Law – davidbruceblog #2

David Bruce: Law Anecdotes

• What will result in justice: for two disputants to go into a court of law with lawyers representing each side, or for two disputants to go before a rabbi? To answer this question, Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua told this story: A wolf once killed a deer, but before it could eat the deer, a lion came along and took the deer from the wolf. Seeking justice, the wolf asked a fox to judge the dispute. The wolf claimed that he deserved the deer because he had killed it, but the lion claimed that he deserved the deer because he was the king of the jungle. The fox said that the only reasonable solution was to divide the deer, giving the wolf and the lion an equal share. However, when the fox divided the deer, it was not in equal halves, so the fox took a big bite of the larger half. Now the other half was bigger than the first half, so the fox took a big bite out of it, making the first half bigger than the second half. This continued until the fox had eaten the deer, leaving only bones for the wolf and the lion. A court of law is often like the fox: By the time the lawsuit is settled and the lawyers have received their payment, nothing is left for the disputants.

• Pope John XXIII used to tell this joke about lawyers: St. Peter once noticed that there were some unsavory characters in Heaven, and after investigating, he discovered that a breach had been made in the wall separating Heaven from Hell. Therefore, he visited Satan, and the two agreed that they would take turns maintaining the wall. St. Peter would maintain the wall the first year, Satan the next, and so on. The two even signed a legal contract to that effect. The first year, things went fine; St. Peter maintained the wall, and no breaches were made in it. However, the second year, St. Peter again noticed some unsavory characters in Heaven, and he discovered that another breach had been made in the wall. Immediately, St. Peter visited Satan, denounced him for not living up to his part of the contract, and said that he was going to sue. Satan laughed, saying, “I’m not worried. Do you think you’ll find even one clever lawyer in Heaven?”

• A case appeared before the Noda B’Yehudah in which an elegantly dressed man and a roughly dressed man pleaded. The roughly dressed man claimed that he was a rich man traveling far from home and friends and that the elegantly dressed man was his wagon driver, but that his wagon driver had robbed him and exchanged clothes with him. The elegantly dressed man denied ever having been a wagon driver. The Noda B’Yehudah said that he would think about the case, then he would give them his judgment the next morning. The next morning, the two men arrived at the Noda B’Yehudah’s house and sat outside as they waited for him, but they were ignored as the Noda B’Yehudah went about his business. Suddenly, the Noda B’Yehudah opened his door and ordered, “Wagon driver, come here!” The elegantly dressed man immediately stood up.

• Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan was reputed to be a saint. Once he was called to be a character witness at a trial for one of his students, who had been falsely accused. The lawyer for the defense stood up and began to tell the court a story that was told about Rabbi Kagan. He said that once a thief had been in the rabbi’s house when the rabbi came home early. The thief grabbed some of the rabbi’s property and ran away, but the rabbi said, “I hereby renounce all my property,” so that the thief would not be guilty of breaking one of God’s commandments. Hearing this, the judge skeptically asked, “And do you believe this story?” The lawyer replied, “I don’t know that I believe this story, but I do know that such stories are not told about you and me.”

• At the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, much odd evidence was seriously and legally considered. For example, if an accused person was unable to correctly say the Lord’s Prayer, this was considered evidence that the accused person was a witch. Also, spectral evidence was seriously considered, as when men testified that the specter of an accused woman had visited them when they were home in bed. In addition, the accused persons were stripped and searched (by members of the same sex) for the mark of the devil — a small red circle, usually found near the genitals.

• F.E. Smith, later Lord Birkenhead (1872-1930), once cross examined a boy who claimed that his arm had been crippled in an accident. He asked the boy, “Will you show me just how high you can lift your arm?” The boy raised his arm a little. F.E. then said, “Thank you, and now will you show me just how high you could lift it before the accident?” The boy then raised his arm high over his head. Case closed.

• A Scottish judge named Lord Eskgrove once castigated in court the murderer of a soldier: “And not only did you murder him, whereby he was bereaved of his life, but you did thrust, or push, or pierce, or project, or propel the lethal weapon through the belly-band of his regimental breeches, which were His Majesty’s.”

