Some people do not know when to stop.

When one sees a Detroit Free Press story about a Wayne County, Michigan judge being removed from office, one thinks the story will refer to Judge Wade McCree (see other posts about Judge McCree here, here, here, here, here, and here). But it turns out that Judge McCree is not the only judge in Wayne County to run into problems with the Michigan Supreme Court.

If you can't say something nice ...

The comic strip Stone Soup ran a strip on Tuesday in which the mother in the strip told her daughters to ask three questions before they send a text, email, or post.  Those three questions are: (1) is it true; (2) is it kind; (3) is it necessary.  At the Gillette-Torvik Blog we strive for one out of three but recognize that these three questions are very good ones to ask before writing or saying anything.  I thought of that strip today when I heard about the new controversy surrounding Judge Edith Jones.

Is king of latex a desirable nickname?

Continuing our coverage the misadventures of Michigan circuit court judge Wayne McCree (see here, here, here, and here) we report, thanks to Mlive.com, that Judge McCree's judicial misconduct trial has started.  According to the testimony, Judge McCree when presented with a claim that he impregnated his mistress responded by saying he was the "king of latex."  I assume this means that Judge McCree used condoms and not that he dressed like the gimp in Pulp Fiction.

A few things Justice Scalia and I have in common

1.  We are both humans alive in the United States in the 21st Century;
2.  We are both inolved in the legal business;
3.  Our first names begin with A;
4.  Our last names end in a vowel;
5.  We belong to the same religion; and
6.  If the ABA Law Journal is correct, neither of us watched President Obama's State of the Union Address.  We differed on the reasons for not watching. I wanted to do a little reading and he thinks the address is a "childish spectacle."  As for not actually attending the speech, Justice Scalia also did not want to "lend dignity" to it by attending.  I did not go because my invitation-I assume-was lost in the mail. 

Some people just can't stay out of trouble.

Michigan judge Wade "no shame in my game" McCree is back in the news.  We have previously covered the exploits of Judge McCree here and here.  

Shamed, or at least censured, by his game.

Reader(s)™ may recall this post from April in which we discussed how Wayne County, Michigan Circuit Judge Wade H. McCree told the media "Hot Dog, yep that's me. I've got no shame in my game" upon being shown a picture by the Detroit Free Press of the judge sans shirt that he had given to his bailiff.  The bailiff's husband was not amused.

Judge Jones replies "Oh, it's on." Or something like that.

Unhappy with being told he was a partisan hack, Judge Jones has responded to the drubbing he got from Judge Reinhardt.  You can read the response of Judge Jones here.  Essentially Judge Jones answers Judge Reinhardt's charges by saying that Judge Reinhardt is everything that Judge Reinhardt says Judge Jones is. 

"No, I'm not.  You are." is not the most effective form of argument.  A better approach might have been to explain the delays between being assigned the case and hearing the motion.  Perhaps also with an explanation as to why an additional hearing was scheduled on a date that Judge Jones knew would give the plaintiffs the win they were seeking but would not allow the defendants to appeal.  The best approach, as it often is, would have been for Judge Jones to remind himself that he has lifetime tenure and not respond further.  But, of course, taking the high road is often no fun.

A Republican wants to raise taxes. Can you guess why?

According to Fox 34 News in Lubbock County, Texas, Tom Head, the county judge, wants to raise the tax rate in Lubbock County by 1.7 cents in the next fiscal year.  According to this, Judge Head is a Republican.  Given the modern Republican party is famously anti-tax, Judge Head must have a pretty good reason for wanting to increase taxes, right? 

Don't be cheap.

This is probably the best advice (NonLegal™) that I can give: being cheap in your dealings with others will come back to haunt you.

“Your honor, first of all, I’m not smoking crack."

When a lawyer has to utter the quotation above, the lawyer is probably not having a good day.  Above the Law has the latest from the Apple v. Samsung trial.  The judge trying the case suggested, jokingly I assume, that Apple's attorneys were on crack for making 75 pages worth of objections regarding witnesses that are unlikely to testify and wanting the order on the objections the next day.

Ninth Circuit to Senate: It is your fault.

Back in May, we posted about how the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was not going to let a couple of senators push them around about where the Ninth Circuit decided to have a judicial conference. When the senators asked about the costs associated with having a conference in Maui, the Ninth Circuit told them to buzz off.

“Costs for lodging and air travel to attend the conference are comparative to those found at mainland venues.”

The quote is the Ninth Circuit's response to a letter the court received from Senators Charles Grassley and Jeff Sessions inquiring why the Ninth Circuit was hosting its annual judicial conference at a resort on Maui instead of, say, a hotel in Billings, Montana.  The Senators' letter notes that the cost of accommodations on Maui will exceed $700,000 assuming that the conference has as many attendees as the court's 2010 conference.  This matters because the travel and accommodations costs for the judges in the Ninth circuit are paid by the government (which gets its money from taxes).

