Garces Memorial High School culminated an undefeated Mock Trial season by emerging as the best among 16 county high school teams who competed in the Jan. 24 2008-09 Kern County Mock Trial Super Saturday championship final in Bakersfield's Kern County Superior Courts of California. Garces will represent the county at the California Mock Trial, March 20-22, in Riverside, CA. Finishing second was Centennial High and the third place team was last year’s champion, Stockdale High. Team members from competing high schools acted as defense and prosecution and provided witnesses and courtroom officials in the fictitious case of People v. Lane, involving an alleged act of arson and inciting a group to riot. The prosecution charged radical group leader Leslie Lane had held a rally in which she sang a song called “Burn ‘Em Out” and burned an effigy in an effort to force a group of new settlers out of town. Shortly afterward, a fire broke out on the settlers’ property, and Lane was charged with arson and inciting a riot. The case, used in each round of the competition, was prepared by the Constitutional Rights Foundation. Garces’s Camille Angeles-Castle gave a convincing performance as the defendant, although Centennial’s prosecution attorney Amy Shavinsky made it tough, repeatedly objecting that the defendant was being “non-responsive.” “That was tough,” Angeles-Castle said afterward. “I had all this good evidence prepared to help my team win the case, but the judge instructs me to just answer ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ I was disappointed that I couldn’t provide more evidence during her cross examination, but when my defense team was questioning me, I made some points. More