• Toler, who later became Chief Lord Justice in England, was once asked to contribute a shilling to the burial of a lawyer. Reaching into his pocket for some money, he gave it to the solicitor, saying, “Only a shilling to bury a lawyer? Here is a guinea; go and bury one and twenty of them.”

• Art Linkletter occasionally ad-libbed during his career as a broadcaster. During an on-site radio program, the sound of sirens was heard, so Mr. Linkletter informed the audience, “There goes an ambulance — followed by a carload of lawyers.” The local bar association was not amused.

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David Bruce: Protests Anecdotes

• These days, many people—including students—are losing their rights. Fortunately, a few students (and lawyers) are fighting back. On March 27, 2007, four high-school students—two in Virginia and two in Arizona—filed a lawsuit against Turnitin. The students attended high schools that required them to submit essays to this anti-plagiarism service, which compares the essays against documents on the Web and then archives the students’ essays. Robert A. Vanderhye, lawyer for the unnamed students (who represented them pro bono), says, “Our clients have no problem … submitting documents for review. But when it comes to archiving, it raises a number of very serious issues, the first of which is copyright infringement.” The lawsuit asked for $900,000 in damages. The lawsuit was settled out of court in 2009, although Mr. Vanderhye was thinking of filing a different lawsuit against Turnitin. Wendy Warren Austin of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania writes that the students were concerned about this important point: “Mandatory submission of student papers helps build Turnitin.com’s database without any monetary compensation. Although licensing fees are paid for professional articles that are contained within the database, students’ papers are obtained with no compensation though they add considerably to the product’s profitability. Furthermore, although these high school students digitally sign a “consent” form as they have their papers submitted, they are in fact “signing” these consents under duress, i.e. under penalty of getting a zero, and by virtue of their status as minors, lack capacity to enter into a binding contract.” Ms. Austin also writes that the student were concerned about this important point: “The presumption of guilt—The idea of ‘guilty until proven innocent’ prevails in this model of plagiarism detection, especially when the submission of papers is deemed as mandatory, not voluntary.’ By the way, two of the students were from McLean High School in Virginia. Some McLean High School students (and parents) created a Web site called Dontturnitin.com.

• In February 2011 protesters massed in Madison, Wisconsin, in response to Wisconsin’s union-busting governor, Scott Walker, a Republican, who gave massive tax cuts to businesses, then declared a fiscal emergency and tried to make ordinary employees be the ones to pay for the tax cuts. His way of doing that was to remove the collective bargaining rights of many public employees. According to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, some public employees — the kind who tend to be Republicans — would still retain their collective bargaining rights. Being a protester means staying on the scene for long periods of time, and of course protesters get hungry. Ian’s Pizza in Madison, Wisconsin, received a request at 3:30 a.m., asking if it had any leftover pizza. It did, and so the hungry protesters got fed. Word got around that Ian’s Pizza had gone above and beyond what an ordinary place of business would probably do at 3:30 a.m., and soon orders flooded in from people who wanted to order pizzas to be given to the protesters — a way of showing support for them. On Saturday, February 19, Ian’s delivered more than 300 pizzas to the protesters. The calls to order pizzas for the protesters came from both near and far. The far places included Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Korea, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the UK. Ian’s Facebook page thanked the people who wanted to feed the protesters and added, “Believe us when we say we are not really accustomed to getting pizza orders from the entire country (let alone internationally!)”

• In 2007, while standing in line in Victoria station in London, a man named Gareth Edwards, who describes himself as a “big, stocky bloke with a shaven head,” noticed a well-dressed businessman cutting in line behindhim. (Apparently, Mr. Edwards is so big that the businessman did not want to cut in line aheadof him.) Some people politely remonstrated with the businessman, but the businessman ignored the protests. So Mr. Edwards asked the elderly woman who was behind the businessman line-cutter-in, “Do you want to go in front of me?” She did, and Mr. Edwards then asked the new person standing behind the businessman line-cutter-in, “Do you want to go in front of me?” Mr. Edwards did this 60 or 70 times, so he and the businessman kept moving further back in line. Finally, just as the bus pulled up, the elderly woman whom he had first allowed to go ahead in line, yelled back to him, “Young man! Do you want to go in front of me?”

