Charles M. Sevilla - Law and Disorder: Absurdly Funny Moments from the Courts

OTHER BOOKS BY CHARLES M. SEVILLA

Disorder in the Court: Great
Fractured Moments in Courtroom History

Disorderly Conduct: Excerpts from Actual Cases

Wilkes: His Life and Crimes

Wilkes on Trial

Copyright 2014 by Charles M. Sevilla

Illustrations copyright 2014 by Lee Lorenz

All rights reserved

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

Sevilla, Charles M., author.
Law and disorder : absurdly funny moments from the courts /
Charles M. Sevilla ; illustrations by Lee Lorenz
pages cm
ISBN 9780393349535 (pbk.)
1. LawUnited StatesAnecdotes. I. Lorenz, Lee, illustrator. II. Title
K184.S484 2014
349 7302'07dc23
2014001249

ISBN 978-0-393-34954-2 (e-book)

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Begging Your Honors pardon, but isnt life plus a thousand years a little harsh?

For most of my legal career, I have sought redemption in writing satiric novels and humor anthologies. Writing has been my therapy, humor my cheery companion. Have a problem? Laugh at it, laugh with it, and most important, laugh at yourself. Surely, as Mark Twain said, Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. Ive spent a lot of time off my feet.

Most people dont think of the law as a fertile source of humor. If they are consumers of what the law offers in the courts, their experiences are either a painful ordeal or something in which survival is a victory. But even in the courts, humor pops up unexpectedly. When it does, for many years my friends have been sending me these memorialized moments in transcript form. I share them with others hungry for a morsel of levity in magazine columns pompously titled Great Moments in Courtroom History.

These are Great Moments. They are great only because they are different from the humdrum of normal courtroom fare; they are moments in the sense of unique instants of time. Put together, they are significant in the sense that the first voyage of the Titanic was notable to navigation.

As with the last two books, Disorderly Conduct (Norton, 1987, by Uelmen, Jones, and yours truly) and Disorder in the Court (Norton, 1992, yours truly again), the reader will find the humor sophomoric, scatological, very profane, and overtly sexual in content. In other words, just the sort of thing my readers love. But its not my fault. This is the argot of the twenty-first-century American criminal courts.

Many judges have noted and lamented the decline in language usage in the criminal justice system. Its obvious. The highway robber of old accosted his fellow traveler with the clearly stated demand: Stand and deliver. Now, its just a mouthful of profanity peppered with ubiquitous four-letters word commencing with an f. As one justice rued, Not everyone can be an F. E. Smith (later Earl of Birkenhead) who, in his speech in 1920 in the House of Commons on the Matrimonial Causes Act, referred to it [intercourse] as that bond by which nature in its ingenious telepathy has contrived to secure and render agreeable the perpetuation of the species. People v. Callahan, 168 Cal.App.3d 631, 635 n. 7 (1985). Ah, those were the days.

But such is not todays reality. Consider this nasty exchange from a Maryland proceeding:

THE COURT Give me the file back. He might be under contempt of court. Now, stand up there. Come back to that table there. Step on up now. Whats wrong with you?

MR. JOHNSON What the fuck you think wrong with me, man? Goddamn, Im trying to tell you I aint have no mother fucking option in this shit, man.

THE COURT All right.

MR. JOHNSON What the fuck? You think everybody just want to go sit in prison for the rest of their life because you aint got nothing better to do than to sit up there and crack jokes. This aint no mother fucking joke, man. This is about my goddamn life.

THE COURT That cost you five months and twenty-nine days in addition to the three years Ive just given you. [Contempt number 1]

MR. JOHNSON Fuck this shit, man.

THE COURT All right. Thats five months and twenty-nine more in addition to the five months and twenty-nine Ive given you. [number 2]

MR. JOHNSON Fuck you, bitch.

THE COURT That makes ten months plus the ten, twenty-nine days. Thats twelve months. Thats a year. Call me that again and Ill give you another one.

MR. JOHNSON Fuck you, bitch.

THE COURT Thats five months and twenty-nine days. Thats three years. Thats five months and twenty-nine days.... Thats consecutive to the three years that youre now doing. Each one of those. Separate and independent. [number 3]

MR. JOHNSON If I had a gun, your mother fucking head would be splattered all over the back of the goddamn wall for

THE COURT And youd better shoot straight when you try. When you get out come on. Five months and twenty-nine more for that.... [number 4]

MR. JOHNSON Whatever, man. Youre tired of giving it out? Did you finish or what?

THE COURT Well, we can see. Thats five months and twenty-nine more. [number 5]

MR. JOHNSON Kiss my ass again.

THE COURT Five months and twenty-nine more. [number 6]

MR. JOHNSON Kiss my ass again until youre tired of giving me another.

THE COURT Thats six of them.

MR. JOHNSON Kiss my ass again.

THE COURT Seven. Five months and twenty-nine days. [number 7]

MR. JOHNSON Fuck you. Kiss my ass again.

THE COURT Five months and twenty-nine days. [number 8]
... Consecutive....

MR. JOHNSON So, you finished giving out time?

THE COURT I guess. Until you cuss again.

MR. JOHNSON Suck my dick.

THE COURT Five months and twenty-nine days consecutive. [number 9]....

MR. JOHNSON You finished?

THE COURT I suppose.

MR. JOHNSON Well, what the fuck are you holding me for then?

THE COURT Five months and twenty-nine more days. Consecutive. [number 10]

MR. JOHNSON Get the fuck off me, man.

THE COURT Call the next one... if Id have had a shotgun I need to have shot him but I dont have it today. Call the next case.

That gem comes from Johnson v. State, 642 A.2d 259, 261262 (Md.App. 1994) and was called to my attention by Brian D. Shefferman of Rockville, Maryland. I dont know what is more deplorable, the defendants profane language or the judges provocations and piling up nearly six years of time on Johnson as if he were stacking a pile of pennies. Youll be happy to know the Court of Appeal reversed all the contempts.

I must thank all my contributors, many of whose names you will see frequently associated with the following contributions. If they are from California, I only cite the city location. All Seventh Circuit quotes are courtesy of former Federal Defender Richard Parsons, who authored the newsletter entitled The Back Bencher and contributed many appellate court gems.

I also would acknowledge and extend great thanks to W. W. Norton & Company and particularly to Amy Cherry and Anna Mageras for bringing this book to life. Thanks to Joe Vallely, my agent, and my wife, Donna, for their inestimable contributions. Finally, many thanks to the lawyers and staff at the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, and particularly to the folks who put their magazine,