KU News Release

KU law students take first place at national moot court competition

From left: Luke P. Sinclair, KU law student; California Court of Appeals Judge Richard Aronson; Donald A. Dripps, University of San Diego School of Law professor; and David Clay Britton, KU law student. Britton and Sinclair won the 19th annual National Criminal Procedure Tournament held Oct. 18-20.

LAWRENCE — Two third-year law students at the University of Kansas won the title at the 19th annual National Criminal Procedure Tournament held Oct. 18-20 in San Diego.

Luke P. Sinclair of Lawrence and Milwaukee, Wis., and David Clay Britton of Olathe competed among 41 teams from law schools throughout the United States at the event conducted by the University of San Diego School of Law Appellate Moot Court Board. Sinclair and Britton also won for best brief, and Britton was named second-place oralist out of 82 competitors.

Although KU students have won first-place awards in other moot court competitions, this is the first time a KU team has won the National Criminal Procedure Tournament.

Jean Phillips, associate clinical professor of law, advised Britton and Sinclair in preparing their entries and accompanied them to the competition. Their preparation included working on brief-writing skills and spending many hours in oral-argument practice rounds.

The three-day event concluded with the selection of the top 10 teams overall, the top 10 briefs and the top 10 individual oralists. Officials for the tournament soon plan to post full results online.

Moot court competitions test law students’ skill and agility in arguing legal issues that reflect real-world situations. For this competition, students reviewed a hypothetical case to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court regarding appeals by a prisoner convicted in a gang stabbing of an inmate. Competitors were asked if the prisoner’s Sixth Amendment rights were violated when a fellow inmate’s statement was admitted at trial and whether the prisoner’s Miranda rights had been violated when his own incriminating statements obtained during interrogation were admitted at trial.

The students received details of the case Aug. 15 and submitted briefs by Sept. 21. The competition was narrowed to 16 quarter-final teams in the first two compulsory rounds based on a combination of oral and brief scores. The rounds continued to eliminate teams based on the same score combination until the final round.

Two California Court of Appeals judges and a University of San Diego law professor judged the final round.

The winning KU team members are listed below by their hometowns.

DOUGLAS COUNTY
From Lawrence 66049 and Milwaukee, Wis.
Luke P. Sinclair is married to Lori Sinclair. He is the son of Paul and Lisa Sinclair of Milwaukee. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003 and is a graduate of Heritage Christian High School in Milwaukee.

JOHNSON COUNTY
From Olathe 66062
David Clay Britton is the son of David and Thea Britton. He earned a bachelor’s in history and political science from KU in 2004 and is a graduate of Olathe East High School.

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