Read the Opening Statement Fact Pattern

On October 15, 2014 an incident took place at a local high school involving three high schoolstudents.Eighteen year-old senior Kelly threw a cell phone at her classmate Helen and ended up hitting another student, Jack in his right eye.As a result, Jack lost permanent vision in his right eye. The incident took place in the high school's cafeteria at approximately 12:30 p.m., the school's lunch hour,and was witnessed by numerous students and teachers.Initially, Kelly approached Helen in thecafeteria and accused her of sending text messages to her boyfriend Rick, who was sitting at a tablewith several other students.Helen denied that she had texted Rick. Kelly grabbed Helen's phone, whichhad been on the lunch table and began to review her text messages. Kelly saw three messages thatHelen had sent to Rick. She read the messages aloud. As she was reading the messages, Helenscreamed, "Give me my phone back, you pathetic loser!" Helen continued to scream that she wantedher phone back. In response, Kelly stopped reading the text messages, glared at Helen, stated, "Youwant it back? Here!" and then threw the phone in Helena's direction.Helen screamed and ducked outof the way. Jack, who was sitting next to Helena, turned his head in Kelly's direction to see what hadhappened. The phone hit him in the right eye.Jack immediately dropped to the ground and startedscreaming that she had "blinded" him. School officials called an ambulance and Jack was taken to theemergency room. Despite several surgeries, Jack has not regained vision in his right eye. Kelly has ajuvenile record for shoplifting and assault. Now that she is 18 years old, Kelly has been charged withAggravated Assault and Theft of Movable Property by the local Prosecutor's Office.

DIRECTIONS:Choose a side, either prosecution or defense, and prepare an opening statement.Your opening statement should be written as if you were delivering it to a jury which has been seated and is ready to hear the case.If you choose to be the prosecutor, your statement should set forth your theory of the crime, and provide the jury a preview of what evidence they will hear at trial.As a defense attorney, you should rebut any evidence that may harm your case, and set forth any defenses you intend to use during the trial.