About the 2025–2026 Competition
The Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court Competition final arguments—part of the Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison Moot Court Program—are the culmination of a three-round elimination competition in appellate advocacy. This year, 85 students entered the competition. In the qualifying round, held during the fall semester, students briefed one of two issues on behalf of either the appellant or the appellee and presented their positions in oral arguments before panels composed of alumni practitioners and professors. On the strength of their brief and oral argument scores, 24 competitors advanced to the spring semifinal round. There, they again briefed and argued a side of the same case.
This year’s event marks the 100th anniversary of the Harlan Fiske Stone Moot Court final oral arguments. Originally started at Columbia Law School in 1925 by the Story Inn, a chapter of the legal fraternity Phi Delta Phi, the competition is named in honor of Harlan Fiske Stone 1898, who was a member of the Story Inn while a student at the Law School. Stone became dean of Columbia Law School in 1910. He served in that capacity until 1924, when President Calvin Coolidge appointed him attorney general of the United States. He was named to the Supreme Court of the United States the following year and was elevated to chief justice in 1941.
The case this year asks whether the use of the internet to transmit iMessages is sufficient to establish that the messages traveled in interstate commerce and whether the district court erred by sentencing the appellant to a term of supervised release that included a prohibition against using the internet “as a means of expressive communication,” with limited exemptions. (Read the record.)
The final round of the competition was held on Monday, April 13, 2026. Oral arguments were delivered by four outstanding student finalists: Margaret Broihier ’27, Jason Harward ’26, Coley Hungate ’26, who won best final round brief; and Benjamin Tutt ’27, who was awarded the Lawrence S. Greenbaum Prize for best oral presentation.
- Whether use of the internet alone is sufficient to establish that messages traveled across state lines to satisfy the interstate commerce requirement of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c).
- Whether the district court erred by sentencing Defendant-Appellant to a term of supervised release that included a prohibition against using the internet “as a means of expressive communication,” with limited exemptions.
This year’s competition involves a federal criminal case against fictional defendant Meredith Grey (“Ms. Grey”). In 2025, Ms. Grey was convicted in the Eastern District of Michigan of sending threatening messages to her neighbor, Dr. Christina Yang (“Dr. Yang”), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 875(c).
At the time of the alleged offense, Ms. Grey and Dr. Yang lived on the same street in the small town of Lincoln, Michigan, which had 821 residents. Ms. Grey was known within her community as an anti-vaccine activist and had participated in demonstrations against vaccinations in front of Dr. Yang’s office, a small family medicine practice in Lincoln.
On July 13, 2024, Dr. Yang received an accusatory iMessage from Ms. Grey. iMessages are encrypted messages that can be sent from one Apple device to another and travel over the internet without requiring a cellular network. Both Ms. Grey and Dr. Yang utilized Apple iPhones and were in Lincoln at the time the July 13 message was sent and received.
On July 28, 2024, Ms. Grey sent Dr. Yang an additional series of iMessages. Once again, the messages were transmitted over the internet, and both Dr. Yang and Ms. Grey were in Lincoln when the messages were sent and received.
Dr. Yang ultimately reported the messages to the local police department, which forwarded the case to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Ms. Grey was eventually charged in federal court with violating 18 U.S.C. § 875(c), which prohibits transmitting threatening communication “in interstate or foreign commerce.”
In the proceedings that followed, Ms. Grey did not deny sending the messages containing threats but argued that the federal charges were improper because there was no proof that her messages traveled in interstate commerce. At trial, a government expert testified that iMessages are transmitted using the internet. The government did not offer any additional evidence that these specific messages had crossed state lines. Over Ms. Grey’s objection, the jury was instructed that “[u]se of the internet is adequate to demonstrate that the defendant transmitted the messages in interstate commerce.” The jury then convicted Ms. Grey.
At Ms. Grey’s sentencing hearing, the court imposed a sentence of one year and one day of incarceration, followed by a three-year period of supervised release with various restrictions and conditions. One of these conditions prohibited Ms. Grey from using the internet “as a means of expressive communication,” particularly restricting her access to social media and other communicative channels online, with limited exemptions. Ms. Grey’s counsel objected to the condition of supervised release, arguing that it violated Ms. Grey’s fundamental rights to free speech and association under the U.S. Constitution and was substantively unreasonable. Ms. Grey argued that the condition was particularly burdensome because she has an adult son who lives in the Republic of the Philippines. Prior to her conviction, Ms. Grey and her son communicated primarily using the online messaging platform WhatsApp, which utilizes the internet. Ms. Grey argued that she and her son are very close and communicate via WhatsApp almost every day.
Ms. Grey now appeals her conviction and sentence to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
