Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History
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- £6.49
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- £6.49
Publisher Description
In America's courtooms, the verdict is laughter.
Sit back and enjoy a collection of verbatim exchanges from the halls of justice, where defendants and plaintiffs, lawyers and witnesses, juries and judges, collide to produce memorably insane comedy.
A: You mumbled on the first part of that and I couldn't understand what you were saying. Could you repeat the question?
Q: I mumbled, did I? Well, we'll just ask the court reporter to read back what I said. She didn't indicate any problem understanding what I said, so obviously she understood every word. We'll just have her read my question back and find out if there was any mumbling going on. Madam reporter, would you be so kind?
Court Reporter: Mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble, mumble.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Court legalese, often combined with malapropisms and slips of the tongue in exchanges between judges, lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants and eccentric jurors, is gleefully quoted here, complete with frequently profane and explicit language as drawn from sketches in San Diego lawyer Sevilla's Forum and Champion magazine column. For example, a psychiatrist, starting with a court assertion that ``we're not arguing truth here, we're arguing evidence,'' declares that ``I am not here using common sense, I am an expert.'' A defendant accused of drunken driving displays delightful candor by pleading ``guilty as hell.'' A team of three overzealous defense attorneys beats up a client to provide evidence of self-defense. Readers will undoubtedly cull their own favorites from this irreverent sampling of ``justice'' in action.