This is over one hour. [applause] thank you and good evening. We call ourselves the bard association. It tries to have lawyers do something more productive than what they do usually do to support the theater in all kinds of ways. As you know, the theater performance that we are using the stage for is based on the text of William Shakespeares 12 night. You have seen Ethan Mcsweeney do so many good performances. [applause] if you have not seen it, at least twice you will can sitter you will consider coming. 12 night is not about the time it takes for the tax reconciliation to occur. [laughter] shakespeares 25th play. You know the basics. After a shipwreck, or a plane incident stranded on the coast of illyria, the a lot and sebastian become separated. While she assumes the disguise leaderse boy, to be the page, a man, she finds herself at the center of a very exclusive love triangle with the sophisticated lady, libya, who or the note desires but falls in love with cesarean who is really feel a. But then find that there is an identical sebastian who she can love just as much. Following all this . This play is where identity, passion, and gender all threaten to become undone. With characters pretending to be people they are not. Saying things they do not mean. Plotting to advance themselves at the expense of others who trust in them. Or in other words, the way the rest of the world thinks of us in washington dc. In illyria and now, the issue is will music be the food of love . Will it be enough to hold them in holy matrimony. At the conclusion of tonights argument, you will be asked as we always ask you to be the jury. To answer the following questions. Should olivia and sebastians marriage be annulled . If you believe yes, please vote with the blue token. If you believe the marriage should not be annulled, vote with your red token. Now it is my extraordinary honor and pleasure to introduce the participants to the mock trial. Please welcome u. S. Supreme Court Marshall pamela token. [applause] and welcome counsel for the petitioner olivia. Kate stenson. [applause] for me. Y whoopeed and counsel dan webb with matthew carter. [applause] calling to order the marshall we will welcome the bench for tonight. The Supreme Court will be chief judge merrick garland. Presiding, judge david table judge thomas griffins and judge , the time g brown jackson. [applause] they will be here in a minute. Please enjoy the trial. [gavel] all rise. Oh yea, oh yeah, oh yeah. The Supreme Court is now in session. Please be seated. Thank you, mr. Chief justice, and may it please the court. To be leave olivia or not to be believe olivia. That is the question. [laughter] my client fell in love with one person. She was tricked into marrying another. When she realized that she had been married to a stranger, she sought annulment. The lower courts denied her that relief. Annulment is only available when one spouse is behavior has been duped. This court should reverse. There is ample evidence that sebastians Deceptive Behavior induced olivia to marry him. When sebastian first sets eyes on olivia, she called him her dear cesario. People do go by different names. For instance when she is kicking it with her homeys, Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg goes by the notorious rbg. As well as her graffiti tag, i dissent. [laughter] but nothing in this record supports that sebastian ever went by the name cesario and yet he stayed silent. He thinks to himself that there is something in it disabled. He has a another chance to set things straight right before the the wedding. Olivia asked him point blank. My most jealous and ever doubtful soul may live at peace. There is his opportunity break there. Right there in the record to say, look, this has been great. [laughter] it is not you, its me. [laughter] because its not me. Its you are clearly in love with a different me. But he doesnt say any of that. Instead, what he says is, having sworn truth, i ever will be true. Sebastian says i did not deceive her. I used my name during the wedding. But that ignores the fact that the wedding itself, olivia was highly distracted. She had arranged for a little cake shop in the neighboring country of colorado to create a beautiful, artistic, highly expressive food for the wedding. The guy never showed up. Not to mention her loyal servant malvolio, who is an illtempered man prancing around the patio in yellow stockings. Yellow. Malvolio has brown hair and hazel eyes. [laughter] can i can i ask . I am a little worried about the implications of this argument for misrepresentation or miss misunderstandings. You realize this is twelfth night, which is 12 nights after christmas. Therefore, winter is coming. [laughter] does this mean that john snow will not be able to marry the mother of dragons because, spoiler alert, he is not yet tarts ned starks son . We could be in a lot of trouble. I am really upset about that spoiler alert. I like, have not watched that part. Thanks for that. [laughter] i think the answer is if we are talking about mistaken identities, we are talking about mistaken names. This is one of sebastians arguments. Because he used his real name at the wedding she was on notice that he was not who she thought he was. As the leading commentator put it, that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. I want to be sure i understand the facts of this case. So, if the priest shows up in and drags sebastian into the pantry and apologizes for her haste, that according to the priest, she makes, according to the record, contract of maternal love confirmed by mutual joining of hands, attested by the holy coils of lips, strengthened by the interchanging of rings, during which sebastian declares, i, sebastian, take thee olivia as my wedded wife. You want us to believe that olivia did not know what you was what she was getting into . [laughter] so [laughter] olivia may have been a tad impetuous in proposing the marriage. But to be very clear, olivia was not looking for love. Love found her. This was a woman who had sworn off all suitors for seven years. She had deleted her profile from tinder. [laughter] she had stopped surfing farmersonly. Com [laughter] she was abandoned to her sorrow. This