Courtroom Humor
Courtroom Bloopers
(From e-mail, courtesy Scott Mesh)
Subject:keep reading...it gets better - [Forwarded Mail]
All of us make mistakes. But when lawyers and people testifying make
mistakes, they get recorded by the court reporter. Mary Louise Gilman, editor of National
Shorthand Reporter, collected courtroom bloopers in two books, Humor in
the Court (1977) and More Humor in the Court (1994). Following are a few
samples from those books.
Q. What is your brother-in-law's name?
> A. Borofkin.
>
> Q. What's his first name?
> A. I can't remember.
>
> Q. He's been your brother-in-law for years, and you can't remember his
first name?
> A. No. I tell you I'm too excited. (Rising from the witness chair and
pointing to Mr.
> Borofkin.) Nathan, for God's sake, tell them your first name!
>
> Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in New York?
> A. I refuse to answer that question.
>
> Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Chicago?
> A. I refuse to answer that question.
> Q. Did you ever stay all night with this man in Miami?
> A. No.
>
> Q. Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
> A. No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.
>
> Q. What is your name?
> A. Ernestine McDowell.
>
> Q. And what is your marital status?
> A. Fair.
>
> Q. Are you married?
> A. No, I'm divorced.
>
> Q. And what did your husband do before you divorced him?
> A. A lot of things I didn't know about.
>
> Q. Doctor, how many autopsies have you peformed on dead people?
> A. All my autopsies have been performed on dead people.
>
> Q. Were you aquainted with the deceased?
> A. Yes, sir.
> Q. Before or after he died?
> Q. Mrs. Jones, is your appearance this morning pursuant to a deposition
> notice which I sent to your attorney?
> A. No. This is how I dress when I go to work.
> Q. Did he pick the dog up by the ears?
> A. No.
> Q. What was he doing with the dog's ears?
> A. Picking them up in the air.
> Q. Where was the dog at this time?
> A. Attached to the ears.
> Q. When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were
> able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go,
> gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to
> the station?
> MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.
> Q. Now, you have investigated other murders, have you not, where there
was a victim?
> Q. ... and what did he do then?
> A. He came home, and next morning he was dead.
>
> Q. So when he woke up the next morning he was dead?
> Q. Did you tell your lawyer that your husband had offered you
indignities?
> A. He didn't offer me nothing; he just said I could have the furniture.
> Q. So, after the anesthesia, when you came out of it, what did you
> observe with respect to your scalp?
> A. I didn't see my scalp the whole time I was in the hospital.
> Q. It was covered?
> A. Yes, bandaged.
> Q. Then, later on ... what did you see?
> A. I had a skin graft. My whole buttocks and leg were removed and put on
top of my head.
> Q. Could you see him from where you were standing?
> A. I could see his head.
>
> Q. And where was his head?
> A. Just above his shoulders.
> Q. Do you drink when you're on duty?
> A. I don't drink when I'm on duty, unless I come on duty drunk.
>
> Q. Are you sexually active?
> A. No, I just lie there.
> Q. Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
> A. Yes, I have been since early childhood.
>
Q. The truth of the matter is that you were not an unbiased, objective
witness, isn't
it. You too were shot in the fracas?
> A. No, sir. I was shot midway between the fracas and the navel.
> Q. What is the meaning of sperm being present?
> A. It indicates intercourse.
> Q. Male sperm?
>
> A. That is the only kind I know.
Please let me know if you would like to be credited (or discredited) for any of the jokes in the above collection. Thank you!
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