The Mistake That Kills Opening Statements in Mock Trial

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Welcome to Mock Trial Masterclass, your guide to controlling the courtroom. I'm Luke, and in today's video, I'm going to explain how a huge mistake with an opening statement led a high school from Washington to lose the national championship. Here's the thing about opening statements. They're the most important part of a trial to get right. I talk about it all the time on here. I talk about it in my book. 80% of mock trial rounds are decided by the opening statement. In other words, the team with the higher scores on opening statement goes on to win the round. And in the most recent National High School Mock Trial Championship, a school from Washington that made it to the final round and was going as the prosecution in the championship round made a huge mistake on their opening statement that I believe cost them a national title. What was that mistake? We're going to see it in play in just one second. First, let me give you a little bit of context as to the case that was used at Nationals this year. It was really, really interesting. It was about a journalist who was investigating a 50-year-old cold case, a murder that never went solved. And the person that this journalist was starting to suspect might have actually done it all those years ago attempted to kill them, or allegedly attempted to kill them. And that person is now on trial for attempted murder of the journalist. This was the prosecution's opening statement. It's supposed to explain to the jury what to expect and what the story of this case is. But I want you to pay close attention to how long it takes before we actually understand what in the world this case is about. Take a look. [00:01:43] Speaker 2: A man with connections. Today you will learn that Hollis Trimble is a man with connections. Connections to wealth, to fame, to corruption. Connections that made him successful. Connections that were all about to be made public. But today the evidence will show that Hollis Trimble wanted to conceal these connections. Conceal them through the murder of Lupe Campos. Today the defendant, Hollis Trimble, is charged with attempted murder in the first degree. And we, the state, must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Hollis Trimble intended to kill Lupe Campos, and that acting with premeditation intentionally committed any act that was a step in the plan to kill Lupe Campos. Members of the jury, today we will meet this burden. Now, taking a... [00:02:36] Speaker 1: Alright, we're about a minute and a half into this opening. I have heard that this is an attempted murder trial. That the defendant is on trial for attempted murder. You know what I have not heard? Any details at all about what that looked like? Why that may have occurred? And we're a third of the way through this opening already. Alright, that's absolutely crazy. We're about to get into a little bit of context now. Let's see how that plays out. [00:03:01] Speaker 2: Step back for some context. About 50 years ago, Don Bowles was an investigative reporter who was looking into land fraud involving prominent politicians and people with ties to organized crime. But in 1976, he got too close to uncovering the truth and was killed by a car box. You will hear how the mystery of who exactly ordered the hit on Bowles is still unsolved today. But you will also learn that the defendant was 23 years old at the time. And that at the time, he wanted to be rich and successful. He became that. He worked with many people connected to organized crime. The mafia. And today, the state will prove that last June, almost 50 years after the murder of Don Bowles, Paulus Trimble shot and tried to kill Lupe Campos. [00:03:50] Speaker 1: Okay, a little bit more details now. We talked about that old cold case. We talked about the journalist who was killed 50 years ago and it's gone unsolved. And then now this other guy has now been killed. But why and how? Now we're well over two minutes into this opening, about halfway through, and I still don't know what happened and why. Right? Real big problem. Let's keep watching. [00:04:16] Speaker 2: Why? Because Lupe Campos was about to publish an article that connected Paulus Trimble to the murder of Don Bowles. Today, the evidence will show that the defendant didn't have an issue using force if the push came to shove. You will hear various people accused him of being involved in the murder of Don Bowles. And how did the defendant respond? With threats. You will end up tied to a cinder block at the bottom of Lake Powell. Get out of here before you end up like Bowles. Members of the jury, I remind you that Bowles was assassinated. But I want to be clear that today, we are not prosecuting Paulus Trimble for the murder of Don Bowles. Today, we are prosecuting Paulus Trimble for the attempted murder of Lupe Campos on June 13th of 2024. Today, you'll learn that on June 12th... [00:05:11] Speaker 1: Okay. We're almost done with the opening. And we just got to June 12th. And the murder occurred, or the attempted murder occurred, on June 13th. So we were almost done with this opening statement, and we haven't even gotten to the day in question