• In November of 2010, tens of thousands of students protested in England over cuts in funding for education and higher fees for tuition that could keep them from getting a university education. Some students in London even attacked a police van, but a group of schoolgirls stopped the attack by surrounding the van and linking hands. Guardianjournalist Jonathan Jones wrote, “Some who were at the student protests this week accuse police of deliberately leaving a solitary van in the middle of the ‘kettled’ crowd to invite trouble and provide incriminating media images of an out-of-control mob attacking it.” According to <en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kettling>, kettling is “The practice of police surrounding a hostile mob (usually of protesters) and not letting them disperse.”) By stopping the violent students from attacking the police van, the schoolgirls helped prevent negative publicity about the student protests.

• In 1977, future punk critic Steven Wells and some other punks wanted to go to a Mekons concert. However, the student rugby player who was at the door did not like the way that the punks were dressed and so refused to let them inside. The punks formed a picket line without any pickets and informed everyone who came by what had happened and asked them not to cross the picket line. No one did. Twenty minutes went by, and the person who had organized the show came outside to find out why no one was going inside. The punks explained to him what had happened. The organizer then fired the student rugby player and the punks enjoyed a good concert. (Rugby in England is class conscious. In the South, Rugby Union is played by the posh. In the North, Rugby League is played by the working class. The Mekons concert happened in the South.)

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David Bruce: Law Anecdotes

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas is the Supreme Court ruling that struck down segregation by establishing that “separate” is inherently unequal. If not for this ruling, segregation would most likely still be legal in the U.S. Although the ruling was unanimous in striking down segregation, it possibly could have gone the other way. United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson was a conservative Kentuckian whom civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall blamed for holding up action on the case. Mr. Marshall worried about Chief Justice Vinson, feeling that he would uphold segregation and convince the other justices to vote against integrating public schools. However — fortunately for civil rights — Chief Justice Vinson told his wife that he had a stomachache, then a short time afterward he died of a heart attack. This allowed Earl Warren to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and he turned out to be an effective advocate for civil rights. The Supreme Court upheld the right of seven-year-old Linda Brown, an African American, to go to a White school a few blocks from her house instead of being forced to travel by bus to a school for “Negroes.”

In 1692, the Salem Witch Trials resulted in the hanging of 19 people, mostly women. In addition, a man named Giles Corey was “pressed to death.” Mr. Corey had refused to testify at his trial, because he knew that if he testified and was found guilty of being a witch, all his property would legally be seized by the British government. Since no accused person had been found innocent in the trials, he felt that he would definitely be found guilty. However, if he did not testify in court, he could not be found guilty according to the laws of the time, although persons who refused to testify suffered “a punishment hard and severe.” Mr. Corey was 80 years old, but his jailors decided to torture him to make him confess. They made him lie down on his back, then they put a board over him and loaded heavy flat stones on the board. Mr. Corey was a man of courage, and he still declined to testify. Eventually, so much weight was placed on him that his rib cage caved in.

John Marshall and the other Supreme Court justices enjoyed a drink now and again — and again and again. However, prompted by reports that people were concerned about their drinking, they decided not to drink during their weekly consultation — unless it was raining. The next time they met, Chief Justice Marshall asked Justice Joseph Story to look out a window to see if it was raining. Justice Story checked, then reported, “Mr. Chief Justice, I have very carefully examined this case, and I have to give it as my opinion that there is not the slightest sign of rain.” Since Chief Justice Marshall wanted a drink, he replied, “Justice Story, I think that is the shallowest and most illogical opinion I have ever heard you deliver. You forget that our jurisdiction is as broad as the Republic, and by the laws of nature it must be raining some place in our jurisdiction. Waiter, bring on the rum!”

President Richard Nixon wanted very much to replace liberal Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall with a conservative Justice. However, since Justices are appointed to the Supreme Court for life, the only way he could do this was for Justice Marshall to resign because of ill health or to die. In 1970, a life-threatening case of pneumonia forced Justice Marshall to be hospitalized. President Nixon wanted to see Justice Marshall’s medical records, so Justice Marshall signed a release of his records — but only after he wrote on them, “Not Yet!”

