NU law students
make moot points
■ A team of three
scholars will argue
their case at a national
moot court competition
in New York.
_ :—.—.—
.
By Gabriel Stovall *
Staff writer
Court will soon be in session
for three University of Nebraska
law students - again.
The moot court team of
Wendy DeBoer, Shannon
Doering and Terry Meinecke will
argue a case they have argued 11
times before when the team com
petes for a moot court national
title Jan. 25 to Jan. 28 in New
York.
“The team probably won’t
spend as much time preparing as
they have in the past,” said John
Lenich, associate professor in the
NU College of Law. “They will
face the same case in the nation
als that they have in other compe
titions.”
Moot court team members
hope this repetitiveness will aid
in their quest to win the national
title.
NU moot court teams have
advanced to the national rounds
of the tournament seven of the
past 10 years, but Nebraska has
not won the title since 1953. But
knowing this doesn’t appear to
taint the confidence of the team.
“There is no doubt about it
that we can win the nationals,”
said DeBoer, who was named
best oral advocate in the final
round ofoegionals in November.
DeBoerbelieves the team has
the talenf andthie chemistry to
carry itself to success this year.
“Although we are different
types of people, we complement
each other very well as a team,”
she said. “The variety in our
styles of argument help us as we
face the judges.”
The case, the team will argue
involves a person who claims to
4 be disabled in order to receive
state benefits, while at the same
time making a non-disabled
claim to his or her employer in
order to keep a job.
The NU team advanced to the
national rounds by defeating the
University of Kansas team in the
final round of regional competi
tion held Nov. 20 and Nov. 21 in
Kansas City, Mo. Nebraska also
received the award for best writ
ten brief in the competition.
Among the challenges
Nebraska faced at regionals, the
toughest one was having to beat
another team made up of fellow
Nebraska students, team mem
bers said.
NU’s College of Law was the
only school to advance both its
teaips to the semifinals at region
als, and the second team of Troy
Meyerson, Joshua Nauman and
Shayla Reed lost to the national
qualifying team by less than a
point.
“They were, by far, the best
team we faced in the regionals,”
said Doering, ha was on the
winning team.
“Because we’ve practiced
with them before, we knew each ;
other so well,” DeBoer $aid. “It
was like competing against our
own shadow. I think-it helped
prepare us for stifFer competition
in die finals.”
Of 208 teams from 143 law
schools nationwide that enter
regionals, only the .top 28 teams
advance to nationals where com
petition is stifi^ Lenich said.
- “It’ll definitely be tougher
than any'othef competition,” he
said: “But I think they’re ready
for it. They are just as competi
tive with this as athletes are in
collegiate sports.”
to postpone execution
REEVES from page 1
prove that Reeves was individually dis
criminated against
The motion, which also claims that
the electric chair is cruel and unusual
punishment, was rejected by a Lancaster
County Court judge last week.
The other motion pending in the
case, filed Tuesday morning, alleges that
the Pardons Board violated the rights of
one of the victims’ families, when the
Board refused to hear them speak at
Reeves’ clemency hearing Monday. The
Lamm motion will be heard in Lancaster
County District Court at noon today. ;
Reeves, 42, was sentenced to death
18 years ago for the 1980 murders of
Janet Mesner and Vicki Lamm.
The two women were killed in a
Quaker meeting house in Lincoln, and
there was evidence of sexual assault
Since the crime, several members of
the Lamm and Mesner families have
beat lobbying state officials to commute
Reeves’ death sentence to life in prison.
Vicki Lamm’s daughter, Audrey,
who recently came to the forefront of the
efforts to save Reeves’ life, said everyone
within arms’ reach received hugs and
kisses when she heard about the stay.
Audrey Lamm said she was waiting
outside die State Capitol with her father,
Gus, and Hutchinson’s children when
Hutchinson came bounding across the
street toward them.
“I knew it was good news, but I did
n’t know what,” Lamm said. “Then she
opened the door and said, ‘We got a
stay!”’
Gus Lamm, Vicki’s widower, said
die stay vindicated their efforts to save
Reeves.“Affer being shunned and disre
garded (Monday), today was round two,”
GusLammsaid “And it seems as though
we scored a knockdown.”
s 'Earlier in the day, the Lamms had
placed 2,Q0Q flowerstemsandthousands
more flower bulbs in front M the
Governor’s mansion to make a stateriient
about Monday’s emotional Pardons
Board hearing.
At the end of the hearing in which the
Pardons Board denied Reeves’ appeal
for clemency and refused to hear family
- v I
Protesters vow to continue battle I I
REACTION from page 1
Meted in its care of Randy Reeves.”
Justice said UNITE members have
been making themselves visible in
protest of the execution since before
the winter break.
Three members attended the
Pardons Board hearing Monday after
noon, and several others protested out
side the Capitol before and during the
break.
\ “We are trying to make as active a
presence as possible,” he said. “That
way (Pardons Board members and the
Nebraska Supreme Court) will know
we are there.” v
Colette Mast, a UNITE and
Northern Cheyenne tribe member,
said Gov. Mike Johanns, a member of
the three-person Pardons Board,
should have granted Reeves clemency
Monday.
“It makes me wonder what
Johanns thinks when he was so
adamant that justice must be served
members, Audrey Lamm tried to give a
pink rose to each of the Board members.
Lamm said she gave Stenberg and
Secretary of State Scott Moore a flower,
and told diem she would pray for them,
but Johanns waved her off and wouldn’t
accept the flower.
‘Today we gave him some flowers he
couldn’t wave away,” she said.
The three flowers she held at the
hearing are a symbol of the three lives
lost in this crime: Janet Mesner, Vicki
Lamm and Randy Reeves.
Emotions have run the gamut for
Reeves supporters this week - from
despair and disappointment to happiness
and relief. But even after Monday’s
ordeal, supporters said they held hope
for Reeves’life. '
“Since we heard (Monday’s Pardons
Board decision) it was a very down day,”
said Mildred Mesner, Janet’s mother.
But Tuesday their spirits lifted, she
said.
“We were very disappointed yester
through the execution of Reeves,” she
said. “I think it would have been an
injustice if he had been executed.”
Despite the stay of^execution,
Justice and Castellanos, a UNITE and
Ogalalla Lakota Nation member, said
the Nebraska judicial system is based
on prejudiced values, citing Reeves’
American Indian heritage as the cause
for his scheduled execution.
Said Justice: “The reason he was
given death is because he is a brown
man who killed two white women. It’s
very obvious that (the Nebraska prison
system) is a racist institution.”
Justice said the system had been
biased in favor of whites since its
founding and said the state of
Nebraska deserved just as much blame
for the crime as did Reeves.
“People of color are treated with
extraordinary contempt in the legal
system,” he said. “There’s a long lega
cy of one law for colored people and
one law for white folks, and this isn’t
the way to do it.”
day at the outcome, and today, this news
- this is good news,” Mesner said.
Don Reeves, Randy’s adoptive
father, said he was pleased, but unsure
what the news will mean for his son.
“I hope the court will hear the argu
ments we have been making for years,”
Don Reeves said.
After the news, Don Reeves spoke to
Randy over the phone Tuesday evening.
Randy Reeves had heard the news earli
er in a phone call from Hutchinson.
“Numb may be the most accurate
word (to describe Randy’s mood),”
Reeves said. “We don’t know quite what
to think yet.”
Reeves’ birth mother, Grace
Blackbird, said she was elated when
someone called her with the news.
’This is a really big relief to me,” she
said, nearing tears. “That’s my only child
and I didn’t want him to go like that.”
Senior staff writer Jessica Fargen
contributed to this report
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