yet. And look, I don't have to watch the rest of this opening, and I don't want to make this kid feel bad. But as soon as I watched this opening, and I listened to it live as it was happening during the national championship round, I was driving in my car, I had it plugged into the speaker, and I might have even said out loud to myself, yeah, it's over now. Because the worst thing that you can do in your opening statement, the biggest mistake you can make, is to bury the lead. What does that mean? Well, in journalism, we talk about the lead. The lead is kind of the first little paragraph or the first few sentences of an article you write that really kind of sum up the whole story and tell you exactly what it's about. It's, if the reader doesn't read anything else besides this one paragraph, that's what this story is about. And what it means to bury the lead is, instead of putting that paragraph front and center at the very top, you, for whatever reason, trench it in some other place in the article closer to the end. It's called burying the lead, and it's a real problem because the reader misses out on the whole point. They miss out on the actual, you know, juicy details of what's going on. The reason that's such a problem in opening statement is when it confuses your jury. This jury's been sitting here for nearly four minutes at this point and hadn't even heard about the day in question. It also puts them to sleep. And this is especially tragic in a murder trial because you've got such an exciting story to tell. So, if I was writing this opening statement or helping a student write this opening statement, develop it, that whole business about we have the burden of proof today and it's our responsibility, yeah, you need some of that in there. But I'm coming out of the gate swinging with this story. I'm not going to make the jury wait four minutes to hear about the day before the murder or the attempted murder. I'm hopping right into June 13, 2024, or whatever year this occurred. This journalist is investigating a 50-year-old cold case and he thinks he's figured it out. He thinks that, what's the guy's name? Lupe Campos. He thinks Lupe Campos is the one who did it. And he's closing in and he's about to publish an article that could get Lupe Campos indicted for this 50-year-old cold case. But then Lupe Campos figured that out himself and decided to do something about it. Right? Do you see how I just summed up? And that was completely off the cuff. Not planned. There's no script. All I have right here are just some notes for the video to make sure I stay on track with you guys. There was no script there. That was literally just off the cuff and it was a million times better than what we just saw. And here's the thing. It didn't take any remarkable skill for me to do that. That's something that every one of you watching is capable of doing. Every coach that is watching is capable of doing. That attorney is capable of doing. You just have to make a commitment to not burying the lead, to getting to the story of the case very, very quickly and doing it in as few words and as dramatically as possible. There was no remarkable skill in what I just did. I just said, I'm going to start this opening by telling a story and that's what I did. And it's a lot clearer than what happened in that video. And I feel bad because the national championship is supposed to be even sparring back and forth. When I won nationals back in 2019, our two teams, it was very even and it was back and forth and we got to the end and we didn't know who won. Five minutes into this trial, I knew who had won because they buried the lead in the opening and you just can't do that. And I don't have a list of like, you know, the three things you need to keep in mind. You just have to not do it. When you're preparing an opening statement, you have to set out to tell the story of the case immediately. I don't want to know what your name is. I don't want to know about your co-counsel, how you're honored to represent the people of the state of wherever. I want to know what happened. And that's not just me as a mock trial coach who studies this stuff. That's every juror. They just want to know what happened and you owe it to them to get them that information quickly. And because this team didn't do that, it cost them a national championship. They wound up losing to a school from here in Tennessee, Montgomery Bell Academy. And it's really, really sad because that simple tweak I think could have transformed the entire round. So what you have to understand here is the stakes are really, really high. You've got to tell your story quickly. And it's a missed opportunity if you don't. Now opening statements happen to be one of my very favorite parts of mock trial. And I love working directly with students, with coaches, with teams on shaping their openings to avoid mistakes like that. And if you want to do just that, you can book an appointment with me by clicking the link in the YouTube description or in the show notes on podcast platforms. I'd love to spend some time with your team helping you craft your opening statement. But guys, the stakes here are so, so big you can't get it wrong. Tell the jury what happened and do it quickly. Bye.