An insurance salesman persistently pursued comedian W.C. Fields, and Mr. Fields was completely unable to shake him, as the salesman followed him everywhere — even into a barber shop. Finally, Mr. Fields said, “Just to get rid of you, I’ll talk to my lawyer about it in the morning.” Excited, the insurance salesman asked, “And will you do the right thing if he likes my offer?” Mr. Fields replied, “I certainly will — I’ll get another lawyer.”

Playwright Ferenc Molnar customarily slept late in the morning. One day, he was forced to rise early so he could serve as a witness at a court case. Standing outside his door, he was astonished at the hustle and bustle of people going about their business. “Great heavens!” he said. “Are all these people witnesses in this fool case?”

George Frideric Handel’s father wanted him to be a lawyer, not a composer, so he was against his son’s learning to play musical instruments. Fortunately, Handel’s mother was sympathetic to his love of music, and she smuggled a clavichord into the attic for him to practice on while his father was asleep.

Robert Smith, who was a lawyer and the brother of Sydney Smith, once argued with a physician, who said, “I don’t say that all lawyers are thieves, but you’ll have to admit that your profession does not make angels of men.” Mr. Smith replied, “You doctors certainly have the best of us there.”

A law professor taught his class the tricks of the trade: “When you’re fighting a case, if you have the facts on your side, hammer them into the jury. If you have the law on your side, hammer it into the judge. But if you have neither the facts nor the law on your side, hammer the table.”

So many sightings of the ape-like creature called Bigfoot have been made around Skamamia, Washington, that the citizens passed a law making it illegal to kill a Bigfoot. Apparently, people in the state of Washington are law abiding because no one has ever been convicted of killing a Bigfoot.

In 1930, Paul Hindemith’s opera Neues vom Tage was produced in Breslau. After the performance, the gas company sued Mr. Hindemith because his heroine sang the praises of electricity over gas: “Constant hot water, no horrid smell, no danger of explosion.”

At La Scala, early in his career, conductor Arturo Toscanini was so offended by a musician that he threw his baton at him and injured his eye. The musician sued, and the Maestro was forced to pay damages.

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David Bruce: Law Anecdotes

Gideon

On August 4, 1961, in a Panama City, Florida, courtroom, Clarence Earl Gideon went on trial on a burglary charge. The judge asked him, “Are you ready to go on trial?” Mr. Gideon replied, “I am not ready, your Honor.” The judge asked why not, and Mr. Gideon replied, “I have no Counsel.” He then explained that he was indigent and could not afford to hire a lawyer, and he requested that the court appoint a lawyer to defend him. The judge ruled that Mr. Gideon would have to defend himself, and eventually Mr. Gideon was convicted and given a five-year prison sentence. In prison, he studied law books and the Bill of Rights, and he handwrote a petition asking the Supreme Court to review his trial and conviction. In 1963, the court did so in Gideon v. Wainwright, and it established the principle that to have a fair trial in many court cases, the defendant must have a lawyer, and if the defendant cannot afford a lawyer, the court must appoint one free of charge to the defendant. Of course, this ruling applied to many more people than just Mr. Gideon — it helped protect the rights of accused people who were indigent. A reporter asked Mr. Gideon in 1972, “Do you feel like you accomplished something?” Mr. Gideon replied, “Well, I did.”

Thomas Garrett, a Quaker, was a fervent abolitionist. Once he was caught helping a slave woman and her child escape to freedom, and he was taken before a judge. The judge knew that Mr. Garrett was a man of his word, and he offered to let Mr. Garrett go free if he would give his word not to help any more runaway slaves. Mr. Garrett responded, “Friend, thee better proceed with thy business.” He was given a jury trial, found guilty, and was fined $8,000 — a lot of money now, but a huge amount of money before the Civil War. In fact, the fine, combined with business problems, made him bankrupt. After the trial, Mr. Garrett told the sheriff, “Friend, I have not a cent in the world, but if thee knows of a man needing a meal, send him to me.”

