Laughing in Court
The Guardian has a good piece about judicial humour this morning, with news that someone in the US has reviewed all recent proceedings in the Supreme Court to see which Judges provoked the most laughter. He noted down every time the Court reporter recorded "(laughter)" in the official transcript.
Scalia apparently has 77 instances of laughter (I wonder whether this happens when he "interprets" the Constitution...) and Thomas none...Judging by this number Thomas surely must be the most boring judge of all time. In my (admittedly limited) experience in Court, whenever a judge makes a joke or an obvious witticism everyone in the Court laughs, whether the joke is funny or not (usually not). The harder thing would be to list the times where advocates have made judges laugh. This is a rare occurrence since judges, in general, pride themselves on being stoic recipients and digesters of information and argument.
An example: last Friday I had a Court hearing which I had only been told about on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday, two thick lever arch documents arrived on my desk and I had to prepare emergency evidence and a brief written argument. On Friday morning, I pretty much thought I was ready but still tried to get some agreement with the other side at the Court door. Completely rebuffed by the obviously prepared lawyer on the other side I figured I'd take my chances in the hearing. Then something happened which I hadn't really seen before. The judge entered (a very hard and pissed off female judge) and said (to my opponent) "I've read the papers and I'm going to find for [my client]". I didn't have to say a word!! The other side came up with some lame arguments but couldn't convince the Judge to change her mind. Then we argued about costs, which was when, my confidence a little too high, I got to my feet and made a very bad joke - there was a debate about whether a letter which I had drafted in January raised any new points from a previous letter in December (which I had not drafted). I got up and said something like "Your ladyship will have seen the letter in December which sets out pretty much the same thing as the letter in January - I accept that the January letter is clearer, but that's because I drafted that one and had nothing to do with the December letter..." - it was supposed to be a joke and it sounded funny in my head (with the Seinfeld bass guitar soundtrack...) but, of course, the whole Court went quiet and the Judge didn't react at all. So maybe won't try that again in a hurry... anyway I won so maybe it did register in some way.
Scalia apparently has 77 instances of laughter (I wonder whether this happens when he "interprets" the Constitution...) and Thomas none...Judging by this number Thomas surely must be the most boring judge of all time. In my (admittedly limited) experience in Court, whenever a judge makes a joke or an obvious witticism everyone in the Court laughs, whether the joke is funny or not (usually not). The harder thing would be to list the times where advocates have made judges laugh. This is a rare occurrence since judges, in general, pride themselves on being stoic recipients and digesters of information and argument.
An example: last Friday I had a Court hearing which I had only been told about on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday, two thick lever arch documents arrived on my desk and I had to prepare emergency evidence and a brief written argument. On Friday morning, I pretty much thought I was ready but still tried to get some agreement with the other side at the Court door. Completely rebuffed by the obviously prepared lawyer on the other side I figured I'd take my chances in the hearing. Then something happened which I hadn't really seen before. The judge entered (a very hard and pissed off female judge) and said (to my opponent) "I've read the papers and I'm going to find for [my client]". I didn't have to say a word!! The other side came up with some lame arguments but couldn't convince the Judge to change her mind. Then we argued about costs, which was when, my confidence a little too high, I got to my feet and made a very bad joke - there was a debate about whether a letter which I had drafted in January raised any new points from a previous letter in December (which I had not drafted). I got up and said something like "Your ladyship will have seen the letter in December which sets out pretty much the same thing as the letter in January - I accept that the January letter is clearer, but that's because I drafted that one and had nothing to do with the December letter..." - it was supposed to be a joke and it sounded funny in my head (with the Seinfeld bass guitar soundtrack...) but, of course, the whole Court went quiet and the Judge didn't react at all. So maybe won't try that again in a hurry... anyway I won so maybe it did register in some way.
posted by Akash at 10:08 AM
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