Gerry v. State

Cameron Gerry, the Federalist nominee for Lt. Governor, sued for emotional damages after the program director began announcing "Cam..." before correcting to the actual winner's name. Gerry argued the partial announcement constituted a declaration of his victory. The court ruled against him.

State v. Nataraju

A delegate was brought before the court on charges of bribery. The sum in question was a quarter. The case was heard with full procedural seriousness. He was found guilty of bribery by the court primarily because his attorney did such a poor job. It was the equivalent to getting a speeding ticket and arguing yourself into 20 years in prison.

State v. Riggs

A member of the House of Representatives threw a marker at a committee chair during a legislative session. The court heard the assault charge in full. The State sought charges of Assault on an Officer of the Legislature. During the trial the State asked the court to consider the marker to be a "deadly weapon" and upgrade the charge to Assault with a Deadly Weapon on an Officer of the Legislature under N.C.G.S. § 14-16.6(b).

State v. Q

The most involved case of the week. The defendant faced approximately nine felony counts, including 1 count of Breaking and Entering, 1 count of Assault & Battery, 3 counts of Aggravated Assault, and 4 counts of Assault on an Officer of the Legislature. The Attorney General asked me, as Chief Justice, to sign a warrant authorizing the search of the defendant's dormitory room after presenting evidence and arguing there was probable cause. The defendant faked a seizure during proceedings in what appeared to be an attempt to delay or derail the trial. One of our justices found a loophole in the law where we could issue a summary judgment without a formal trial, and so we wrote up a summary judgment and issued a warrant for his arrest and immediate incarceration. 

The most politically charged moment of the week had nothing to do with the court directly, but it was hard to miss. The Nationalists held the governorship, the Lt. Governorship, most of the Council of State, and a Senate majority. The House, however, was solidly Federalist, and they used it.

A fellow Nationalist had been elected to the Supreme Court alongside me but had made himself unpopular during the State Party Convention by filing amendment after amendment during platform debates. He was nearly censured; the only thing that stopped it was one delegate arguing that censure was beneath the Nationalist party's dignity and only something a "dirty Federalist would do". Later, the Federalist-controlled House moved to impeach him. When the counselors pointed out there was no impeachment clause in the THBS Constitution, they changed course: they passed a bill to defund his Supreme Court seat and replace it with a "Fraternity-backed Seat 8." The fraternity was essentially a Federalist voting bloc.

The bill passed both the House and Senate unanimously and went to the Nationalist governor, who planned to let it die through a pocket veto before being talked into issuing an actual veto, which sent it back to the legislature, where they overrode it. Unfortunately, we did not get to see any actual execution of the bill because this was in the final minutes of simulated government for the week. It was a sharp lesson in how political majorities work around the institutions they can't directly control, and how the absence of a written rule can be just as consequential as the presence of one.

Boys State compressed a semester's worth of civics into one week and made it real in a way a classroom never quite does. Watching parliamentary procedure actually work, and sometimes break down, during a convention, signing a search warrant, ruling on cases where the facts were absurd, but the procedure had to be correct anyway: all of it made abstract ideas about government concrete. The week also showed me something about the difference between the letter of a constitution and the spirit of it. Rules only hold when people decide to honor them. Sometimes they don't, and then you find out what the document actually says, and what it doesn't. This experience was the basis of my Personal Statement for college applications and sparked my interest in potentially running for political office in the future.