Two men who were engaged in a dispute came to R’ Avraham Yitzchak of Karlitch and asked him to make a ruling. For hours, the two men presented their cases, making argument after argument. After they had finished speaking, he quickly made his ruling, which the two men accepted, and the two men departed as friends. Afterwards, R’ Avraham Yitzchak was asked why he had listened for hours to arguments when the case was simple. He said, “Had I cut them off before each had his full say, neither of them would have been satisfied. Both would have felt that an injustice had been done. After I gave them all that time to say everything they had to say, they felt that justice was done, and they accepted the verdict gladly.”

For a while, closeted homosexuals were allowed to serve in the military provided they followed the rule, “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” This wasn’t always the case. Previously, homosexuals were discharged from the military when their sexual orientation was discovered. Once, a lesbian was chosen for jury duty. The judge told everyone who was selected for jury duty that “justice takes no holiday.” Hearing this, the lesbian stated that if she were in the military, she would be discharged. On the ground that “injustice should not take a holiday,” she asked to be discharged from jury duty. The judge did as she asked.

During the Joseph McCarthy era, Hazel Wolf, a Canadian-born secretary in a law office and a former member of the Communist Party (when being a member was popular in USAmerica — the Depression) was arrested and thrown into jail because the government wanted to try her and get her deported back to Canada. However, she got out of jail by paying bail — and promising not to leave the country. (At age 100, Ms. Wolf was still in Seattle and was an active advocate for the environment.)

Fiorello La Guardia served as a night-court judge during the Depression. One night, a woman appeared before him who was guilty of stealing food so she could feed her hungry children. Mr. La Guardia heard the case, then he ruled: “I fine you $10 for stealing, and I fine everyone else in this courtroom, myself included, 50 cents for living in a city where a woman is forced to steal to feed her children.” The money collected in the courtroom was used to pay the woman’s fine, and the leftover money was given to her.

Among his other occupations, Nasrudin was a judge. While listening to the beginning of a complicated case, he told the plaintiff, “I think that you are right.” Later, after hearing the defendant, Nasrudin told him, “I think that you are right.” When the clerk of the court asked him, “How can both the plaintiff and the defendant be right? One of them must be wrong,” Nasrudin replied, “I think that you are also right.”

Olivia Pound’s father was a Nebraska judge in the 19th century. Once, a lawyer who was also an alcoholic attempted to argue a case before him, even though the lawyer was obviously inebriated. The judge listened for a few minutes, then banged his gavel and ruled, “This case is postponed for two weeks. The lawyer is trying to practice before two bars at the same time. It can’t be done.”

As President, John F. Kennedy appointed his younger brother Robert Kennedy as Attorney General of the United States — a decision for which he was much criticized, in part because Bobby Kennedy was so young and inexperienced. President Kennedy explained his decision in this way: “Bobby wants to practice law, and I thought he ought to get a little experience first.”

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David Bruce: Law Anecdotes

Rosey

The United States at its best believes in justice and giving a fair trial even to a killer caught red-handed. Roosevelt Grier is a big man—a retired NFL player—and he campaigned for Robert Kennedy when Mr. Kennedy was running for President of the United States. When Mr. Kennedy was assassinated, Mr. Grier was present. He had been assigned to guard Ethel Kennedy, who was six months pregnant. When he heard shots, he made sure that Mrs. Kennedy was safe, and then he rushed toward the sound of the shots. He grabbed a man who was waving a gun in the air, and he took the gun away from the man. He held on to the man. Many people wanted to hurt—even kill—that man, but Mr. Grier protected him by covering him with his body, even though he was crying because he could see Mr. Kennedy’s bleeding body. Because of Mr. Grier, the world was spared an additional act of senseless violence.

