By Sarah Novicoff

The team of Micah Sperling ’12 and Miranda Van Iderstine ’13 finished in second place at the Duke Moot Court High School Tournament on Feb. 25 and 26. The two also won individual Speaker Awards for their arguments regarding the application of the First and Fifth Amendments to a simulated national security wiretapping case.

In Moot Court, students are presented with a simulated case. Participants then use past cases to make an argument for or against the constitutionality of the action described in the case, Moot Court team member Katie Jung ’14 said.

The competition takes place annually and according to the tournament website, “hundreds of teams of two students submit essays on a specific Supreme Court decision in order to enter the tournament.”

The final round was judged by a combination of professors, judges, legal scholars and lawyers, unlike the other rounds, which were judged by Duke University students in Moot Court, according to the tournament website.

Three other Moot Court teams qualified for the tournament.

Members of the Moot Court team have won this tournament twice in the past. Last year Ben Dreier ’11 and Andrew Hartford ’11 won arguing the constitutionality of the Affordable Health Care Act, and four years ago, Danielle Kolin ’08 and Melissa Saphier ’08 won arguing the availability of the writ of habeas corpus to alien detainees at Guantanamo Bay.