Tips From High School Students on Persuasive Writing

For any of you appellate lawyers out there hammering out legal briefs, here are some helpful pointers from high school students across the nation. (Okay, they are not really pointers, but they are funny to read nonetheless.)

Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year for the amusement of educators nationwide.

Here are some of the winners from last year (I particularly like #7 and #16)....

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Halle Berry's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Surely #19 can be worked into a legal brief at some point.  Talk about the power of persuasion…

The Penalty for Tardiness

A couple of weeks ago, one of our guest blawggers (a prosecutor) posted about his disdain for tardy defense attorneys.  Now Jamison Koehler, a blawgger friend and criminal defense attorney in Washington D.C. shares his recent experience about a tardy prosecutor.

It seems to me, the common theme here is that as professionals and officers of the court, none of the parties should be late.  As Jamison points out, if it happens in Washington DC, you (or your client) may pay the consequences.

Homeless Thief Trades Laptop and iPhone for Egg McMuffin

In lieu of a post on an obscure Texas law this week, I have a bizarre story for you. This is a true story about something that happened to a coworker of mine in Washington DC this past week. I’m trying to convince her to write something about it for the Washington Post, but she doesn’t think it’s newsworthy. I disagree simply because it is so crazy and bizarre (and funny to everyone but her). So here goes.

My coworker, we’ll call her Lindsay, is a Marine officer and lawyer. Lindsay lives alone in a basement apartment in a, how should we say it, not-so-well-to-do section of Washington DC. She calls it a “transitional community.” On Monday morning, Lindsay woke up, got dressed, put on a pot of coffee and plugged her cell phone into her computer that was on the coffee table in the living room. Then she noticed a package waiting for her outside her front door. Lindsay went outside to get the package and did not lock the front door when she came back in. After all, who needs to lock the front door when they are about to walk right back out of it in 10 minutes to go to work?

Lindsay then went back to her bathroom to tie her hair into a neatly shaped bun, a daily requirement for female Marines (those with long hair at least). When she returned to her living room (only 10 minutes later) to retrieve her piping hot cup of Joe she went to grab her cell phone and found that it was missing. Not only that, the computer to which she had just plugged it in was also missing. Knowing good and well that her coffee had not yet begun to take the desired effect, Lindsay began questioning whether she had actually plugged her phone into her computer 10 minutes ago. “Was this the early onset of Alzheimer’s?” she thought as she checked the refrigerator and freezer for her computer and phone. Finally, after scouring the house, she gave up and went to work.

Lindsay told me about her troubles as soon as she walked in the door to our Pentagon office and then she called her bank and credit card company. Believing now that someone had entered her house and stolen her laptop and phone, she also tried to report the incident to the DC police, but they refused to take the complaint. “You have to be calling us from inside your home or we cannot do anything.” She protested by kindly pointing out that the perpetrator had stolen her phone, but they weren’t convinced.

Right about now you might be thinking, “Okay, so what? She was burglarized. What’s so crazy about that?” Well here’s the crazy (and ridiculously lucky) part of the story. About an hour after she got to work, Lindsay received an odd message. Someone had called our office to report that she was in possession of Lindsay’s computer and cell phone. Lindsay called the woman who confirmed that she indeed had the laptop and cell phone and they arranged a time and place to meet up. When Lindsay met the woman she received the rest of the story.

This woman (the one that found the laptop and phone) was walking to work near the Washington Navy Yard when she saw a little homeless man walking down the street carrying a laptop and an iPhone. In fact, the iPhone was still plugged into the compter.  Finding the Apple-laden homeless man a bit out of place, the woman approached the him and said “Hey, I don’t think that laptop and cell phone belong to you. How about I buy you some breakfast at McDonald’s and you give me the laptop and cell phone so that I can return them to their rightful owner.” (After all, what’s a MacBook Pro when you can have a tasty egg McMuffin, right?) The homeless man agreed, enjoyed a McDonald’s breakfast and promptly relinquished the contraband items.