A hero of syndicated columnist Susan Estrich is Judge J. Skelly Wright, a thoroughly decent man who became a hero simply by being just in his judicial decisions. For example, the case Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Store concerned a furniture store that took advantage of impoverished African-Americans by offering credit at very high interest rates and by repossessing furniture as soon as a payment was missed. Of course, The Uniform Commercial Code prohibits commercial transactions that take unconscionable advantage of the consumer, and Walker-Thomas Furniture Store was doing exactly that. Judge Wright ruled against Walker-Thomas Furniture Store, thus incurring the hatred of many business owners. He also made decisions that integrated the New Orleans school system and allowed black students to enroll in the Louisiana State University law school, thus incurring the hatred of the Ku Klux Klan. Ms. Estrich writes in a column honoring Judge Wright, “The Klan burned crosses on his lawn so often his son once told me that when his parents went out, his dad told him to just ignore them unless they got too close to the house, in which case he should call the fire department.”

A king put on trial a man who had stolen bread because he was starving. The king found the man guilty and ordered him to be hung. On his way to the gallows, the thief said that before he was hung he would like to teach the king how to perform the miracle of planting a pomegranate and having it grow to maturity overnight. The king was willing to learn how to perform the miracle, so the thief dug a hole in the ground, took a pomegranate seed out of his pocket, and said, “Now a man who has never taken anything that did not belong to him must plant this seed. Because I am a thief, I cannot do it.” However, none of the king’s court was able to plant the seed, each of them admitting that at some time he had taken something that did not belong to him; in fact, even the king was not able to plant the seed. Therefore, the man who had stolen bread because he was starving said, “You are all mighty and powerful and want nothing, and yet you cannot plant the seed while I who have stolen bread because I was starving am to be hanged.” The king pardoned the thief.

Rabbis are concerned with justice, even when a particular Jew is not just. A Christian once lent money to a Jew, with God and the tree they were under serving as witnesses. Later, the Jew refused to pay back the money, saying that he had not borrowed any money from the Christian at all. Rabbi Hariri heard the case, and he whispered something into the ear of the Christian, who then went away and did not return. Becoming impatient, the Jew asked where the Christian had gone. Rabbi Hariri answered, “I have sent him to bring a branch from that tree, under which he lent you the money.” “Oh,” the Jew said, “he will not be back until the evening.” Rabbi Hariri then told the Jew, “When the Christian returns, pay him the money you owe him. The tree has borne witness.”

Rap musicians sometimes “sample” the works of other musicians — that is, they will take bits and pieces from someone else’s song and use it in their own music. For a while, this was not a problem, but when rap became big business, suddenly the musicians whose works had been sampled wanted a cut of the profits and so rap musicians had to get permission or clearance to sample the works of other musicians. Biz Markie found this out the hard way. He had sampled Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again, Naturally,” without permission, and a court ordered his company to remove the album with the offending sample from the marketplace. Fortunately, Mr. Markie bounced back. A few years later, he released another, legally unoffending album, which he wittily titled All Samples Cleared.

Ralph Nader’s father, Nathra, disliked political posturing by both the Republicans and the Democrats. One thing that he said often was this: “When asked whether I am a Republican or a Democrat, I reply that I am an American.” He once sued the Democratic Party in Connecticut because he felt that independents ought to be able to vote in the Democratic Party primary because the primary election was being held with taxpayer money. He lost the case.

TV and movie star Sarah Michelle Gellar got her start in TV commercials. As a very young child, she starred in a commercial for Burger King in which she criticized McDonald’s hamburgers. McDonald’s was so angered by the commercial that they sued lots of people connected with it, including five-year-old Sarah. She remembers once telling her friends, “I can’t play,” because she had to see some lawyers.

Pioneer preacher Charles Finney was at first a lawyer. Becoming interested in the Bible, he devoted time to its study, and he eventually told one of his clients, “I have a retainer from the Lord Jesus Christ to plead His cause, and I cannot plead yours.”

John Ashcroft once made a sculpture of the Statue of Liberty out of barbed wire. Shouldn’t Lady Liberty be warm and inviting?

