Angela Piccirillo has an undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism from West Virginia University, which means shes pretty adept at talking fast and thinking on her feet.
That was a good thing Tuesday (March 8) at the WVU College of Law, where the second-year law student walked away with her colleges prestigious Baker Cup for successfully arguing a mock case before the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.
The justices kept throwing questions at me,said Piccirillo, a Madison native who graduated magna cum laude from WVU s P.I. Reed School of Journalism in 2003. She is the daughter of Charles, an attorney, and Melinda, a school teacher.
I couldnt have been more nervous, but at the same time I was glad they did that. I didnt want them to just sit there. This was a case that was big on technicalities.
And the technicalities were something Piccirillo definitely had to ponder as she argued before Justices Larry Starcher, Robin Davis, Joseph Albright and Brent Benjamin in the student competition.
Justice Elliot Maynard, who had heard cases with his judicial colleagues earlier in the day as part of the high courts annual visit to WVU , was unable to attend the afternoon session.
The mock trial, the United States v. Michael Corinthos, pitted Piccirillo against Shannon Smith, a Mt. Pleasant, S.C., native and WVU accounting graduate. Smiths financial background served her well, too, since the case took on the fine points of money launderingand everything that comes after.
In the scenario, Corinthos was indicted on an illegal gambling charge after $9,000 earmarked for him from a numbers scheme was intercepted by federal agents, marked, then delivered to him as planned.
Corinthos turned around, deposited the money in a bank account, and then wrote a check for the same amount to cover his sons tuition at an upscale private schoolwhich netted a second charge of money-laundering.
Piccirillo, in defense of her client, said that while it was undisputed that Corinthos did receive ill-gotten money, the laundering charge couldnt hold up because he didnt invest the money back into his gambling operation.
He used it to pay for his sons education.
It didnt matter, Smith countered. Corinthos still received the money through activities out of the law. And illegitimate money funneled into a legitimate operation, she argued, is still laundering, period.
I knew I had the harder case,Smith said.There was so much case law to consider. It was intimidating, but it was still such an opportunity to go before the justices like that.
Both moot court opponents are continuing to take advantage of the opportunities offered them as students at the College of Law.
Piccirillo interned last summer with the Hon. Irene M. Keeley in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia.
Smith worked with the advocacy group Legal Aid of West Virginia last summer and will work in the Public Defenders Office in Clarksburg this summer.
The Baker Cup Endowment was established in 1980 to acknowledge second-year law students for their courtroom and case law prowess. It was created by the daughters of Judge George Coleman Baker, who went on to a distinguished career in Morgantown after earning a WVU law degree in 1886.
Grand prize for the competition is $500, with $350 going to the runner-up.