High schools look for winning verdict in Moot Court

ST. CROIX — V.I. Superior Court was bustling with activity Thursday as high school seniors from across the territory filled a courtroom to compete in the 16th annual Moot Court Competition.

After months of preparation and the help of local attorneys to guide them, students from seven local high schools argued a land dispute case before a panel of three Superior Court judges.

Precedents were established. Timelines were presented. The V.I. Code was cited in earnest. And, yes, in the name of accurately reflecting a real courtroom, maybe some facts were stretched or twisted to fit into a line of argument.

The students stood their ground and worked with the information given them. When questioned by one of the three judges — Superior Court Judges Julio Brady, Harold Willocks and Adam Christian — students often responded with hesitant, yet structured rebuttals.

In the opening ceremonies, Court Clerk Venetia Velasquez gave the students a quote from Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes: “To be prepared is half the victory.”

Velasquez encouraged participants to take comfort in the preparations they had made and to use that to boost their confidence as they stood before the black-robed judges.

“This is a competition that really promotes the power of reason and the rule of law,” Velasquez said. “What is certain is that they can all take something from this competition into whatever they do in their lives.”

For a judicial system inundated with young offenders, the fresh-faced, confident group of high schoolers was a breath of fresh air. Their interpretation of the law was structured and competent — even if students sometimes stumbled over legal jargon.

The hypothetical case in question was regarding a “bitter property dispute” on St. John, as Judge Christian described it. The arguments orbited around a number of land surveys and a claim of adverse possession, based primarily in the presence of crops on the land in question and some presence of fencing.

Before teams started to prepare, they were assigned to argue for one side or the other.

The first two teams to compete against each other were St. Croix Seventh-day Adventist School and Ivanna Eudora Kean High School. St. Croix Central High School and St. Thomas-St. John Seventh-day Adventist School were next, followed by Charlotte Amalie High School and Ss. Peter and Paul School.

St. Croix Educational Complex pleaded its case uncontested since there were an uneven number of teams.

Arguments in favor of the adverse possession claimant were based on the fact that the woman owning the abutting property had planted crops on close to an acre of land on the property of the other party. Fencing had been erected, they said. The crops had been present for more than the 15-year minimum to establish adverse possession in the territory, they said.

The claimant “acted as an owner would and fenced off her property,” said Danella Joseph of Kean.

This side also claimed that a survey conducted in 1968 establishes the property in question on the adverse claimant’s land. The other side argued that that survey was not valid because it was never recorded in any official manner. They had another survey that they claimed was valid.

In addition, those teams arguing against the adverse possession claim said that, most notably, the claimant had failed to establish open and notorious possession. They also pointed to the fact that a court order removed the claimant from the land in the early 1990s — although the claimant started to use the land again two years later.

Generally, the judges tested students’ knowledge of how different aspects of the law related to each other and interacted.

Does a property buyer’s unknowing purchase of land already in use protect them against an adverse possession claim? Brady asked.

What role does a legal title play in an adverse possession claim? Christian asked.

The students were judged in four categories: command of the issues, argument, legal analysis and style.

Competition adjourned at 6 p.m. Thursday and is scheduled to reconvene today at 10 a.m.

The awards ceremony is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. today at the Great Hall at the University of the Virgin Islands.

Sign up for Text Alerts

Sign up for e-mail newsletters