CRINGING

There's some sympathetic cringing going on over at Balasubramania's Mania, here, in reaction to the light atmosphere in the 9th Circuit yesterday.

Maybe my sense of humor is way off, but I generally thought that the judicial jokes went off pretty well. If Judge Kozinski always quips thusly -- "I thought you would say that" -- then it might be a little tedious. On the other hand, it's good to have a few trademark quips, and based on yesterday's video it seems to me that Judge Kozinski is good at being funny partly because he is so smart. In addition, the humor in the courtroom is often dependent on the jokes being at the lawyers' expense, so, since I don't think that I'll ever be an appellate lawyer, I can safely chuckle from the sidelines and enjoy the spectacle of it all.

Most of the lawyers who argued in the 9th Circuit yesterday seemed to be pretty good at rolling with the punches and even getting off a few zingers themselves. Woe to the lawyer who misjudges the situation, however. If you have never heard the oral argument from Roe v. Wade, check it out now, in particular the beginning of Texas's argument, about 35 minutes in:

CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER: Thank you, Mrs. Weddington. Mr. Floyd?

MR. FLOYD: Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the Court: It's an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they are going to have the last word.

There's no annotation in the transcript for annoyed and embarrassing silence (I think that Peter Irons described the
Court's reactions along these lines in his audio collection).

The transcript is here, and the oral argument can be accessed here, both from Northwestern's Oyez site.