Chief justice upholds promise to WFU

Roberts presides at mock trial

Wearing a simple black robe and carrying a blue notebook, U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. strode into a packed Wait Chapel on Friday to sit in judgment and make good on a promise.

Roberts joined two other judges to hear a moot court competition for second-year law students at Wake Forest University's law school, fulfilling a promise he made as a federal appeals judge during a visit in February.

Taking his seat behind a table draped with a black cloth that served as the makeshift bench, the nation's top judge soon asserted himself as two law students began arguing a fictitious First Amendment case.

As law student Lesley Bark began her argument, Roberts politely interrupted her with a question.

"Before you begin, let's make sure we even have a case," Roberts said. "Your appeal was filed late, right?"

Roberts had done his homework. One of the key issues in the case was whether Bark's client had given up the right to an appeal because attorneys did not file the paperwork on time after the trial court ruled against them.

As it turned out in the fictitious case, the judge had agreed to extend the filing period because the post office was closed for three days because of an anthrax threat.

For the next 15 minutes, the judges peppered Bark with questions about whether the appeal should have been allowed. Then Roberts took control again, telling Bark, "If it's OK, let's move on to the merits in the case."

Roberts' life has changed dramatically since he last visited Wake Forest. First, he was nominated by President Bush to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Then, when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died in September, Bush switched the nomination, and Roberts was confirmed.

Even though Roberts had a good excuse to miss the event, he came back to Wake Forest for the final round of the moot court competition before about 1,500 people, many of them law students and professors.

Roberts, who previously served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was joined by Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit from Texas and Judge Thomas Ambro of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit from Delaware.

Roberts was not available for interviews Friday, but he offered some advice and encouragement to the law students after the mock trial ended.

"I think the best argument I ever gave before the Supreme Court was in a case that I lost," he said. "And I won a case when I think I gave my worst argument."

He said those were lessons that kept him grounded.

"You need to take comfort in the fact that you've done the best you could, even if you lost the case," he said. "And you need to know when you've not done your best, even if you win."

After the students finished their arguments, the judges retired to another room to deliberate. When they emerged, Roberts declared that Bark was the winner.

After the event, Bark said she had trouble with nerves at the start.

"I think the anticipation was overwhelming until he asked me the first question," she said. "That got me right back on track."

She said Roberts should be praised for keeping his promise to the college.

"Just the fact that he came gives him high marks," she said.

Her opposing counsel, Justin Barnes, said his appreciation of appearing before the chief justice -- even though he lost -- was just starting to sink in.

"It's hard to believe that the highlight of my legal career might be something that happened in my second year in law school," he said.

Professor Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke law school called it a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the law school students.

"It's always an incredible experience for students in these moot court competitions to stand up and argue before a panel of federal appeals court judges," he said before Friday's competition. "But to get the chance to appear before the chief justice, I can't describe it as anything but thrilling."

Stephen Wermiel, a Supreme Court expert at American University in Washington, D.C., said the moot courts give law students a taste of the real world. But they might never get another chance to appear before the chief justice.

"For these students, it is simultaneously the headiest experience they will ever have in their legal careers and very likely the scariest," he said.