Is Scalia Really That Funny?
by Last Night in Little Rock
The N.Y. Times today has an article today with the amusing title: So, Guy Walks Up to the Bar, and Scalia Says..., also commented on Rawstory.com as Study: Scalia 19 times as funny as Ginsburg. Somebody thought it was important enough to do a study of the number of times that Justices somehow evoke laughter in the Supreme Court. Somebody has too much time on his hands.
Scalia has a sharp, even biting, wit, no doubt about it. I try to make it to the Supremes once a year for Fourth Amendment arguments, being a Fourth Amendment buff, so I've seen him in action. Sometimes it's funny, and sometimes it hurts.
My last argument was in 1995, and before me was Vernonia School Dist. No. 47J v. Acton, the first school drug testing case. Acton's lawyer was an earnest young man, and he was quite nervous. I do not remember the exact phrasing of the Scalia question, but the young man answered by referring to his nervousness and urinating on himself while he was standing there, and everybody thought his self-effacing comment was really funny, and it broke the ice. The kid did a good job, but he lost, but not unexpectedly: A cert. grant means an 80% likelihood of reversal.
< Surviving Justice: 13 Exonerees Describe Their Ordeals | 2005 In Review: The Bad and the Ugly > |