
and that the 4th amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house.” 445 U.S. 573,
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590 (U.S. 1980). Given the privacy interest that an individual has in her home, “It is a “basic
principle of Fourth Amendment law” that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant
are . . . unreasonable.” Id. at 586 (quoting another case). A warrant is an authorization to search
or arrest, issued by a “neutral and detached” magistrate on the basis of the magistrate’s finding of
“probable cause” to believe that evidence or a suspect will be found at a particular location.
Citation? It is one of an individual’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures in
the home.
The 4th amendment does more than protect the homeowner from the judgements of an
officer; it excludes any incriminating evidence discovered from trail. Once an officer is
legitimately in the home, she is allowed to seize any contraband in plain view while inside. 403
U.S. at 465. When the officer is inside in violation of the Fourth Amendment, incriminating
evidence, even that in plain view, is inadmissible against a defendant. Mapp, 367 U.S. 643 (U.S.
1961). Therefore, the admissibility of the firearm will hinge on the question of whether Officer
Winston justifiably entered Geoffrey Lutts’ home.
[This is where the main point heading would go]
This Country’s long standing commitment to the warrant requirement should not be
undermined. The need to fully cloth an arrestee does not qualify as an “exigent circumstance”
either under the plain meaning of the phrase or as used in the 4th amendment. Citation? To
treat it as such would be to dramatically expand a minor exception to traditional constitutional
protections and open the floodgates to intrusive, inappropriate searches and seizures. Citation?
Because the search was unconstitutional, evidence seized during its course may not be admitted
in the trial against Appellant. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (U.S. 1961).
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The court’s ruling in Payton, 445 U.S. 573, 590, establishes a strong presumption in favor
of obtaining a warrant before searching inside a suspect’s home. The court created this rule
because “physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth
Amendment is directed.” As the Court recognized, this country’s tradition of protecting its
citizens from unconstrained police power dates back to its inception. Citation? It is therefore
crucial that the judiciary’s opportunities to review police discretion—in the form of issuing
warrants to authorize searches and seizures—not be eroded unnecessarily.
The warrant requirement ensures that neutral judicial officials confirm the existence of
probable cause and protect the public from excessively zealous police officer. In short, by
requiring that a magistrate make this determination, the courts’ check the discretion of police
officer’s’ authority and, in so doing, help protect a citizens reasonable expectation of privacy.
Out of necessity, the courts have fashioned several limited exceptions to the warrant
requirement, through which an officer may substitute her judgement of probable cause for that of
the magistrate. Since these exceptions allow an end run around vital constitutional protections,
they should remain few and restricted. One such exception is the existence of exigent
circumstances. The government seeks to justify Officer Winston’s entry by portraying it as a
response to such exigency. Because the circumstances did not present immediate danger to
human safety or to evidence, this argument fails. In addition, public policy demands that
officers be instructed to follow the “least intrusive alternative.”
______________________________________________________________________________
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Question 6 [3 points]: Draft a major point heading that corresponds with the new issue
statement that you drafted for question 2 above. Please type the point heading below. Format
the major point heading in the same fashion you formatted the major point headings in your
R&W II appellate brief.
Question 7 [50 points]: Please revise (redraft/rewrite) the subsections in the Argument section
of your teammate’s brief. (The first subsection starts at the bottom of page 5, section I, and the
second subsection, section II, ends before the Conclusion section on page 9.)
Instructions: You are not limited to the sources provided, the organization of the subsections,
the number of subsections, or the structure of the arguments. In other words, you have complete
control over the substance and the presentation of the subsections.
The only limitations are the instructions provided above, and the subsections cannot be more
than 2,000 words, including the sub-point headings. (Do not include a mini-roadmap before the
first sub-point heading. In other words, start with a sub-point heading indicating your first
subsection. Delete the bracketed information below.)
[Insert new subsections here.]
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Question 8 [5 points]: Once you have redrafted/rewritten the subsections of the Argument
section, please draft a summary of the argument section that corresponds with the new, rewritten
Argument section. Follow the instructions provided above, and the section can be no more than
500 words. (Delete the bracketed information.)
[Insert summary of the argument section here]
Question 9 [6 points total]: The rules for the competition inform you that the brief must
conform to the Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States. Find those rules and use the
rules to answer the following three questions. Please provide the applicable rule number in each
answer.
A.
[1 point]: According to the rules, where is the question presented for review
section (or issue statement) placed in the appellate brief?
B.
[1 point for each question; 2 points total]:
1. According to the rules, what font and font size are permissible?
2. True or False
C.
The brief would be submitted on 8 ½ x 11-inch paper.
[3 points]: Prepare a cover page for your teammate’s appellate brief. (A blank
page has been provided. Deleted the bracketed information.)
Two substitutions: If the name of the court is required, use the name of the court
to which this appeal has been filed. And if the name of the attorney is required,
use your random number as your “name.”
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[Insert cover page here]
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Question 10 [10 points total]: Information for five sources is provided below. Please format
the full citation for each source according to the nineteenth edition of The Bluebook. (Note:
These sources may or may not help you as you are working on question 7 of this writing
exercise.)
If a pinpoint reference is needed in the full citation, information is provided so that a pinpoint
reference may be included in the full citation.
A.
[2 points]: Please provide a full citation to the following source: 1992 WL 9544.
This is a state case out of Ohio, and Wright is the defendant. Please cite to page 2
of the case.
B.
[2 points]: You found this amazing source by LaFave on Westlaw/WestlawNext,
but in looking at the source, you are not quite sure whether the source is a law
review article, a book, a loose-leaf, a treatise, or something else.
You head to the library to find the source in the collection. (The book is actually
on reserve in the Gulfport library.) A PDF-file containing the important
information needed for the citation is posted to the advocacy tryouts web page.
(The document is called “Information for question 10(B).)
Please provide a full citation to the source. In the full citation, please cite to sec.
6.4(a), specifically pages 365 to 368.
C.
[2 points]: Please provide a full citation to the following source: 126 S.Ct. 2193.
You also want to quote the following language in your teammate’s brief:
“‘examin[e] the totality of the circumstances’ to determine whether a search is
reasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”
(Therefore, a pinpoint reference is needed.) In addition, add an explanatory
parenthetical to the end of the full citation, providing the citation for the source
that the court quoted.
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D.
[2 points]: Please provide a full citation for the following source: Volume 34 of
the journal—Georgetown Law Journal Annual Review Criminal Procedure. The
article starts on page 37, and the pinpoint reference should include pages 68 to 69.
E.
[2 points]: Please provide a full citation for the following source: An article
from the Florida Bar Journal, published in May 1988, in volume 62. Paul Morris
is the author. The article starts on page 23, and the full citation should include a
pinpoint reference to pages 24 and 25. (Hint: Use HeinOnline to find this source.
HeinOnline is linked from the Stetson library webpage.)
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