As co-captain of Pioneer's mock-trial team, Misherghi had the opportunity to present both sides of a fictional court case during scrimmages held at the Santa Clara County Office of Education (COE) over the Jan. 10­11 weekend. Teams from more than 20 Bay Area high schools came to the scrimmages to fine-tune their arguments in the case of People v. Casco and get feedback from the attorneys and judges before whom they presented their case.

The COE hosted the scrimmages in preparation for the Santa Clara County championships on March 3. The winning team will move on to the California Mock Trial competition, slated for April 2­4 in Orange County.

Until last weekend, the only practice Pioneer's prosecution and defense teams had gotten was against each other, and the only judges they'd been before were their coaches, attorney Doug Aiken and Peter Glasser, a U.S. history teacher at Pioneer. The mock-trial scrimmages pitted Pioneer against the defense team from San Marcos High School and the prosecutors from Rio Americana High School.

"It was a learning experience," said Misherghi, who acted as pretrial prosecutor against San Marcos and lead defense attorney against Rio Americana. "We've never scrimmaged against another team. We got to see how other people view the case and to deal with a different judge. We learned about our faults and how we can improve."

The California Mock Trial program was introduced in 1980 by the Los Angeles­based Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF), which each year develops a case based on an issue of importance to American youth. More than 8,000 high school students in 36 counties participate in the program, acting as prosecutors, defense attorneys and witnesses in the case.

While the trial portion of People v. Casco deals with a high school student charged with theft, grand theft and possession of stolen property, the larger issue is whether the search of Madison Casco's backpack that led to the arrest violated the student's constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment.

In her role as pretrial prosecutor, Misherghi had to cite case law provided by the CRF to show that the $1,000 found in the defendant's backpack during a random canine drug sniff was admissible as evidence. In its pretrial motion to exclude the money, the defense used the same laws to show that the search was unreasonable and that the defendant's rights were violated. But attorney Sandy Mitchell, who was presiding over the scrimmage, dismissed the motion and admitted the money into evidence.

As a U.S. history teacher, Glasser said he's particularly interested in the pretrial motion and the case law surrounding it. "It's a very good example of the democratic process," he added.

Glasser, who has coached Pioneer's mock-trial team for three years, said the program teaches students critical-thinking and public-speaking skills.

For Misherghi, participating on Pioneer's team has been a valuable lesson in teamwork. "It's given me the opportunity to see the law from the inside and to work with other students," she said. "I plan to do something law-related [in my career]. Mock trial made me realize that it's possible for me."