One of the many annoyances of being accused of a crime is having to put up with humiliating questions from your lawyer. Like, “Was your grandmother a drug addict?” “When was the last time you had sex?” or “Do you hear voices?” [Correct answer: Yes, when people are talking].
But that’s nothing compared to what lawyers are supposed to ask now, based on the latest advances in client-centered embarrassment:
Scene: Arraignment pens, counsel visiting area.
Lawyer: Hi there! I’m Suzy, a cis-gendered woman, and I’ll be your attorney for today.
Defendant: About time. I’ve been locked up for a week without seeing a lawyer. I’m innocent. The cops broke down my door without a warrant –
Lawyer: What name would you like me to call you?
Defendant: My homies call me Killer, but I’d rather you didn’t mention that in court. More prejudicial than probative, if you know what I mean. As I was saying, the cops said they’d shoot my dog if I didn’t voluntarily come to the precinct –
Lawyer: [Reading from a card] I need to know whether your name expresses your internal deeply-held sense of your gender which may or may not be the same or different from your sex assigned at birth –
Defendant: Yeah, whatever. Then they handcuffed me to a chair and started throwing lighted matches on my lap, causing imminent danger to my manhood –
Lawyer: Tut, tut, gender isn’t a matter of stereotypical physical characteristics –
Defendant: – so I confessed. But I can prove it’s false because there’s a surveillance tape showing I was on the other side of town at the time. My wife –
Lawyer: Your wife? What gender identity does they go by?
Defendant: Yo, are you calling me a FRUIT?
Lawyer: That’s a very discredited terminology. The term is non-binary gender fluid –
Defendant: Will you lower your voice? I’m in a holding cell with 20 other guys, you know what I’m saying?
Lawyer: I’d feel so much better about our relationship if you’d only come out of the closet.
Defendant: But I’m a man. Like Muddy Waters says, “M-A-N, I’m the hootchie cootchie man -”
Lawyer: You sexist pig, how dare you! (Exit)
Defendant: Damn these girl lawyers.
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This is a bit hilarious, it does however underscore how being so focused on political correctness can lead to greater misunderstanding very early in the attorney-client relationship.
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It is hysterical and ridiculous the same time. Political Correctness became part of the Red Tape in our Judicial System.
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As a public defender, I thought there was no subject designated as ‘no laughing matter.’ In my time I’ve sat around around and guffawed at the worst possible excesses of both those we had to represent, and those designated to police and prosecute them. Why? Because if we didn’t laugh we’d cry. An appreciation for the absurdity of the criminal ‘justice system’, and our part in it, was both therapeutic and, in fact, realistic
The other side–po-faced moralists who were caught up in a fantasy of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’–despise us for that. But it seems their humorless lack of nuance has been mirrored in the reaction to your harmless and amusing bit of satire.
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