2025 Alaska High School Mock Trial Competition

Date: April 4-5, 2025

The Alaska High School Mock Trial Competition is an annual event sponsored by the Anchorage Bar Association. Participation in mock trial not only teaches high school students about the law and courtroom experience, but it also builds critical thinking and public speaking skills. The competition draws teams of 6-9 high school students from around the state to compete in a series of simulated trials, with students playing the rolls of both attorneys and witnesses. Students are provided a set of case materials consisting of legal pleadings, witness affidavits, and exhibits. Case materials alternate between civil and criminal cases. The current problem and past problems are available elsewhere on this page, along with some suggested training materials for high school teachers that may not be particularly familiar with preparing for mock trial.

For more information, please contact Prof. Ryan Fortson at hrfortson@alaska.edu.

2025 Case Overview: State v. Kolski

The peaceful and picturesque town of Moose Valley, Alaska is located off the Alaska Highway System and thus unreachable by car. There are daily flights from Moose Valley to Anchorage and flights five days a week to Fairbanks. Occasional flights are also scheduled to other cities in Alaska, and planes are available for charter when the scheduled flights do not satisfy the need of the customer.

The permanent population of Moose Valley was measured in the 2020 Census to be 10,312 residents. Moose Valley is also home to the University of Alaska – Moose Valley (UAMV), a branch campus of the University of Alaska system. The student enrollment of UAMV at the start of the 2024-2025 school year were 1,928 students, all undergraduates. Many UAMV students chose the school because its small size results in a great deal of individual attention from the professors. The UAMV nickname is the Prospectors, though the school has no collegiate sports programs.

The tranquil atmosphere of Moose Valley was shattered late on the evening of Tuesday October 22, 2024, when a bomb exploded in the Gloria Rubin Science Center. The explosion originated in the biology laboratory. The explosion fatally wounded Peter Zoros, a UAMV janitor who was cleaning next door in the physics laboratory at the time of the explosion.

Prior to the explosion, the biology laboratory primarily housed the experiments of Prof. Kim Sanders, who was researching a deadly new disease, Alaska Respiratory Immunodeficiency Syndrome (ARIS), which had been spreading rapidly in villages around Moose Valley. As part of his/her research to counteract this disease, Prof. Sanders was conducting experiments on several animals indigenous to the area.

Following an investigation by a State forensic scientist, the Moose Valley Police Department arrested Alex Kolski on December 5, 2024. Alex was charged with Murder in the First Degree, Murder in the Second Degree, Arson in the First Degree, and Criminal Mischief in the First Degree. At the time of arrest, Alex was a junior (third year student) at UAMV and president of the campus chapter of Organized Students Against Laboratory Testing on Animals (OSALTA), a national animal rights organization.

Because of the publicity in Moose Valley surrounding the explosion, a change of venue to Anchorage was requested and granted.