2008 Woodie Awards
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More than 1,200 students crowded the seats of Lisner Auditorium to hear the proceedings, which are modeled after the U.S. appellate court system. Four students - two groups of two - presented cases supporting opposing sides of a problem authored by Law School students.
The problem argued before the Court focused on the application of Fourth Amendment rights to private online chat rooms. In the fictional case, FBI agents used an Internet service provider to monitor a private message board without a warrant after learning that several board members were donating money to overseas terrorist operations.
"I thought they did a wonderful job," Alito said of the competitors. "They did a good job of explaining the Internet as much as needed to be explained for judges who may not always know a whole lot about it."
Presiding alongside Alito were appellate Judges Diane Wood and José Cabranes. Throughout the hour-long event, the three-judge panel often interrupted presenters to ask questions and clarify ambiguous statements. Last year, newly-appointed Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts sat on the panel of judges.
"I think it's a very important event in the life of the school," said Law School Dean Fred Lawrence. "It's a perfect example of where the curricular and extracurricular meet with the academic and practical."
The student participants were finalists of a semester-long Moot Court competition that consisted of more than 100 competitors. The winners of Thursday's event, Jonathan Bond and Eric Klein, defended the argument that clandestine observation of a message board does not constitute an illegal search.
"We worked really, really hard," Klein said. "And all that hard work paid off for all of us because win or lose, everybody looked good."
