By Amy Heaton
On March 3rd and 4th, senior Tena Thau and junior Robert Hagerty represented B-CC in this year’s Montgomery County Debate Finals. Thau and Hagerty debated against roughly 80 of the county’s top debaters on whether or not “in the United States, the principle of jury nullification is a just check on government.” Thau made it to the Top Four; Hagerty got eliminated after the first round.
Jury nullification occurs when a jury acquits a defendant despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt. Essentially, Thau and Hagerty had to argue whether or not juries should be allowed to let seemingly guilty men go free.
On the Affirmative “Pro” side of the debate, Thau argued that jury nullification was a defense against unjust and unjustly applied laws, quoting heavily from Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letters From a Birmingham Jail. During cross-examination, she stumped opponents with questions like: “During the women’s suffrage movement, Susan B. Anthony and other activists were arrested for voting. Should they have gone to jail for asserting this basic civil right? Should a jury have found them guilty, knowing that the consequences of their verdict would be the activists going to jail?”
On the Negative “Con” side, Thau pointed out the arbitrary nature of jury nullification and argued that judge and prosecutorial discretion were sufficient safeguards.
Throughout the season, the ten active members of B-CC’s Debate Team participated in matches against all the other Montgomery County Schools and JDS. Though the actual debates are one-on-one, they prepared as a team at weekly meetings by discussing potential arguments and counter arguments and predict cross-examinations. They’d also share different quotes and information. Since they knew the topics about one month in advance, they had plenty of time to prepare.
Mr. Virden has been the sponsor of the B-CC Debate Team for the past 22 years. “We were very strong this year, especially considering so many were beginners,” said Virden. “Next year’s team shows great promise.”
Thau, the Captain of the Debate Team, made it to the Top Four debaters in the county. Two debaters from JDS made it to the Top Two, and were named co-county champions. Hagerty, who will be the Team Captain next year, didn’t make it to the second round, when the pool of debaters was cut to 62.
Throughout the season, debates followed the Lincoln- Douglas format, which allots specific amounts of time for opening speeches, cross-examination, and rebuttal arguments and emphasizes values and philosophy. “What I really like about Lincoln-Douglas debate is that it your debating issues that are very relevant to today – one of our topics was about standardized tests – but at the same, you’re combining that with old Enlightenment philosophy – which forces you to think about like, what would John Locke say about standardized exit exams,” Thau explained.
Over the five regular-season meets, the team debated topics such as whether public high school students in the United States should be required to pass standardized exit exams to graduate and whether economic sanctions should be used to achieve foreign policy objectives.
There were many surprises during this year’s finals. There were a few people that won all of their debates during the regular season, but did not make it to the final three rounds during the finals. Also, the top two happened to be from the same school (JDS), so there was no final debate to determine the top debater (two people from the same school cannot debate each other, since they already know each other’s arguments). The fact that two JDS students made it to the top two in the first place is surprising as it is, since the likelihood of two students from the same school making it that far is very small, and JDS has a small team to begin with. A situation like this would be more likely to occur with a school like Walter Johnson, which has a team with around 50 members.
For a mostly novice team, it is safe to say that the Barons had a successful season. Next year, perhaps we’ll see twice as many members in the finals.
