For the really determined alcoholic, in 1885 Herbert Jenner patented a liquor flask hidden in a book:
The ornamental covering [has] been made so as to entirely cover and conceal the flask from observation, and at the same time admit of ready access to its contents. … That portion of the covering representing the edges of the leaves of the book is covered with marbled paper or otherwise treated, so as to give a natural appearance.
Charmingly, the book is titled Legal Decisions.
An admirer once asked Winston Churchill, “Doesn’t it thrill you to know that every time you make a speech the hall is packed to overflowing?”
Churchill replied, “It is quite flattering, but whenever I feel this way I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.”
Morris Garstenfeld repeatedly greeted a Brooklyn neighbor “by placing the end of his thumb against the tip of his nose, at the same time extending and wiggling the fingers of his hand.” Is this disorderly conduct? That question fell to Kings County Judge J. Roy in 1915.
“What meaning is intended to be conveyed by the above-described pantomime?” Roy mused. “Is it a friendly or an unfriendly action; a compliment or an insult? Is it a direct invitation to fight, or is it likely to provoke a fight?”
He declared that the gesture is well known among boys, and that it should be abandoned by men. In Garstenfeld’s case, the “nasal and digit drama” tended “to show a design to engender strife,” and the fact that Garstenfeld had done it repeatedly showed that he meant to annoy his victim “to the limit of patient endurance.” He affirmed Garstenfeld’s conviction.
When Long Island filmmaker Ellen Cooperman divorced her husband in 1975, she changed her last name to Cooperperson because it “more properly reflects [my] sense of human equality than does the name Cooperman.”
State Supreme Court Justice John Scileppi refused to ratify the change, saying that it “would have serious and undesirable repercussions, perhaps throughout the entire country.” He cited “virtually endless and increasingly inane” possibilities: A person named “Jackson” might seek to become “Jackchild,” a “Manning” might prefer “Peopling,” or a woman named “Carmen” might want to be “Carperson.” “This would truly be in the realm of nonsense,” he said.
Undaunted, she appealed Scileppi’s decision and won in 1978. She’s still using Cooperperson today.
A German-born resident of Portland, Oregon named Otto Hell was permitted by a local judge to take the name Hall when he pointed out how his neighbors and associates took pleasure in calling him by his surname and the initial of his given name. Another Otto Hell was an optometrist who complained that persons in need of glasses were always being told to ‘go to Hell and see.’
— Robert M. Rennick, “Obscene Names and Naming in Folk Tradition,” in Names and Their Varieties, 1986
In 1983, Jacob Henderson was convicted of burglarizing a Maaco paint shop in Jackson, Miss. He appealed on the ground that the indictment was illiterate:
The Grand Jurors for the State of Mississippi, … upon their oaths present: That Jacob Henderson … on the 15th day of May, A.D., 1982.
The store building there situated, the property of Metro Auto Painting, Inc., … in which store building was kept for sale or use valuable things, to-wit: goods, ware and merchandise unlawfully, feloniously and burglariously did break and enter, with intent the goods, wares and merchandise of said Metro Auto Painting then and there being in said store building unlawfully, feloniously and then and there being in said store building burglariously to take, steal and carry away; And
One (1) Polaroid Land Camera,
One (1) Realistic AM/FM Stereo Tuner
One (1) Westminster AM/FM radio
One (1) Metal Box and contents thereof,… the property of the said Metro Auto Painting then and there being in said store building did then and there unlawfully, feloniously and burglariously take, steal and carry away the aforesaid property, he, the said Jacob Henderson, having been twice previously convicted of felonies, to-wit: … .
Henderson called an English teacher as an expert witness. She pointed out that the district attorney’s indictment doesn’t charge Henderson with any wrongdoing; instead it charges the merchandise itself with breaking into the paint store.
“This case presents the question whether the rules of English grammar are a part of the positive law of this state,” wrote Justice Robertson for the court. “If they are, Jacob Henderson’s burglary conviction must surely be reversed, for the indictment in which he has been charged would receive an ‘F’ from every English teacher in the land.”
“Though grammatically unintelligible, we find that the indictment is legally sufficient and affirm, knowing full well that our decision will receive of literate persons everywhere opprobrium as intense and widespread as it will be deserved.”
Full text of the opinion of Michigan appeals court judge J.H. Gillis in Denny v. Radar Industries Inc., 1970:
The appellant has attempted to distinguish the factual situation in this case from that in Renfroe v. Higgins Rack Coating and Manufacturing Co., Inc. (1969), 17 Mich.App. 259, 169 N.W.2d 326. He didn’t. We couldn’t. Affirmed. Costs to appellee.
“It is truly a model of brevity,” wrote an Arizona state court justice. “If more judicial opinions were like this one, lawyers and judges who have to read them would be much happier, and the forests would be much safer.”
From Andrew Carroll’s Behind the Lines (2005) — during World War II, the parents of William Kyzer received this letter from their son, an infantry rifleman stationed in the Pacific:
Dear Dad & Carmilita
I’m OK, days flies by here in
Well maybe it can be all again soon. I’m praying for it. Write soon Nothing like getting a letter from home. Here on
Love
Bill
P.S. They may censor this letter
Carroll writes: “In fact, Kyzer’s mail was not edited at all; he simply hated writing letters and only penned the few sentences at the top and bottom so that his folks would believe that the censors were responsible for slicing out the rest.”
A member of Congress can’t be sued for libel and slander for anything he says on the floor of the House or Senate. This immunity extends to committee hearings and to material he publishes in the Congressional Record.
The framers of the Constitution wanted to protect legislators from the harassment that critics of the British king had suffered in Parliament.
In 1499, a bear which had been terrorizing a German village and had killed people, was captured and brought to trial. The attorney appointed to defend the bear was allowed to argue for days that the animal had the right to be judged by a jury of its peers (that is, other bears). However, the animal was tried and convicted by human beings. It was sentenced to dangle from the public gallows until relatives of its victims stoned the bear to death.
— Thomas J. Gardner and Victor Manian, Criminal Law: Principles, Cases and Readings, 1975
