A man was fishing in a stream and caught a fish. As he was trying to reel it in and a Bald Eagle swooped down and tried to take the fish away. The fisherman was incensed, he threw a rock at the eagle who flew away. His behavior was observed by a Fish and Wildlife officer and the next thing he knew, he was before a judge for violating the Endangered Species Act. Even thought he was probably just trying to scare the eagle away and not trying to hurt him, the judge decided that he harassed the bird. He was convicted of a misdemeanor and the judge sentenced him to apologize to the eagle. Well I guess it was a trip back out to the woods for this guy.

Sometimes common sense has no place in the courtroom. A man went before a judge in an alimony case, in what is known as the Family Court in New York State. As was the custom, he had to fill out a financial form listing his total income and the sources from which he derived it. He made about $500 per week, but this was in 1969 so it was pretty good. His ex wife had no children so he was only contributing to her support and she worked. The judge must have been having a bad day. He looked over the financial sheet and before anyone could testify, he said that he was awarding $500 per week to the ex wife. The husband turned pale and said that he needed some money to live too. The judge told him to work nights. Ouch! On the subject of support hearings, there was a guy that owned a vegetable store, who claimed that he couldn't give his wife anymore money. In truth he was contributing a goodly amount already. The judge made up a list of vegetables and ordered him to give them to her every week and here is the crazy part, he was ordered to do this through the court, which meant he had to cart the vegetables into the agency that accepted payments and they would have to send them to her.

A man who was convicted of murder moved to have his case thrown out for ineffective counsel. He claimed that his lawyer didn't do his job. The court upheld the conviction, but stated that the attorney's performance was below professional norms because he didn't speak to his client, performed no investigation and had no information on the case. Yipes, let this guy out. I remember a case where there was an attorney that was famous for being completely incompetent and uncaring. In the selection of the jury he would never question a juror, never put witnesses on the stand, except for his client and never ask questions that were pertinent to anything. Needless to say all his clients were convicted. In one case in particular, after he was done questioning his client, about three questions, he rested. That means in legal terms that he is finished with the case. As usual his client was convicted and as the lawyer was walking down the center of the courtroom to exit, a man stopped him and said that he was a witness that had been playing cards with the defendant at the time the defendant was supposedly committing the crime. The lawyer said, "too late" and left.

Supreme Court

A man in a SRO hotel, single room occupancy, got into a fight with a repairman, who was repairing a hole in the wall. The police arrested him and he faced a 30 day sentence. This sounds about right, but this is not the way it turned out. The Federal Marshals took him from the city jail and put him in federal custody. He went to trial on a federal charge. It seems the Marshals had taken the building over because of drug activity. They reasoned that the repairman was working for them and covered by a federal law that stated that an individual employed to assist the Marshals Service in the performance of its official duties is protected. The defendant's attorney argued that repairing a wall by a private contractor, is not the kind of duties that the law was meant to protect. The court agreed with this, but then sentenced the defendant to 100 months under the law. Instead of the 30 day sentence he would have gotten, the defendant got eight and one third years in jail, in a case where it was only the repairman's word against his.

A man in Florida had been divorced for 3 months when he found out that the child he thought was his son, wasn't. A DNA test had been taken and it clearly showed that this was not his child. The child was 3 years old. The court agreed with him and then ordered him to continue paying child support. I guess it was easier for them to make him pay then to make the wife tell who the real father was and get support from him.

I remember something that happened in a courtroom between cases that was bizarre. A judge decided that he would like a cup of coffee, so he sent the deputy out from the courtroom to get it from a vendor in front of the courthouse. The deputy came back with the hot drink, but after the judge tasted it, he screamed at the deputy that the coffee was terrible and told the deputy to arrest the vendor and bring him into the courtroom. The poor man was dragged in, in handcuffs and the judge unleashed a tirade upon him. Although the vendor was eventually let go, the judge was severely criticized by his peers and eventually removed from the bench. This just proves that too much coffee is no good for you.

One really strange ruling took place in Britain. An anti abortion group member, a lady, sent a picture of an aborted baby to some pharmacies selling abortion pills. She was convicted of sending “indecent or grossly offensive” pictures in the mail. She claimed she just wanted the pharmacies to know the effects of the pills and maybe get them to change their minds about selling them. Here is the strange part, the court ruled that if she would have sent the pictures to public officials to try and get them to change their minds on abortion, it would have been perfectly legal and considered free speech. It only became illegal because she sent the pictures to private individuals. No mention of the fact that these people owned pharmacies was made.

An attorney sued a telephone company when it listed him under the heading Prehistoric Pets and Radical Reptiles claiming that his business was effected and he had become the butt of many jokes. How did this happen? His telephone number had formerly belonged to a business called the Reptile Show.

Courts around the country have heard some pretty silly cases. One state decided that it would not accept any frivolous law suits from prisoners, because it was costing the citizens of that state hundreds of thousand of dollars per year and tying up the system. Examples of some of the law suits they had been accepting were:
A case where a prisoner was suing because he said his piece of pie was smaller than everyone else's.
A suit where a prisoner wants to be transferred due to spider infestation.
A prisoner sued because he got creamy peanut butter, instead of chunk.
One prisoner sued the parole board for not conducting his hearing on time. Oh yeah, he was on escape status.

A prisoner in Romania even sued God for breach of promise, he said he prayed but his prayers went unanswered.

You just can't make this stuff up, it is so bizarre and silly. It makes one wonder what percentage of lawsuits are just a complete waste of the court's time. Some states have passed laws against frivolous law suits. I personally think that this is a good thing, but that it should also apply against state and federal agencies in the appropriate courts. I also think that no one person should decide if a lawsuit is frivolous, but it should be a panel of at least three judges. They could meet once a month and review all the lawsuits that each judge thought were frivolous and decide what to do with them. One saying that I have heard quite a few times is, "if you are looking for justice, the courtroom is not the place where it will be found".