silly judges

[cellio]

Some judges on the state supreme court are upset because one of their colleagues wrote an opinion in verse. They object that it's unprofessional, etc.

I have very different objection: judges who write opinions in verse shouldn't write bad verse! Check this out:

A groom must expect matrimonial pandemonium
when his spouse finds he's given her a cubic zirconium
instead of a diamond in her engagement band,
the one he said was worth twenty-one grand.

"Our deceiver would claim that when his bride relied
on his claim of value, she was not justified
for she should have appraised it; and surely she could have
but the question is whether a bride-to-be would have.
-- Justice Michael J. Eakin

Update: I think writing in verse is cool in the abstract; I just twitched at this particular instance.

Comments

[goljerp]

Being a judge's not an easy profession;
there isn't much time for a poetry lesson.
I think that the fact that he (or his clerks)
tried to write verse that (more or less) works
is cause for some joy or some celebration
and shouldn't be grounds for his villification.
Of course I prefer poems that scan
well but any kind's better than nothing.

[cellio]

:-)

This makes much more sense here than it did in the email (where formatting was lost).