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I'm not a misanthrope. I just don't feel the same reverence for people they feel for themselves.
Today’s Quote
“Truth comes knocking at the door and everybody jumps out the window.” — Bill Cosby
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Recent Posts
- People’s briefs and other horror fiction
- “My pronouns are sheehurr… so yours would be?”
- May it really, really displease the court
- Defending the Second Amendment
- May It Displease the Court
- Covid in the Courtrooms: an Unnecessary Risk
- Judge Jack Weinstein 1921-2021
- In-Person Oral Argument Should Go the Way of the Dodo
- Convicting Bill Cosby: “An Unconstitutional Coercive Bait-and-Switch”
- Judge Conviser rips into SORA
- Adios, 2020!
- THE BEST OF APPELLATE SQUAWK 2010-2020
- Call a rose by any other name and it’ll see you in court
- Try the new high-tech system for alienating your clients
- Outdoor Public Defending
- Why do cops lie? Because judges believe them.
- Courts to replace juries with potted plants
- Do Statues Matter?
- Sexual thoughts and the First Amendment
- COVID-19 masks for judges
- Judges in trouble
- Hell hath no fury like a client scorned
- “Don’t you dare invite me to your stupid Zoom party!”
- Janitors, Catholic schoolteachers and the Hosanna exception
- Supreme Court hears robocall case, flushes toilet
- “Planet of the Humans”
- The virus, like the rain, falleth on the just and the unjust
- The NYC arraignment scandal: part 2
- NYC courtrooms: the arraignment scandal
- Squawk under house arrest
- Must be true, says so right here in the Probation Report
- Discovery reform in Brooklyn: fuggetabout WitCom
- Happy Lunar New Year 2020: Year of the Rat
- The Sex Offender Bus
- Head for the hills, discovery reform arrives with the New Year!
- Annals of Social Injustice: Affluent People Drinking Rosé in Central Park
- Is it silly to demand transparency from appellate courts?
- “Your question has nothing to do with this case, Judge.”
- Not your law office? Click here.
- Let’s keep dogs off the witness stand.
- Forget speed dating, try jury duty!
- The Busywork Conspiracy
- Life in non-punitive therapeutic civil commitment is not what you think
- Buster the civil commitment dog
- Is it a crime to sleep it off in your car?
- What really happens in court: the unvarnished truth
- Putting the brakes on “victims’ rights”
- Maestro James Levine (somewhat) rehabilitated
- The Compulsory Program Mystique
- Fox snarls at pursuing hounds, is shot for bullying behavior
- Follow Appellate Squawk on WordPress.com
Category Archives: Law & Parody
People’s briefs and other horror fiction
In the psychological horror thriller Neighbor George, the appalling creature who possesses Dovey the narrator tells her she’s doomed to a living death. Her body will remain in the physical world, but “the real you will belong to Mom and … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
7 Comments
“My pronouns are sheehurr… so yours would be?”
