Posted by Orin Kerr: Things Better Left Unsaid: As [1]Eugene noted below, a lawyer arguing at the Supreme Court this morning finished his argument by saying "I want to leave you with just four words . . . ", at which time his time expired. The Court is very strict about oral argument time; when your time expires, you really have to stop. So the lawyer never got to tell the Court what the four words were. [2]SCOTUSblog reports that the lawyer later answered the question on everyone's mind -- what are the four words? -- when he told reporters what the four words were "Federalism, boundaries, discretion, and precedent." I don't know what book on closing arguments the lawyer got this trick from, but it's hard to think of a worse ending for a Supreme Court argument than that. (Might work for a jury trial, but Supreme Court Justices are not jurors.) As Tom Goldstein puts it, "Ok, so maybe it wasn't such a loss that he didn't get that last line out."
References 1. http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_02_20-2005_02_26.shtml#1109099039 2. http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2005/02/the_mystery_fou.html _______________________________________________ Volokh mailing list [email protected] http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