is not an elizabeth dburtonfortensky situation. [laughter] but your brief does not focus on olivia. It focuses on sebastian, and you say sebastian engaged in deceit. That is too harsh. He identified himself by name in the ceremony. It just turned out to be different. He turned out to be different than olivia thought. How is that any different than a husband finding out after the wedding that his wife is a Justin Bieber fan . And that wouldnt be grounds for annulment. Well, maybe that would. [laughter] you getpothetical my point. I would totally write bieber into the prenup. The difference is there is a difference between a different name and a different person. This is not if you imagine a situation where joe dimaggio is at the altar with Marilyn Monroe and she calls herself norma jean, he is not going to walk away because he knows he is still marrying Marilyn Monroe. This is not joe dimaggio marrying Marilyn Monroe. This is like great Britains King Edward marrying bart simpson instead of wallis simpson. [laughter] very different people. Page 12 of your brief, you argue that sebastian agreed to marry olivia to claim immigration benefits. You write sebastian had no other rational reason to accept olivias proposal. No other rational reason . Are you aware that the role of alivia was played by helen not carter and Michelle Pfeiffer . No other rational reason . [laughter] visit so on for a royal is it so odd for a royal to fall in love with a foreign actor . [laughter] [applause] prince harry may have an issue about this. Fair enough. Here is what i would say about that. To the point about sebastian not having a different reason for marrying her other than the fact that he needed to claim citizenship, i think that is exactly what was going on. You have a situation where olivia fell in love with someone completely different. Someone who wooed her and won her with beautiful words, yada yada yada. The only thing sebastian said to her. The first thing he said was, i will. This is not the person that she thought. It is very clear what his thought process was. He washes ashore, sees olivia, she proposes marriage to him, and he says i am not throwing away my shot. I am not throwing away my shot. I swam to this country. Im young, soggy, and hungry. [laughter] that is what he is thinking. [applause] what i dont understand is your timing. Why would your client want to annul the marriage right now . I hear the tax benefits will be enormous for two wealthy people getting married in 2018. She should just hang on, dont you think . Im not really sure how that whole thing is going to shake out. [laughter] i think the problem with just to get back to the immigration argument, and the argument is that because sebastian was protected by the deferred action against castaways act. Daca. That he did not need to marry her hastily because he was protected by that. 2 problems with that. Daca mightber one is not be available to sebastian at all. He is the known associate of antonio. But i dont really understand why would anyone want to be a citizen of illyria. You have this guy running around with yellow stockings, people are drinking and quaffing. Sebastian says is everyone mad here . That sounds nice to me actually. So i want to ask you a hypothetical. This is a real hypothetical. [laughter] if judge Jackson Falls in love with judge griffiths yellow stockings and then she decides to marry the next strange, stout, smiling fellow who shows up in yellow stockings because he reminds her of judge griffiths, is judge griffiths really to blame if it doesnt work out . Maybe olivia just has a type . [laughter] first of all, judge griffiths can carry off the yellow much better than malvolio can. [laughter] but the problem is not that she ried a type will stop married a type. The problem is she married a stranger. She thought she was in love with one person and thought she was marrying that person. I will tell you, this jurisdiction has had this issue before. When lady Britney Spears duchess of fresno [laughter] accidentally married that guy at that drivethrough thing in las vegas, this court permitted her to annul that union. Her only defense was oops, i did it again. [laughter] so your argument seems to be look what you made me do. [laughter] but, miss stetson, he did identify himself as sebastian. And is that esteemed legal scholar groucho marx said, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes . [laughter] right, but i think that gets back to the rose point. The idea that he identifies himself as sebastian only put her on notice that this person that she loves also went by the name sebastian. Its kind of a potatopotato thing. I prefer tomatotomato. Tomatotomato. My mistake, i will correct the record. The issue here is not that she was marrying someone with a different name. This is not the Marilyn Monroe situation. This is the bart simpson situation. That is a very different situation for the person on the end of that. Isnt our standard much higher than that . You cant go around giving annulments like oprahs favorite things. You get an annulment and you get an annulment. [laughter] [applause] thats a fair point. I will promise that i wont be here again asking for another annulment on behalf of anyone else for a very long time, i hope. But let me make one other point. Textual point. He makes the point that because illyrian statutes use the word procure and because he did not affirmatively go get anything, therefore he could not have obtained the marriage by fraud. Illyrian law is based on the shakespearean constitution, which is similar to the United States constitution, but with more scatological jokes in it. If we consulted the shakespearean constitution, when we see is that the word procure is repeatedly used to simply mean achieve. Three times in taming of the shrew. Once in othello. Once in sonnet 67. That is serious research. [laughter] we dont do that here. [laughter] it is interesting to me that you have seemed to abandon an argument that futures on the troubling issue of the fact that he identified himself as sebastian during the wedding ceremony. In your brief, you relied on an article in psychology today remember this . To undermine the fact that olivia heard him