I guess simply answering that Maui is nicer than Billings would have been undiplomatic.

"Hot Dog, yep that's me. I've got no shame in my game."

Thus spoke Wayne County, Michigan Circuit Judge Wade H. McCree.  What prompted Judge McCree to discuss the lack of shame in his game?  He was asked by Detroit's Fox News affiliate to discuss this picture

"No matter what one makes of associational rights, friendship cannot have greater status than political speech."

At least, not according to Judge Easterbrook.

Which do you think has greater status, Mr. Gillette: friendship or political speech?

The Saggy Pants Judge claims he let the guy off easy.

In a comment to this post about a man being jailed for three days for wearing saggy pants to court, Mr. Torvik wrote "that perhaps Mr. Ramsey got off easy" because he was jailed for three days but not fined.  Mr. Torvik pointed out that some towns including Albany, Georgia, are fining people who wear pants that sag more than three inches below the top of the hip.  The link in Mr. Torvik's post didn't work for me but I did find this article from the Albany Herald.

Feeling Randa-y

Longtime reader(s) of the blog may recall Judge Rudolph "Hitler Analogy" Randa.

He seems to run an entertaining courtroom. The Proof & Hearsay blog reports his most recent monologue:

As he ran through a convicted pimp's long record of misbehavior last week, a federal judge in Milwaukee got to the fact Sean Patrick owed more than $146,000 in support for 12 children he had by 10 women, who now won't have a father in their lives. 

U.S. District Judge Rudoph T. Randa looked up at Patrick with disgust and a bit of curiosity. 

"How do you satisfy 10 women?" he asked. "I can't even satisfy my wife."

Judge Randa went on to explain that what he meant was merely that he could not keep up with his wife's insatiable desire for bling. He went on:

For God's sake, Hitler conquered an entire continent, but he could barely handle even one part-time girlfriend. He did love his dog, though.

UPDATE:

My sources are reporting that I made up portions of this post.

H/t to Mr. Gillette

Laughing at Obamacare: a final tally

The morning and afternoon sessions of the Supreme Court's hearing on the constitutionality of Obamacare are done.  The morning transcript is here and the afternoon transcript is here.  For reasons that should be obvious given my last post, I will not predict which side won. 

We will, however, continue our coverage over whether Justice Thomas spoke at the hearing (he did not) and whether there were any laughs at the hearing (there were).  More on that after the break.

Are there also Kumbaya orders?

Judge Fred Biery, the Western District of Texas judge who got Newt Gingrich angry, has issued a "Non-Kumbaya Order."  It is here.  I did not know such things existed.  From the order it does not appear that either party made a motion for a non-Kumbaya order.  Getting to issue non-Kumbaya orders is yet another previously unknown benefit of being a judge.

Part of the Non-Kumbaya Order requires officials from a school district in Texas to apologize to an agnostic student and the student's family over the way the agnostic student was treated.  The agnostic student and family are required to accept the apologies within 10 days of receiving them. 

Some might ask the question, "does ordering a party to apologize as part of a settlement work."  One can imagine that being ordered to apologize might make the apology less than heartfelt.  I do not want to say that it is impossible for an apology to be genuine in such circumstances but I have never seen it.  I once saw a heartfelt apology at a deposition but it was not court ordered.

Shortly after the case in question settled, the superintendent of the school district called it a "witch hunt."  Given that, cynics will be forgiven if they doubt that the school district will offer a meaningful apology.

Case law quote of the day

"[S]exual congress with nameless streetwalkers is not necessarily the stuff of romance and is not necessarily without its consequences."

Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. v. Campbell, 972 F. 2d 1429, 1442 (6th Cir. 1992) (Nelson, J., dissenting).

Words to live by, for sure.

Judge Nelson was explaining in dissent how 2 Live Crew's version of "Oh, Pretty Woman" was a parody of Roy Orbison's original, and therefore qualified as "fair use" under copyright law. Although Judge Nelson lost the battle, he won the war: the Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit's decision and essentially adopted the logic of his dissent in one of its most important cases on the fair use doctrine.

Wow. Just. Wow.

UPDATE: The Associated Press Reports that Judge Cebull has asked the United States Court of Appeals for the Nineth Circuit to investigate whether he engaged in judicial misconduct by sending the email.

ORIGINAL POST:

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the beautiful things about being alive is the chance to learn something new every day. Today, for example, I learned that United States District Court Judge for the District of Montana Richard Cebull doesn't like President Obama or the president's dead mother and likes to use his work email to discuss these topics with his friends.