Legal Humour

Madoff and Kafka

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 11:00:00 -0400

The Bernard Madoff saga is finally over. At age 71 he got sentenced to 150 years in jail. Just how long is that? Well if you go back 150 years, we get to 1859. So if Madoff would have started his sentence then, he would have had to sweat it out right through the U.S. Civil War. That was a big 5 years. In only a mere 36 years after Lincoln’s 1865 assassination he would have lived through Queen Victoria’s death in 1901. Then things would have been dull in jail for the next 13 years until the start of

School House Justice

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:10:00 -0400

Mustafa Kadinci of Arac, Turkey beat up his wife. He was arrested and charged and came before a female judge. Her Honour must have been a former schoolteacher as she sentenced Mustafa to printing and distributing 1000 leaflets, reading, “I apologize to my wife for hitting her”.While creative and novel, I think this type of sentence could set an awkward precedent as other criminals may want a similar deal. It will certainly make plea bargaining more interesting.Can’t you just see a lawyer approaching the prosecutor and saying, “So my client robbed a bank. How about presenting joint submissions to the

Money and More Money

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:55:00 -0400

This is as good a time as any to talk about money. Marcos Ribles of Buenos Aires likes money. He likes it so much he started printing it. He got charged with counterfeiting but the court found him not guilty. Apparently the bills were of such poor quality that the court noted that nobody could have been fooled by them. They found him not guilty by reason of “incompetence”. The court was definitely sending out a message there: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. The justices may as well have ordered Marcos to take a self

Buttocks, Bombs and Baby Jesus

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:30:00 -0400

Speaking of sex, a gentleman in West Palm Beach Florida is suing a strip joint called “Cheetah’s”. He alleges an exotic dancer, known as “Suki” kicked him in the head. The defendant is vigorously resisting the claim, alleging that Suki’s kick was in retaliation for the plaintiff slapping her on the buttocks. What else is new in our business? Yet another he says/she says case. Whatever happened I am certain this event was much more interesting than what the patrons originally came to see at Cheetah’s. Meanwhile, near St Petersburg, Russia (not Florida), a Russian an anti-submarine ship accidentally fired

Metro Madness

Sun, 24 May 2009 14:50:00 -0400

Bela Kosoian, a coordinator of the Chess Federation of Canada, living in Montreal is not a happy camper. While riding an escalator at a Metro station (aka subway or underground) she was arrested by the police. She committed a very serious offence; she refused to hold onto the escalator’s handrail. Apparently there is a by-law in Montreal requiring users of Metro escalators to hold onto the handrail. Bela refused to do so claiming that the rubber handrails were laden with germs. As a former Montrealer, I know the Montreal police can be quite bravado. The arresting police officer says he

A key chain is not a penis

Thu, 21 May 2009 16:50:00 -0400

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled that a key chain is not a penis. I suppose further elaboration is in order. The Court dismissed Roger Potvin’s appeal on an indecency conviction. A couple of years ago in Ottawa, Potvin called an unsuspecting woman over to his car and asked her for directions, pointing to a map on his lap. When he suddenly raised the map, he supposedly revealed something which one generally would not generally see by visiting Google Maps. The lady called police insisting Roger had exposed himself. Roger’s defence was that it was dark in the car

The Butler and the Bligh

Sun, 03 May 2009 20:35:00 -0400

The butler did it, again. Gary Lindley is the butler of the Countess of Arran, who resides in her 18th century castle in Barnstaple, Devon. Lindley, however, did not behave himself recently and he was convicted of assault following a brawl in a pub. The Magistrate ordered him to keep a 9 p.m. to 9 a.m. curfew and not leave his home in Brixham. This meant that he could not attend the Countess and prepare her breakfast. The Countess protested saying that her butler prepared the best scrambled eggs. Her plea apparently worked and the curfew was revoked.Now who would

Broomsticks

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:55:00 -0400

Family law time. A man in Berlin, Germany is being sued by his wife of 15 years for divorce. Her grounds for divorce are cruelty, to wit, she claims her husband is always cleaning up and doing the housework. He is a neat freak who always put things in their place, keeping the house spotless. This is more than she can bear and she wants out of the marriage.The way the climate is these days for men undergoing matrimonial proceedings in Canada, I do not doubt that if this case were tried here, the wife would easily get an unequal

Goon from Saskatoon

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:10:00 -0400

Here’s some exciting news. Do you know what the 9th most dangerous city in the world is? A study reported on realclearworld.com has given the nod to...Saskatoon.It’s on a top ten list that includes Rio, Detroit, and the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu. That’s the place those oil tanker pirates hang out. Saskatoon achieved this status based on violent crimes per capita.Actually, I am not surprised. I was wondering about that city myself. I heard that a prominent Canadian artist recently started to paint a Canadian version of Grant Wood’s "American Gothic". He had to drop his brush and run for

Grifters and Giggles

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:20:00 -0400

Friday the 13th was not a lucky day for Bernard Madoff. He just plead guilty to fraud. I understand his lawyer is trying to work out a plea bargain. The parties however are still far apart as the prosecution is looking at 150 years of jail and his lawyer is only agreeable to life. Someone's playing hardball.While we’re on the topic of heavy rollers, Peter Pocklington, former owner of the Edmonton Oilers, has been arrested in Palm Desert, California and charged with bankruptcy fraud. I don’t know about these charges but I do recall he is the owner who traded