Archive for 'Matthew Rogoff'

Pictured from L-R: Patricia Ramsey Chronicle, Graciela Cardona, Matthew Rogoff, Brigett Potts, Latoya Brown, & their coach Professor Erin Degnan

This past weekend, the FIU College of Law Board of Advocates Intercultural Human Rights Moot Court team won First Runner-Up at the Susan J. Ferrell Intercultural Human Rights Moot Court Competition. The competition was held at St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami Gardens, Feb. 1-3.

The team, which included 3L’s Latoya Brown, Patricia Ramsey Chronicle, Brigett Potts, Matthew Rogoff, and Graciela Cardona, was narrowly defeated in the final round against the City University of Hong Kong, despite receiving the highest overall oral argument scores from the Honorable Fausto Pocar, the former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

The Susan J. Ferrell Moot Court Competition is a “competition revolving around a simulated court proceeding, in which teams representing both sides of the argument prepare written pleadings with respect to a fictional problem of international human rights law and policy, and present their arguments in an oral argument before the International Court of Justice.” This year, the competition featured a dispute under a bilateral investment treaty, environmental law issues, and the relocation of indigenous peoples without their free, prior and informed consent.

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Jeremy Chevres, Dean Acosta, Justice Alito, Judge Marcus, Judge Barkett and Nicolas Greene at the reception following the mock proceedings.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sat as chief justice for FIU’s 9th annual Moot Court Competition

Even seasoned trial lawyers might find themselves intimidated arguing in front of a Supreme Court justice. At FIU’s 9th annual Moot Court Competition, four College of Law students rose to the challenge.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. joined Judge Rosemary Barkett and Judge Stanley Marcus – both from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals – to preside over the final round of oral argument Jan. 26 at the Rafael Diaz-Balart Hall.

In the fictitious case Ernesto Escobar v. United States, the petitioner appealed his conviction for drug smuggling. Escobar’s appeal argued the government unlawfully gathered evidence using a GPS device. The appeal asserted that there is a “reasonable-expectation-of-privacy” standard.

The FIU case was well timed. Earlier in January, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision that law enforcement officers must obtain a search warrant to attach a GPS unit to a suspect’s car to track him. Although similar to the real case, United States v. Jones, the FIU case dealt exclusively with whether the monitoring of such a device would alone violate the Fourth Amendment when no warrant is first obtained.

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Moot Court Final Round

Thursday, January 26, 2012

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