WELCOME TO NEW READERS AND VETERAN READERS OF OUR BLOG!!
As I am on the healing road, and am working on New York Times v. United States The Play, I’ll tell you how this week’s Blog’s Topic came to me. I’ve been talking up the Law Theater Project, with many people lately, as I told you last time, from the new acquaintances I meet on buses, at theatres like the Kennedy Center, and just about everywhere I go, to Programs like the one I attended at U.Penn Law School two weeks ago, where, predictably, I was hip deep in Law alums, professors, law students, and other interested people, to the Roosevelt Institute Four Freedoms Awards Ceremony I attended last week.
At Penn Law School Program, two weeks ago, the subject was the Iran Nuclear Deal and Iran’s leadership’s tendencies to play “Nuclear Chess.”
Last week I was talking with a friend about that Program, our Project, and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Roosevelt Institute Award. My friend has not yet read the plays, and she’d done something that I’ve encountered, when telling people about the Law Theater Project. . .
Sooooo, without further adieu, I want to take a few minutes to clear up a seeming ambiguity, from which folks seem to be suffering. I’m taking this space to do this, since friends and acquaintances have done something we human beings shouldn’t do: ASSUME. . [That word always brings to my mind a certain episode of the classic U.S. TV show, The Odd Couple, based on the Neil Simon play.]
It seems, when non-lawyers, (which make up the vast populations of this country and of this Planet), hear that a lawyer or professor is writing something that has Law or Cases, or similar “stuff” (always remember my admonition about the “s” words, in earlier Blogs!), IN it, they automatically ASSUME that it’s written in language and forms that only lawyers, judges, justices, law students, paralegals, in short, anyone who’s been taught, what I call, “Legalese Code,” can understand. Thus, (Pardon the Pun) ipso facto that a lawyer is writing a story, play, etc., that must mean it’s NOT being written for general audiences. .
Well, I’m here to tell you that, if that were true, John Grisham, or Scott Turow, or any of the others, who tell Law Tales, would have been out of business a long time ago! I’m also here to tell you that my plays tell the same sorts of accessible stories that Messrs. Grisham, Turow, et al. are telling, only mine are: (1) written for the Stage, right upfront, (2) concerning REAL AND IMPORTANT Supreme Court cases, so that they DO affect or have affected our lives and those of our predecessors, and (3) written for General Audiences(!). [Perish the thought that Law ought to be something that ALL folks in our society should be able to understand and appreciate.]
For those who have been with us, since the opening Entry of this Blog, remember what I said about some of the BEST FREE Entertainment happening in courtrooms EVERY day! And it’s true! I’ve heard some of the BEST Straight Lines and Zingers IN courtrooms, and thought that, if the Lawyer- and/or Judge-Thing didn’t work out for some of the Zinger-Throwers, they had a TRUE future in Stand-up Comedy!!
And, as is true with other courts, the Supreme Court’s “public face” is a Courtroom, like any other courtroom. It’s prettier than a lot of others: the curtains are a VERY pretty shade of Crimson, or Burgundy, etc. (See my comments, below, about Non-Accidents, please.) And I can also tell you from first-hand experience that I’ve seen over the years, such luminaries as the late Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, quite a raconteur, drop some of THE BEST punch lines during Oral Arguments! They had the courtroom occupants “rolling on the floor!”
As to the members of the Supreme Court Temple, it just happens that they “hold court” in ways a little different from other courts. They don’t do trials every day; so, there’s no need for them to be “on the bench” every day, even if they were inclined to do that. They don’t hear “trials,” except in a VERY FEW types of situations, which are in Article III of the U.S. Constitution. And they are in session ONLY from the First Monday in October to 30 June of the following year, unless one or more REALLY tough, contentious cases are on the docket and cobbling a majority together is tough. THAT latter thought is what I mean by “tough.” ALL the Court’s cases are difficult, in the basic sense; it’s just that many are unanimous, single, or two to three dissents. . .If the latter situation happens, then the Term might flood over to 3 July. Then, the Court members “lam out of Dodge” until October. . .
