Moot Court Fall 2012 Competition Results

On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 the UND School of Law held its final argument of the 2012 Internal Moot Court Competition.  We have the unique honor and privilege of having the North Dakota Supreme Court judge the final argument.  Second-year students Kyle Craig and Cody Atkins were declared 2012 champions after a closely contested argument with third-year students Kirby Graff and Evie Hudson. The competition began with 22 teams vying for the championship.  

Photos of the final argument

 

 

Champions

 

Kyle Craig and Cody Atkins

 

 

 

 

Finalists 

 

Kirby Graff and Evie Hudson

 

 

 

The full list of award winners include:

Champions - Kyle Craig and Cody Atkins
Finalists - Kirby Graff and Evie Hudson
Best brief-Respondent - Amanda Brossart and Ashley Jones
Best brief-Petitioner - Maggie Eyre and Jami Arnold
Best oralist-Respondent - Kyle Craig
Best oralist-Petitioner - Rachel Prudhomme

First Petitioner & Rebuttal, Kirby Graff

First Respondent, Kyle Craig

Second Petitioner, Evie Hudson

Second Respondent, Cody Atkins

The Case

Rory Gilmore, Petitioner,
v.
United States of America, Respondent.

Rory Gilmore, the Petitioner, was a sociology graduate student at Chilton University and an activist against restrictive sex offender sentencing laws. As part of her graduate work, she authored a thesis entitled "The Age of Sex." Ms. Gilmore's graduate work investigates how society perceives sexuality and age. In preparation for her thesis, Ms. Gilmore conducted interviews via Skype internet videophone technology, and took nude images of her interview subjects in provocative poses.

In 2009, the FBI received a tip on its cyber tip line from a woman who claimed she found pornographic images of her 16 year old minor son, T.L., on his computer. After an investigation, the FBI obtained a search warrant and executed a search of Ms. Gilmore's house. Agents discovered a black and white photographic image of a nude young man posed in a sexually explicit manner. Ms. Gilmore was arrested for possession of child pornography. When further investigation revealed Ms. Gilmore had created the image using Skype, she was indicted for production of child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a).

Prior to trial, the Government filed a motion in limine seeking to preclude Ms. Gilmore from presenting an affirmative defense of reasonable mistake of age or from introducing any evidence the minor presented himself to her as a consenting adult. At the hearing, Ms. Gilmore produced a printed copy of an identification card e-mailed to her by T.L. indicating he was over eighteen. The Court granted the motion over Ms. Gilmore's objection.

Ms. Gilmore was found guilty of producing child pornography in violation of § 2251(a). She was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 180 months and three years of supervised release, with the condition, among others, that she not access "any form of pornographic material" while on supervised release. Ms. Gilmore appealed both her conviction and the term of her supervised release. The Fourteenth Circuit affirmed the conviction and sentence. Ms. Gilmore timely appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which granted certiorari. The Supreme Court will address the following issues:

(1) Whether the First Amendment requires an affirmative defense of reasonable mistake of age to a charge under 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) for production of child pornography.

(2) Whether a condition of supervised release banning "any form of pornographic material" is unconstitutional for overbreadth, in violation of the First Amendment, or vagueness, in violation of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause.