The National Trial Team at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law recently finished as a semifinalist at Top Gun, a mock trial competition hosted by Baylor Law School. Maryland Carey Law was represented at Top Gun by Becca Wells '24, who served as the advocate for the competition. Wells was assisted by second chair Thomas Kiley '24 and coach Ben Garmoe '16, the Salsbury Director of Trial Advocacy.
Top Gun is widely considered to be the most difficult mock trial competition in the country. Only the top sixteen schools are invited each year, and this was the first time in over a decade that Maryland Carey Law was invited to participate. Each school sends one advocate to Top Gun, and that advocate is allowed to receive assistance from a second chair who handles courtroom technology, as well as a coach. Each team receives the case materials a mere 24 hours before the first trial, and the advocate, second chair, and coach spend those 24 hours preparing to present both sides of the case.
This year's case was a complex criminal case involving an allegedly staged kidnapping. Wells, Kiley, and Garmoe had 24 hours to prepare for Wells to both prosecute and defendant the accused, who was alleged to have worked with her paramour to stage her own kidnapping in order to extract a ransom from her husband. The case had five live witnesses, over a hundred exhibits, over a dozen physical exhibits including a real taser, and numerous complex legal issues to digest and analyze in just one day. After preliminary rounds against Cumberland, Temple, Texas, and Georgetown, team Maryland advanced to the semifinal round and faced off with Mercer.
Becca Wells and Thomas Kiley were competing in their final competitions after several years of outstanding results at tournaments across the country. Wells and Kiley teamed up to win their region of the 2024 National Trial Competition, and were also teammates on the 2022 Maryland Carey Law team that won the Hofstra Medical-Legal Competition. Wells and Kiley served as captains of the Trial Team for the 2023-24 season, and both graduated with honors this past May.