A few years back, we got in BIG trouble for parodying the boss’s decree that our very first question to clients should be about their gender identity. Our point, complicated as it may seem, was that such personal questions are … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
3 Comments
May it really, really displease the court
One of our favorite Appellate Division decisions is when the First Department went ballistic against a fellow Squawk for citing the scientific research that incest offenders have a low rate of recidivism. “REPUGNANT TO COMMON DECENCY!” hollered the the court. … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
9 Comments
May It Displease the Court
Our late mother had a sign pinned to the broom closet reading, “When others eliminate work, they’re efficient. When I eliminate work, I’m lazy.” So we viewed with a jaundiced eye the First Department’s recent trumpeting of its work-elimination efficiency. … Continue reading
Judge Jack Weinstein 1921-2021
Judge Weinstein died on June 15, 2021 at the age of 99. This is a re-run of our post from December, 2016 when he was only 95. Our excuse for the repetition is that we’d like to add to the … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
3 Comments
In-Person Oral Argument Should Go the Way of the Dodo
It’s one thing for the Guv to announce that we can now eat at restaurants, and a good thing too, since we’re pretty sick of our own cooking. But going to court in person? Who needs it? State criminal courts … Continue reading
Posted in Appellate advocacy, Law & Parody
Tagged Confrontation Clause, COVID-19, Judge Daniel Conviser
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THE BEST OF APPELLATE SQUAWK 2010-2020
A satirical blog about law and other absurdities for criminal defense lawyers & friends APPEALS WITH ATTITUDE What oral argument is really like. https://appellatesquawk.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/welcome-to-the-appellate-division/ What’s the use of criminal appeals? https://appellatesquawk.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/justice-thomas-decries-courts-latest-defendant-always-wins-rule/ “Your question has nothing to do with this case, … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
2 Comments
Call a rose by any other name and it’ll see you in court
Continuing Legal Education, compulsory for lawyers on the theory that they should keep up with what’s going on, now includes an even more compulsory dose of racial-genderal indoctrination. Yesterday we attended an all-day CLE (remotely, of course), where, following a … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody
1 Comment
Outdoor Public Defending
Now in the 5th month of the COVID-19 shelter-in-place era, our Guv (“I live alone with a dog and we’re getting pretty sick of each other”) has just reinstated the ban on indoor public dining. Meanwhile the courts, which have … Continue reading
Why do cops lie? Because judges believe them.
Cops fibbing on the witness stand is so normal, there’s even a name for it: testilying. Or in mixed-metaphor legalese, “tailoring their testimony to overcome constitutional objections.” A little exaggeration here, a few omissions there. Why not, when they … Continue reading
Courts to replace juries with potted plants
In a move to reopen the courts with all due COVID-19 precautions, Chief Judge Bludgeon has taken a tip from a recent performance at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Lieu, where the audience was replaced with potted plants: The concert was … Continue reading
Posted in Law & Parody, Satirical cartoons
Tagged Brendan Sullivan, Gran Theatre del Lieu
2 Comments
Sexual thoughts and the First Amendment
Mr. Bacon, a guest of the government at Ray Brook Federal Correctional Institution, wrote to his sister about the guards, “There is only one Black Woman here. I believe she is an Indian. She is very beautiful and healthy. I … Continue reading
Posted in First Amendment, Law & Parody, Prisoners' rights
Tagged Bacon v. Phelps, Miss Peach, Slaton v. Miller
6 Comments
COVID-19 masks for judges
From a social distance of 150 miles away, we watched NY’s highest state court judges marching into the courtroom to hear oral argument in the flesh for the first time since the COVID-19 lockdown. All wearing identical light blue face … Continue reading
Judges in trouble
What are the grounds for removing a judge from the bench? A sadistic penchant for harsh sentences? Ignorance of the law? Telling a defendant in front of the jury that if he wants to deny guilt he has to get … Continue reading
Hell hath no fury like a client scorned
After 3 months of COVID-19 “pause,” the NY Court of Appeals has announced a return to hearing oral arguments in the flesh “with appropriate safety protocols.” We envision them hanging batlike from the ceiling. A couple of lawfirm biggies applauded … Continue reading
Posted in Judges, Law & Parody, Satirical cartoons
Tagged Hon. Paul Senzer, NY Court of Appeals
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“Don’t you dare invite me to your stupid Zoom party!”
An opinion piece grumbles that our socially distanced lives have become overstuffed with Zoom events, “a tedious trend that needs to stop.” And don’t you invite us to your stupid Zoom office meetings neither. Scientific studies by Dr. Google have conclusively shown that … Continue reading
Janitors, Catholic schoolteachers and the Hosanna exception
A few years back, a less endearing janitor than Archie’s Mr. Svenson got fired from his job at a synagogue. Not only was he not waxing half the floors, he was doing a lousy job of constructing the annual succot … Continue reading
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