Later Lindsay paid the kind woman back for the homeless man’s breakfast and thanked her for stepping in. She is still pretty “creeped-out” as she puts it, that a random homeless man just let himself into her apartment while she was in the back room, but she has learned a valuable lesson about locking the door behind her. As Lindsay told us the story while we went for a jog around Capitol Hill, we wondered whether we would stop a homeless man to ask where he got a laptop/phone. We’re not sure we would have done that, but Lindsay sure is glad someone did.

Wanna-be Texas Cheerleader's Lawsuit Falls Off the Pyramid

While the 5th Circuit case linked below has nothing to do with criminal law and procedure, it has everything to do with ridiculous Texas shenanigans.  Volokh linked it first.  I found it too good not to note.  Read the case for yourself.  Don't pass up the footnotes.  It is utter greatness.

Sanches v. Carrolton-Farmers Branch ISD (5th Circuit - Civil)

Here a teaser:

Samantha Sanches appeals summary judgment on her claims of sex discrimination and retaliation under 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a) (“title IX”) and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Reduced to its essentials, this is nothing more than a dispute, fueled by a disgruntled cheerleader mom, over whether her daughter should have made the squad. It is a petty squabble, masquerading as a civil rights matter, that has no place in federal court or any other court.

And it only gets better from there. 

Some Tuesday Levity

Sit back, take a break, and check out these two hilarious websites. 

America seems to have a fascination with the People of Wal-Mart and those who have Mullets (although many times they are one in the same).  Cell-phone cameras and instant internet uploads can provide a wealth of entertainment.

I've added these 2 sites to my list of "Fun Sites" just in case you ever need some amusement.

Texas Hiring Interrogation Consultants

Here's a video of the British interrogation consultants that have been hired to train Texas law enforcement agents.

Miss Judge Buchmeyer?

If you are like me and you miss the Judge Buchmeyer portion of the Texas Bar Journal, you'll be excited to learn that a new website has been created to carry the torch in his memory. At Overheard in Court, lawyers, court reporters, judges, and others in the legal business have already begun submitting testimony and other stories that they find amusing.  I have linked the site on the left side of this page for easy access.  

The Defendant has No Clothes!

In perusing the recently published cases of the various Texas Courts of Appeals, I came across Powell v. Texas, a case from the 9th District (Beaumont). If you are in need of a good laugh and you have a few minutes to spare, you should consider reading the full opinion HERE.  I will give you the highlights.

Powell was on trial for assaulting a prison guard. During the trial (while in the holding cell and in open court) the defendant was continually disruptive. The judge admonished Powell numerous times and ended up having to shackle both his arms and feet (there was a skirt around the table so that the jury could not see the shackles). During one of the recesses, Powell ripped his shirt off in the holding cell and use it to wipe his butt. When he returned to court, he could no longer wear his shirt because it had feces on it! The defense counsel offered to retrieve a new shirt from his car, but the judge denied the request. Powell was offered a jacket by the bailiff, but he refused to wear it. For the remainder of the trial that day, Powell sat shirtless in front of the jury, exposing his many tattoos.

On appeal (after Powell received a 65-years sentence), Powell complained that the judge erred by refusing to allow his lawyer to retrieve another shirt for him to wear and for making him endure the remainder of the day shirtless in front of the jury. Applauding the moxy of the trial judge in trying to maintain order in his court, the 9th District Court of Appeals, nonetheless held that the judge committed error by allowing the shirtless spectacle to occur. However, the Court upheld the results, concluding that the State had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the jury's verdict.

Word to the wise: If you think that your client might possibly rip off his shirt and use it for toilet paper, bring more shirts with you to the courtroom so that you don't have to delay the trial in order to clothe your client. (More shirts could also come in handy if your client needs to use the restroom later in the day)

The Cool Kids Rule the Prisons too!

HERE is an interesting story about a 7th Circuit case which upheld a prison rule prohibiting inmates from playing Dungeons and Dragons. Apparently, the socially-inept can't even catch a break in prison.