Bob Saget Alert: Chicago's Funniest Appellate Court Judgements

By vouchey in News on May 5, 2005 4:03PM

Some people are funny. Some people can't help being funny. And sometimes those people are Appellate Court judges. In an opinion handed down yesterday (our local copy here) in the Seventh U.S. Court of Appeals, based in Chicago, was a little footnote gem:

The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch bitch “hoe.” A “hoe,” of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden’s response. We have taken the liberty of changing “hoe” to “ho,” a staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps “You doin’ ho activities with ho tendencies.”

Chicagoist asked a friend who practices in the 7th Court of Appeals if the three wisecracking judges, Roverner, Evans and Sykes, have a history of joking around. "I can't imagine it," came back the response. Maybe there's a funny clerk?

What happened to the Appellant, Darron J. Murphy, Sr.? The judges affirmed his convictions for witness tampering and crack cocaine dealing and rejected his appeal. At least they were funny about it.

Dirsken Federal Building image via Emporis.