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Justice Breyer: "And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear."

Whether their jokes are humorous or not, Supreme Court Justices often get [Laughter]. Not so much when the lawyers try to make a funny. The WaPo has the story here. An excerpt:

Still, nothing is more perishable than what passes for humor at the court. You really have to have been there. To wit, from the transcripts:

JUSTICE BREYER: So you're saying that if the government has the most amazing, let's - I'm trying to think of something more amazing than what I just thought of."

[Laughter.]

Those notations of "[Laughter]" have now formed the basis of two studies of the court. In 2005, Boston University law professor Jay Wexler counted the number of times "[Laughter]" was noted in the court's transcripts, attributed the funny to whichever justice's comments preceded it, and declared Scalia the court's funniest justice.

***

It is from an inexplicable tangle of words from Breyer in a 2009 oral argument about the strip search of a teenage girl, in which the justice was attempting to show that perhaps it was not unusual for children at school to be seen in their underwear.

Justice Breyer: In my experience when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, okay? And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear -

[Laughter.]

Justice Breyer: Or not my underwear. Whatever. Whatever. I was the one who did it? I don't know.

Here's a diagram of who gets the most laughs.

I hope everyone is enjoying MLK day. Marlon Hill has an excellent op-ed in the Miami Herald that is worth a read.

Full post as published by Southern District of Florida on January 17, 2011 (boomark / email).