Sometimes lawyers and witnesses say the darndest things. Fortunately, there are court reporters who record all these wonderful exchanges, and listicle-loving websites to share them with the entire world. And since no one loves a good lawyer joke more than I do, I thought I’d pick a few of my favorites from this list created by Boredpanda. The exchanges were allegedly recorded by Charles M. Sevilla in his book Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History, and it makes me feel better to think they really happened, so let’s run with that, okay?
Here we go. ?
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
LAWYER: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?
OTHER LAWYER: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.
Don’t let the court reporters have all the fun
Readers Digest, that most prestigious tome of elderly people’s bathrooms across America, jumped into the fray with a few of their own stories. I picked out some of my favorites:
- The case of the hairy hand. A man had surgery on his hand because of an ugly scar. The doctor grafted skin from the man’s hairy chest on to the hand. The man filed a lawsuit against the surgeon. He was awarded “the difference in value between a 100 percent good hand… and a hairy hand.”
- Poetic justice. In the case of US vs Batson, in 1986, the federal judge began his ruling by writing:
Some farmers from Gaines had a plan.
It amounted to quite a big scam.
But the payments for cotton
began to smell rotten.
T’was a mugging of poor Uncle Sam.
- An unusual speeding defense. Frank Caprio, Providence’s Chief Municipal Judge in Rhode Island told how one defendant tried to defend the charge of speeding by telling the judge “he didn’t realize he was speeding because he was wearing a stiff, new pair of shoes and couldn’t feel how hard he was pressing on the gas”
At Drew Cochran, Attorney at Law, we understand that being charged with a crime is an extremely serious matter for our client. Convictions can result in prison time, large fines, and other consequences such as difficulty finding work after release. We fight aggressively to obtain acquittals, to have cases dismissed, and to have evidence suppressed. To discuss your criminal case, call us at 410-271-1892 or fill out our contact form to make an appointment. We proudly serve clients in Annapolis, Ellicott City, and throughout Maryland.
And remember: Keep Calm – and Call Drew.
