In addition, Prelogar maintained, Friar Laurence was not cowardly but prudent when he left Juliet alone in the tomb shortly before her suicide; "no one wants to be banishéd," she explained. Kavanaugh scoffed at this idea, suggesting that the friar was merely "blowing smoke, like threatening to move to New Zealand."
On behalf of the parents, Karl Racine, attorney general for the District of Columbia, opened strongly: "Crooked Friar Laurence," he began, and then paused, "with his small hands," he gestured, was to blame for the tragedy. Racine playfully wove Shakespearean titles into his opening argument: The Comedy of Errors in this Winter's Tale was far from Much Ado About Nothing, and, Measure for Measure, the fault lay with the "crooked friar." Griffith matched him: The families have reconciled, so why isn’t this All’s Well That Ends Well? Racine put a blunt end to the game: "It's about the money."
Racine portrayed the friar not as a spiritual counselor but as a manipulative seeker of worldly fame. The friar, Racine asserted, alluding to the musical Hamilton, thought that with his plan, the world was gonna know his name. Turning to the jury, Racine asked "What's his name?" "Friar Laurence!" the jury shouted back.
Jackson suggested that if Juliet's parents had known anything about teenage psychology, they would have teased Juliet about Romeo and invited him over to dinner. Then she would have forgotten all about him. Cementing Jackson’s point, Griffith challenged Racine, asserting that "it seems clear that the parents messed up bigly."
Kavanaugh pointed out that there was no way Friar Laurence could have known that Friar John was "low energy." Griffith interjected that he thought the friar's plan had failed because of a sudden bridge closing between Mantua and Verona. In closing, Wilkins offered another explanation: "I thought it was that Friar John lived on the Red Line."
After an evening of mostly humorous arguments by both sides, Prelogar closed her rebuttal with a sonnet, the heroic couplet ending with the plea, "reverse."
As he announced the verdict, Alito praised Prelogar's poetry and indicated that he expects future briefs from the solicitor general's office to be written in iambic pentameter. Ruling for the friar, he explained that "three of us subscribe to evolving standards of parenting, while two remain back in the 16th century" (Griffith and Wilkins dissented). The jury as well voted overwhelmingly for Friar Laurence. Abbe Lowell, the event's moderator, suggested that with his legal travails behind him, Friar Laurence was now free to take over the Food and Drug Administration.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s twice-annual mock trials provide an opportunity for engagement between Washington's legal and artistic communities. The next mock trial, scheduled for June 19, 2017, will address legal issues in Macbeth, which will open at the Shakespeare Theatre on April 25.
Editor's Note: Watch Trial on C-Span
Law and Romeo and Juliet: US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito served as chief judge in the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s mock trial of Friar Laurence for the wrongful deaths of… read more (see recording of the mock trial)
Note from the SCOTUS Blog: Ask the author: Justice Ginsburg in her own words . . . and then some
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