Pick up a copy of the U.S. Constitution, or Google it, some time, and you’ll see Art. III, Section 2, explains when the Court is acting as an Appellate Court, hearing cases that have already been tried in lower Federal and State courts, and when it’s acting as a Trial Court. I’ve never had the privilege of hearing the Court conduct a Trial, and I doubt I shall. It’s so infrequent, unlike the time of my most recently-completed play, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific RR Co. The Play, when not only did the Court have more occasional trials, but also Supreme Court Justices, had to “ride Circuit,” and act as trial judges. In Santa Clara County, a Justice named Stephen Field, presided over the trial in the case, before the Court took it, and he did NOT “recuse” himself (which means he would decide not to take part in the Court’s work on the case)!! Justices having to “Ride Circuit,” once meant they could end up being trial judges all over the country, in one or more cases happening in the Circuit or Circuits, over which they had supervisory power.
Also, the Court members don’t, generally, sit individually any more, OR in smaller panels, any more. The prior Court members, more than 200 years ago, COULD have decided to do appeals in panels of three, instead of the Full Court membership, but they decided not to do things that way. If you’re at the top of the heap, you get to decide how you want to conduct your business. Nice work, if you can get it! (Congress has something to say about how the Federal Courts operate and act, especially the lower Federal Courts. . .More on that, perhaps, in future Blogs!)
Also, do you think it’s ACCIDENTAL that the Supreme Court Building LOOKS like a Greco-Roman Temple??!! Think again, if you believe THAT’S accidental! (If you DO believe the “Civics Class Accidental Thing,” I’ve got an “Erector Set Work” Bridge connecting several Boroughs of the City of New York, I’ll sell you for $10.! But that’s a Special, available ONLY THIS week! Now, back to Our Regularly Scheduled Blog!)
Here’re a few tidbits for Your Next Beer, Wine, or Cocktail Party: (1) there is nothing sacred about the Number “9,” when it comes to the membership of the Supreme Court; we once had ten Justices, and as few as six; (2) Federal Circuit Courts of Appeals DO things in panels of three, usually, UNLESS a case presents such an important issue that, on request of one of the parties, usually the Losing Side after the First Appeal, that the WHOLE bench of that particular Circuit decides to hear the case all over again. Believe me, when I say: THAT doesn’t happen often. It’s described by an Old Norman Latin phrase: en banc. That fancy bit of falderal just means that every judge who wants to, IS there hearing a “Rehearing” of the case (all at the same time, of course). . . En banc describes the way the Supreme Court “sits,” too, as I described, above.
A side point about what you will see and have just seen, in Our Blog, when I am writing it. I use the phrase, “For Your Next Beer, Wine, or Cocktail Party,” to preface my dropping some Interesting Trivia, with which you could AMAZE your friends, by YOUR dropping it at such, suggested Social Occasions. . . If and when one goes to law school, one learns a variation of it: A professor will do the same prefacing, with “For Your Next Cocktail Party.” I added “Beer” and “Wine,” to enfranchise more people. My acronym for it is: For YNBWoCP. . . Sooooo, IF you see that garbled bunch of letters, you’ll know I’m about to drop some coo-ool “stuff.” (Acronyms come “naturally” to anyone, who’s lived in the D.C. Area, for very long and had contact with Government agencies or departments. . .)
Once again, back to our Regularly Scheduled Blog. . .
My point in this semi-quasi-pseudo-Digression is to let you know that you should put aside ALL ASSUMPTIONS about our (my) plays being in Legalese, which only lawyers, et al. will understand. FAR from it!! Yes, there’re references and discussions of Legal “Stuff,” but how could anyone write about Law, without having some law “Stuff?” But the plays are NOT dominated by Law “Stuff.” They are Human/Social Stories, within an important, some people [not only lawyers] might say THE important, arena of our society, the Supreme Court.
Here’s an example: In my play, Schenck v. United States The Play, the setting is World War I. The play begins with President Woodrow Wilson complaining to his Attorney General about the demonstrations and opposition to the recent (April 1917) entry of the U.S. into the War. The War had been going for nearly three years in Europe and elsewhere, and millions of people had died or been maimed in it; it was THE most destructive war UP TO THAT TIME, in recorded History (OR, as I prefer to think of it, ‘Theirstory’). The U.S. had stayed OUT of the War, since 1914, but in April 1917, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany and its ally, Austria-Hungary, the so-called Central Powers.
Act I of the play follows Wilson, his Attorney General, leaders of the Socialist Party opposed to the War, and the various measures that the Wilson Administration took, to suppress not only opposition to the War, but also ANY criticism of HOW the War effort was being conducted! One poor guy complained on HOW his State governor was carrying out the draft, and found Feds on his doorstep and himself arrested for that criticism!! I think Wilson took criticism PERSONALLY and SERIOUSLY OVERREACTED. (Reminds me of an episode of Sherlock, Season 3; some of you might be acquainted with that show— I HOPE so. . .)
