Mongol Trial Day 9 (1/15/14)

Today was the last day of our trial :(

We started the class with the cross-examination and the direct examination of Kublai Khan, Genghis Khan's grandson.  Michelle performed very well and exposed many of the weaknesses of the defense's argument.  The defense's lawyers did not ask much, so there is nothing left to say.  Subsequent to our cross-examination of Kublai Khan, the concluding statements took the stage.  The prosecution's closing statement went before the defense's.  Ashay said the closing statement for the prosecution and clearly conveyed the major points around which the entire trial was centered on.  These included discussing the perjuries committed by the defense (some of their witnesses modified their background stories mid-trial and thus were able to evade many of out lawyers' questions) and the overall major points of the entire trial (which facts and which interrogations supported the claims we made as well as holes in the defense's arguments).  The trial concluded with the defense's closing statements, performed by Olivia.  Though the wording and tone of their closing statement was indeed strong, they misrepresented the situation and made a few errors.  Further specification (including examples) of the closing statements can be seen on twitter #mongolprosecution4.  We are anxiously awaiting the results of the trial, which are going to be revealed tomorrow!  I already know we won though, so it takes away from the fun....

In conclusion, the trial was an extremely memorable experience, as it not only taught us about the nomads of the steps of Asia including the Mongols, but it also served to be quite enjoyable.  The only remaining part of this project is to summarize the entire trial via Storify.  We are beginning to look into the Storify App and figure out how we are going to approach this aspect of the project.

We'll keep you posted!