What is an Argument?
Regardless of what Monty Python says, THIS is not good argument. I just uploaded the clip.
Labels: Legal Culture
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 12:20 PM
Friday, April 27, 2007
The Rules of Engagement
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17 Comments:
Wow. Painful. "If I am disturbed, it's by arguments that have nothing to do with reality."
There's about 90 students in Erin Murphy's crim pro that could have done a better job. (Not sure about Sklansky's class.)
Wow. Where did you find this?
do you know who the judges are?
A friend of mine at Davis law sent it to me. Her dad practices before the 9th Circuit regularly and found this oral argument. I've been trying VERY hard to find it on westlaw or lexis, but no luck.
i love that the AUSA took the hint from the judge and didn't say a damn thing. "i assume you don't want us to overrule the supreme court." game over. time to head out for drinks.
how is it possible to get to be counsel for a case in front of the 9th Circuit and have not prepared a single thing? i mean, this really sounded like a breach of professional ethics.
Did the guy just bail after he gave up? Actually walked away from the judges? Wow.
Maybe we need to put these tips in next year's WOA handouts:
1) Don't walk away in the middle of the argument.
2) Don't beg the judges to come up with arguments for you.
3) At least pretend that the cases are distinguishable.
I love the strong closing!
"Attorney": Well - I have nothing else to say. [pause] Good luck!
Judge: [extended audible sigh] Thank you counsel. [pause] Mr. Brookman---Counsel... Counsel! Your seat is at counsel's table.
"Attorney": Your honor, I apologize. I walked back in frustration.
Judge: [another audible sigh]
He should have come back to use his rebuttal time!
I fear you may have been duped. I heard this clip about two years ago., when it was linked as an audio-only segment from the Volokh Conspiracy. I can't find the VC post that linked to it, but it was said at that time to be an excerpt from a 1L moot court argument. The version I heard lacked the bit from the "AUSA" at the end--not sure how to square that portion with the claim that this was student argument. In any case, painful to listen to.
Well, when you find out which 1L moot court has three judges, a bailiff calling the third case, a representative for the United States, an audio recording, etc etc etc, then let me know.
Okay, okay. This was an actual real-life argument. Not in front of the 9th Circuit, though. It was the Seventh, with a panel including Easterbrook. The 7th Circuit's link to the mp3 file is here.
The case was USA v. Robert Lee Johnson (04-2732).
See also these other blog postings, here, and here.
Jesus, who would pull that on Easterbrook. He sanctions attorneys for minor defects in jurisdictional statements. I'm surprised he didn't just rip the attorney's spine out right there.
I love the opinion's concluding sentence: "At argument, Johnson could not distinguish his case from Caballes, and neither can we."
That surely is cringe-inducing.
But with a little tweaking it could have been an argument I greatly admire. Suppose he said something like this:
"Your Honors, this case concerns a pressing social issue: [describe police abuse]. Unfortunatately, as best I read the Supreme Court's precedents, I have little room -- and perhaps none at all -- to advance the justice of my client's claim, to attack the injustice of this result. This panel may see a way that I don't see to distinguish the Supreme Court's precedent. If so, justice can still be served. If not, and if the court does see the injustice of the result below, I would ask that the court express its sense of injustice in its opinion so that this serious issue can finally be addrsssed on further appeal in this case -- if not in other cases before other courts, or even in Congress. Thank you."
Wow!
I saw a similarly brutal arg in teh 2nd Circuit last summer...the USAO guy just got up and basically said, "We rest on the arguments in our brief." It's the only honorable thing to do.
John Steele just revealed his liberal bias.
And I had worked so hard to conceal my pernicious biases!
My subjective view of my own bias is that I like lawyers who (1) give a damn, and (2) care about the craft side of lawyering. Lawyers of that type fall all over the political spectrum. Note that the argument I offered above could be made by lawyers of various political orientations, so long as they put different stuff in the brackets.
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