Pair arrested for telling lawyer jokes at Long Island courthouse
Wednesday January 12, 2005
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. (AP) Did you hear the one about the two guys arrested for telling lawyer jokes?

It happened this week to the founders of a group called Americans for Legal Reform, who were waiting in line to get into a Long Island courthouse.

``How do you tell when a lawyer is lying?'' Harvey Kash reportedly asked Carl Lanzisera.

``His lips are moving,'' they said in unison.

While some waiting to get into the courthouse giggled, a lawyer farther up the line Monday was not laughing.

He told them to pipe down, and when they did not, the lawyer reported the pair to court personnel, who charged them with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor.

``They just can't take it,'' Kash said of lawyers in general. ``This violates our First Amendment rights.''

Dan Bagnuola, a spokesman for the Nassau County courts, said the men were ``being abusive and they were causing a disturbance.'' He said he did not have the name of the lawyer who complained.

Americans for Legal Reform monitors the courts and uses confrontational tactics to push for greater access for the public. The pair said that for years they have stood outside courthouses on Long Island and mocked lawyers.

On Monday, however, Kash said he was due in court to answer a drunken driving charge from a year and a half ago. The men are due back in court on the disorderly conduct charge next month.

Lawyers to be Used in Medical Experiments

The National Institute of Health (NIH) announced last week that they were going to start using lawyers instead of rats in their experiments. Naturally, the American Bar Association was outraged, and filed suit, but the NIH presented some very good reasons for the switch.

  1. The lab assistants were becoming very attached to their little rats. This emotional involvement was interfering with the research being conducted. No such attachment could form for a lawyer.
  2. Judging by the phenomenal rate of increase of the lawyer population, lawyers breed faster.
  3. Lawyers are much cheaper to care for and the humanitarian societies won't jump all over you no matter what you're studying.
  4. There are some things even a rat won't do.

In contrast, there was only one foreseen disadvantage:

  1. With lawyers, it may be more difficult to extrapolate test results to human beings.

It will get tossed.

What's brown and black and looks good on a lawyer? A Doberman.
What do you call 5000 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

The lawyer in the original post seemes to have proven the point of the joke.

Hope the judge sees the humor in this.

Too bad the officer didn't.

I had a lawyer trying to get me to testify to the number of chairs in the DUI room at the local jail.  The chairs are plastic, and people often piss or vomit on them, so they get taken out to be cleaned.  He was trying to get me to say there was a certain number.  I just kept answering i dont know how many chairs were in the room that night, becuase I did not count them. We went round and round for 20 mins over that moot point. The whole time I was wondering how much money the defendant was paying in legal fees.

I thought this was resolved with the Flynt v. Falwell case.  

In Detroit, when a lawyer dies they bury him 30 ft down............because, they've found that DOWN DEEP they are really good people...

Quoted: I had a lawyer trying to get me to testify to the number of chairs in the DUI room at the local jail.  The chairs are plastic, and people often piss or vomit on them, so they get taken out to be cleaned.  He was trying to get me to say there was a certain number.  I just kept answering i dont know how many chairs were in the room that night, becuase I did not count them. We went round and round for 20 mins over that moot point. The whole time I was wondering how much money the defendant was paying in legal fees.

OK I give up.  What was the point and was the Judge sleeping?

Ok. That just sucks.

It was so cold this week that I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets.

What's the difference between a dead skunk in the road and a dead lawyer in the road?

A: There's skidmarks in front of the skunk.

Quoted: Quoted: I had a lawyer trying to get me to testify to the number of chairs in the DUI room at the local jail.  The chairs are plastic, and people often piss or vomit on them, so they get taken out to be cleaned.  He was trying to get me to say there was a certain number.  I just kept answering i dont know how many chairs were in the room that night, becuase I did not count them. We went round and round for 20 mins over that moot point. The whole time I was wondering how much money the defendant was paying in legal fees. OK I give up.  What was the point and was the Judge sleeping?

