PHHS teacher Jennifer Ronco volunteered this year to be the advisor for the Mock Trial Club. The season ended last month and she reported that the team made the top 10 out of about 30 teams and senior Ben Kelly won outstanding defense attorney for the county of San Diego.

This is Kelly’s third win for outstanding attorney (pretrial motions and prosecution in years 2016 and 2017). No one else in the Mock Trial club’s history has ever won more than one time. Kelly pulled it off as a sophomore, junior, and senior, completing strongly against both private and public schools in the San Diego area. Beyond that, three out of the four schools Henry faced off against also made the top 10 schools.

The murder trial took place in the town of Acorn where social media, GPS tracking, differing political views about immigration, disagreement about murder weapons, opportunity and motivation all weighed in. Our prosecution met the burden of proof once and defense got the defendant off both times. Congratulations to the PHHS team!

Mock Trial Team Roles

Pretrial Attorneys: Jordan Furtak, Arbi Leka

Trial Attorneys (Defense): Ben Kelly, Kenton Guarian, Gregoria Millensifer, Alexis Singh

Trial Attorneys (Prosecution): Luna Miller, Trevor Mayne, Sam Lenett, Athena Gattuso, Kellen Foster

Defense Witnesses: Julian Alvarado, Janelle Arnold, Shanell Logan, Zach Lenett, Sam Handler, Brandon Guerra, Jamie Greene, Leilani Rickertsen

Prosecution Witnesses: Maddie Nowatnick, Alex Shoaf, Dillon Broderick, Anna Forehand, Adia Feigner, Daniel Khuu, Alyssa Arnold

Bailiff: Kate McGraw

Clerk: Shelby Fortune