Thank you for your interest in judging MSU Law’s oral arguments. We will hold the oral arguments on campus at MSU College of Law.
This year’s problem involves the Fourth Amendment. In the problem, the defendant is appealing, pursuant to a conditional plea agreement, the denial of her motion to suppress evidence found during a warrantless search of her home. The students will argue about whether the trial court properly decided two issues: first, that officers coerced the defendant to sign a consent-to-search form and, second, that the officers inevitably would have discovered the evidence anyhow in a search pursuant to a warrant they had probable cause to obtain.
No experience in constitutional law or criminal law is necessary. Judges will receive additional information, including a summary of the relevant law, potential arguments, and sample questions, one week before scheduled arguments.
The oral arguments may be recorded by Advocacy professors. The recording will be limited to use for educational purposes, including potential review by the professors for purposes of grading and comments for spring competition team tryouts. Please let us know if this would be a problem for you. If we do not hear from you, we will assume that you agree to the use of the recordings for limited, non-public, educational purposes.
We thank you for offering your time to help our students!