They point he was trying to establish was how far away from the defendant I was during the 15-minute observation period, prior to the breathalizer test. He wanted to know exactly how many chairs were in the room, and in which chair was the defendant sitting. It was comical.  Our judges are spinelss and will let the defense attornies drag out any pointless attempt at a defense.  I was once questioned for over an hour about the number of street lamps in a bar parking lot. You would think, "i dont know, i never counted them" would end that line of questioning.

D.A. Objection - asked and answered
Judge - Sustained

That line of questioning should have taken about thirty seconds.  I'm amazed the judges in your county allow that to happen.

Anyhoo, it looks like the morons in the story were arrested for disorderly conduct (aka being a loud obnoxious dick in public), not for telling jokes.  I doubt that they would have arrested them if they were just telling some jokes to each other.  The funny part is, now the morons need lawyers to save their ass.  

I can't understand the hatred for lawyers you know it is only 99% that give the rest a bad name.

"Dan Bagnuola, a spokesman for the Nassau County courts, said the men were ``being abusive and they were causing a disturbance.'' He said he did not have the name of the lawyer who complained.

Americans for Legal Reform monitors the courts and uses confrontational tactics to push for greater access for the public. The pair said that for years they have stood outside courthouses on Long Island and mocked lawyers.

On Monday, however, Kash said he was due in court to answer a drunken driving charge from a year and a half ago. The men are due back in court on the disorderly conduct charge next month.
"

sounds to me like they might have went a little to far using their "confrontaional tactics"  if so then the police were right in what they did in issuing a citation.



We dont know the whole story as to what happened and probably never will. So condeming the police at this point is couterproductive dont you think??

nother scenario could be that they were picking on certain lawers who were objecting to them getting more access to the courtroms and one of them got tired of it and decided to show em the inside of a courtroom (as a defendant)

What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish.

One's a scum-sucking bottom dweller.  The other one's a fish.

Quoted: They point he was trying to establish was how far away from the defendant I was during the 15-minute observation period, prior to the breathalizer test. He wanted to know exactly how many chairs were in the room, and in which chair was the defendant sitting. It was comical.  Our judges are spinelss and will let the defense attornies drag out any pointless attempt at a defense.  I was once questioned for over an hour about the number of street lamps in a bar parking lot. You would think, "i dont know, i never counted them" would end that line of questioning.

There was Judge in one of the local Justice Courts that was on any given day usually drunker then the DWI defendants were when they were arrested and brought before him.  He would have cut the attorney off in about two minutes of non probative questions.  The good judge passed away a few years ago and we wondered if he needed to be embalmed as he was probably in a pickled state when he died.

BTW, isn't the defendant cuffed during the waiting period so he can't put anything in his mouth?

Quoted: It will get tossed. What's brown and black and looks good on a lawyer? A Doberman. What do you call 5000 lawyers on the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

what do you call a skydiving lawyer?

skeet

A Rabbi, a Hindu, and a Lawyer...

A Rabbi, a Hindu and a lawyer were driving late at night in the country when their car expired. They set out to find help, and came to a farmhouse. When they knocked at the door, the farmer explained that he had only two beds, and one of the three had to sleep in the barn with the animals. The three quickly agreed. The Rabbi said he would sleep in the barn and let the other two have the beds. Ten minutes after the Rabbi left, there was a knock on the bedroom door. The Rabbi entered exclaiming "I can't sleep in the barn; there is a pig in there. It's against my religion to sleep in the same room with a pig!"  The Hindu said HE would sleep in the barn, as he had no religious problem with pigs. However, about five minutes later, the Hindu burst through the bedroom door saying "There's a COW in the barn! I can't sleep in the same room as a cow!   It's against my religion!"

The lawyer, anxious to get to sleep, said he'd go to the barn, as he had no problem sleeping with animals.  In two minutes, the bedroom door burst open and the pig and the cow entered...

What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?

Quoted: What's the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?

Asked and answered