So, Act I tells the background story of Wilson, et al., and of the Socialist Party leaders preparing and sending out a pamphlet, urging people to oppose peacefully and to act politically, by voting for candidates for Congress, who would end the U.S. involvement in the War. Feds break into their offices, search it, and arrest those leaders. Those leaders were tried for advocating the violation of the Selective Service and/or the Espionage Acts. What many people TODAY don’t know is that there was a LOT of opposition to “sending American boys to be slaughtered on the fields of Europe,” or anywhere else around the globe. The oceans were “much larger” back then, and there were Empires that many U.S. folks didn’t like, for a large variety of reasons. Many Irish-Americans did not want the U.S. to come in on the British side, the same as most German-Americans.
In the second scene of Act I, there is a courtroom sequence, where it is clear that the defendants were being “railroaded” to conviction. The judge was apparently “in” on the “Script,” and instructed the jury in such ambiguous terms, that its members didn’t really have much “wiggle room,” even if they were against the War. . .
It isn’t until Act II that the audience sees the Supreme Court. And when it sees the Court, it is in an abbreviated Q&A Oral Argument, and THEN The Main Event: The Court members hashing out the case, in a Case Conference, in language that General Audiences will understand and in human terms that are all too common in our society.
This and the other plays are HUMAN Dramas, which have been couched and hidden in Legal Language for decades or several centuries. I’ve opened up the “Trunk,” as in a steamship trunk. My maternal grandmother had one of these in her attic, and it was coo-ool as a kid to see what she had stored in it. . .
Get the metaphor? Sets of books that “report” court cases, called “Reporters,” (Catchy term, right?) are like Grandma’s Steamship Trunk. There are all sorts of coo-ool things in them that we found out we could understand. . . And WE are the Hosts of Ceremonies, to help more people, to get into Grandma’s Law Steamship Trunk! And we do it, in ways that you DON’T have to have studied Law, to understand!!!!
Here’s another tidbit For YNBWoCP: There is actually a Federal District Court Opinion, by a Federal trial judge, written IN VERSE!!! (Not Schenck, of course; so there’s no misunderstanding, here.) All, except one footnote is a BIG POEM, deciding the case. . . It’s a classic, to say the least, and he sent it out for publication! I found this case one late night in First-Year (near midnight Library Closing Time), when I was working on my first law degree. I thought I was HALLUCINATING!! But I wasn’t!. . . I later met someone, who worked for that judge, when I was at U. Penn Law School, too! .. .
(Yes, you can do Grad Work in Law, AFTER the J.D., like in any other field, EXCEPT that J.D. holders ARE considered as having “terminal” degrees, just like Ph.D.s, though some Ph.D. holders, it seems, look down on J.D. holders; and after the J.D. there can be even more Grad Work!. . .FYI, while getting these degrees, I ate a LOT of Mac-&-Cheese, cold pizza (the True Breakfast of Champions!), peanut butter, and Ramen Noodles (BUT with the Family Sauces— Mom’s side was Italian, with GREAT homemade food!), to be able to teach the stuff I teach, etc. (Didn’t go to tooooo many expensive restaurants in those years. Had to Semi-detox from PB, afterwards, though I still LOVE the stuff!!)
Soo, there’s coo-ool “stuff” in those sets of books, but one has to know HOW to find it. By writing plays, I’m trying to help in the Finding Thing! And I hope that others will (and we want to encourage others to) write plays, about “Law-related” and Ethics subjects, experiences THEY’VE had, etc., among other fields. You’ll see “Law-related” a lot, since the word “legal” has the flip-side of its opposite, “illegal,” implied in it. We try to avoid the problems of saying a “Legal Play,” as though we are saying: “OK, THIS play’s ‘legal,’ while other plays are ‘illegal.’” The confusion comes, with the multiple definitions and Connotations attached to many words. Not only are they doing “Double Duty,” they’re sometimes doing “Triple-“ ”Quadruple,” and (Fill in the “–ple” blank) Duty!!
Ahhh, so much coo-ool stuff to talk about, and so little time!. . . And remember: Control of Language is Power! (More on that, in a later Blog.)
Now that, I hope, the air’s cleared on the Popular Accessibility of our plays, I’ll let your synapses ingest and digest all this “stuff” I’ve been writing. But be ready– There’ll be a Pop Quiz, after the World Series!! (Just kidding!!!). . .
TTFN, until next time!!