Friday, May 6, 2005
Inaugural Statewide High School Moot Court Appellate Competition

Moot Court

Statewide Impact


Through a series of competitions at Florida's lower appeals courts, high school students around the state are making their way to Tallahassee much like attorneys appealing actual cases. Winning student teams will go through preliminary arguments before Tallahassee's First District Court of Appeal at 3:30 p.m. May 5. The top two teams then will proceed to the Supreme Court to argue before the high-Court Justices at 10:00 a.m. today. They will argue a case involving the lawfulness of police detaining the driver of a vehicle long enough for a police K-9 unit to arrive. In this hypothetical case, the drug-sniffing dog alerted for the presence of contraband, but the trial judge refused to suppress the evidence at trial.