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David Bruce: Law Anecdotes

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What will result in justice: for two disputants to go into a court of law with lawyers representing each side, or for two disputants to go before a rabbi? To answer this question, Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua told this story: A wolf once killed a deer, but before it could eat the deer, a lion came along and took the deer from the wolf. Seeking justice, the wolf asked a fox to judge the dispute. The wolf claimed that he deserved the deer because he had killed it, but the lion claimed that he deserved the deer because he was the king of the jungle. The fox said that the only reasonable solution was to divide the deer, giving the wolf and the lion an equal share. However, when the fox divided the deer, it was not in equal halves, so the fox took a big bite of the larger half. Now the other half was bigger than the first half, so the fox took a big bite out of it, making the first half bigger than the second half. This continued until the fox had eaten the deer, leaving only bones for the wolf and the lion. A court of law is often like the fox: By the time the lawsuit is settled and the lawyers have received their payment, nothing is left for the disputants.

Pope John XXIII used to tell this joke about lawyers: St. Peter once noticed that there were some unsavory characters in Heaven, and after investigating, he discovered that a breach had been made in the wall separating Heaven from Hell. Therefore, he visited Satan, and the two agreed that they would take turns maintaining the wall. St. Peter would maintain the wall the first year, Satan the next, and so on. The two even signed a legal contract to that effect. The first year, things went fine; St. Peter maintained the wall, and no breaches were made in it. However, the second year, St. Peter again noticed some unsavory characters in Heaven, and he discovered that another breach had been made in the wall. Immediately, St. Peter visited Satan, denounced him for not living up to his part of the contract, and said that he was going to sue. Satan laughed, saying, “I’m not worried. Do you think you’ll find even one clever lawyer in Heaven?”

A case appeared before the Noda B’Yehudah in which an elegantly dressed man and a roughly dressed man pleaded. The roughly dressed man claimed that he was a rich man traveling far from home and friends and that the elegantly dressed man was his wagon driver, but that his wagon driver had robbed him and exchanged clothes with him. The elegantly dressed man denied ever having been a wagon driver. The Noda B’Yehudah said that he would think about the case, then he would give them his judgment the next morning. The next morning, the two men arrived at the Noda B’Yehudah’s house and sat outside as they waited for him, but they were ignored as the Noda B’Yehudah went about his business. Suddenly, the Noda B’Yehudah opened his door and ordered, “Wagon driver, come here!” The elegantly dressed man immediately stood up.

Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan was reputed to be a saint. Once he was called to be a character witness at a trial for one of his students, who had been falsely accused. The lawyer for the defense stood up and began to tell the court a story that was told about Rabbi Kagan. He said that once a thief had been in the rabbi’s house when the rabbi came home early. The thief grabbed some of the rabbi’s property and ran away, but the rabbi said, “I hereby renounce all my property,” so that the thief would not be guilty of breaking one of God’s commandments. Hearing this, the judge skeptically asked, “And do you believe this story?” The lawyer replied, “I don’t know that I believe this story, but I do know that such stories are not told about you and me.”

At the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, much odd evidence was seriously and legally considered. For example, if an accused person was unable to correctly say the Lord’s Prayer, this was considered evidence that the accused person was a witch. Also, spectral evidence was seriously considered, as when men testified that the specter of an accused woman had visited them when they were home in bed. In addition, the accused persons were stripped and searched (by members of the same sex) for the mark of the devil — a small red circle, usually found near the genitals.

F.E. Smith, later Lord Birkenhead (1872-1930), once cross examined a boy who claimed that his arm had been crippled in an accident. He asked the boy, “Will you show me just how high you can lift your arm?” The boy raised his arm a little. F.E. then said, “Thank you, and now will you show me just how high you could lift it before the accident?” The boy then raised his arm high over his head. Case closed.

A Scottish judge named Lord Eskgrove once castigated in court the murderer of a soldier: “And not only did you murder him, whereby he was bereaved of his life, but you did thrust, or push, or pierce, or project, or propel the lethal weapon through the belly-band of his regimental breeches, which were His Majesty’s.”

Toler, who later became Chief Lord Justice in England, was once asked to contribute a shilling to the burial of a lawyer. Reaching into his pocket for some money, he gave it to the solicitor, saying, “Only a shilling to bury a lawyer? Here is a guinea; go and bury one and twenty of them.”

Art Linkletter occasionally ad-libbed during his career as a broadcaster. During an on-site radio program, the sound of sirens was heard, so Mr. Linkletter informed the audience, “There goes an ambulance — followed by a carload of lawyers.” The local bar association was not amused.

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