identify himself in the wedding. Has previouslyce made clear that we are not interested in sociological gobbledydook and we are not interested in psychological gobbledygook. Are you abandoning that argument . Yes, now i am. Before i abandoned it if you could just wrap this up. You are slightly over time. I would be happy to, your honor. Let me end with this then. I would ask you simply in the words of sir mitch mcconnell. Duke of the ucky of kent, to say, yes, i believe the woman. [laughter] [applause] mr. Webb, i hope you have a good comeback. [laughter] may it please this honorable court, my name is dan webb. I would like to thank the mock trial fact committee. Because this is the first time a chicago trial lawyer has actually been given facts that can establish innocence. [laughter] we have never had that happen. By the way, i think there are two reasons why i am given three minutes before you interrupt me, is that right . Thats right, thats right. Im counting. [laughter] [applause] so first of all, two reasons why you cannot annul this marriage under the law. The law of illyria there is a statute we are dealing with. Sometimes that doesnt matter inside the beltway, but there is a statute we are dealing with, and the statute says a person who procures a marriage and then uses fraud in that procurement, then a marriage could be annulled. I use the word procure because if you just think about it for one minute, what is the evidence that my client procured the marriage . Procured meaning i definition that he actually instituted a plan to carry out and get a certain result from her. The facts are, my guys walking down the street in illyria. He has never met her, he doesnt know who this woman is. He is beaten up by chicago hooligans. Up,hat time, olivia shows scares off the hooligans, and says to him, you must come to my house. She says it twice. You must. Here is this beautiful, gorgeous, woman with this charming personality who says you must come to my house. Of course he comes to her house at that point in time. She walks in with a priest and says, if your intentions are honorable, marry me. He says well, i fell in love with you because love at first sight and you are beautiful. She brings a priest into her room and they get married. Where does the word procure mean that my client did anything to procure that marriage . Therefore, if you follow the statute, you dont need to get near the issue of fraud, because my client didnt even procure a marriage under any circumstance. So we went under the statute. [laughter] really. If youre going to follow that law we dont have to if you dont want to. If you want to follow that statute, then my client prevails in this case. I say that to you as jurors, think about that when you deliberate. [laughter] heres what i dont understand. I have never understood this case in this sense. Olivias theory now i am entitled to interrupt you. [laughter] this is the part i dont understand about your argument. Why did sebastian want to stay married to someone who doesnt love him . Since we are quoting songs, if you love her, let her go. Actually, that song does not apply to someone in sebastians Financial Condition in life. [laughter] when he is about to marry a beautiful woman, she brought to her house this gorgeous, wonderful house. By the way, one of the fallacies of the case is sebastian clearly knew Something Weird was going on here. He knew Something Weird was going on. But he did not know what they claim in this case. They claim that because olivia was actually in love with cesario, therefore my client should have straightened out this whole mess in her mind. When in fact, my client did not know who cesario was and did not know anything about her behavior pattern over time as far as how she was dressed and deceiving other people. He knew nothing about that. How could my client have straightened out olivias misconception when he himself did not even possess the facts . How could your client have married her . Who in their right mind agrees to be married after only 20 lines in a shakespeare play . [laughter] thats a good question, your honor. Although, if you think about it, according to the facts, men fall in love with this woman continually. At the drop of the hat. For no reason whatsoever. My client has testified that that happened to him. Love at first sight. Admittedly, he found out she was wealthy and had a station in life that might make him better off if you followed that plan. But that is not fraud. Youre not going to annul a marriage because my client actually saw that he was getting some benefit out of this arrangement. There is no basis to annul the marriage. Mr. Webb, i have a question about our jurisdiction. Your client im a trial lawyer. [laughter] [applause] you still have to answer my question. [laughter] so your client claims he is a devoted husband and a Stable Influence on olivias life. But to me, sorting out this marital dispute sounds like a political question. [laughter] how, how can the courts possibly develop a judicially manageable family for successful marriage . You see the woman over there with the beautiful white hair . She and i have been happily trying to figure that out for 53 years and we still dont have an answer. I dont have an answer. [applause] and your honor, i dont actually have any way to answer that question. However, since that is not the law that we are supposed to follow in this case, since were supposed to be following this pesky little statute here i was asking you a jurisdictional question. The chief judge said that i as a trial lawyer do not have to address that. [laughter] can you at least produce the longform marriage license . [laughter] [applause] i cannot produce that, your honor. One thing that is interesting one thing that is interesting about this case is that if this high court in illyria is concerned about whether there is any equity or lack of equity in this case, if you think about it, both sides to this bargain actually got the benefit they were seeking. Number one, there is no question that olivia wanted to end up having the male version of viola, which happened to be sebastian, who was her brother. She got exactly what she wanted in this bargain. Its interesting that