Being interviewed by print journalists is a perilous business, which is why I don’t agree to it very often. In this case, as it happens, it was my manager who was misquoted: The words “did not go over well with the judge” are not what she said, and it is puzzling why they appear in quotation marks.
Steyn also prints the entire transcript of his conversation with the Mother Jones reporter…
Well, I’m surprised that you would say “confusing defendants” is an obvious error. I’ve been in court in many jurisdictions around the world, and this is the first time I’ve come up against a judge who can’t tell Smith from Jones. That would be pretty basic in Judging 101 in most places, but apparently not in Judge Combs Greene’s courtroom. My objection to the judge is pretty simple: She indicated that the case would be too complicated and time-consuming for her, as she subsequently demonstrated in her ruling confusing me with Rand Simberg. So she shopped the case to another judge. Having decided to check out of the case, she then issued a series of drive-by verdicts as she was heading out the door. This simply doesn’t pass the smell test. The misplaced reverence for judges in America is perplexing to me. In my cultural tradition, a judge is just a bloke in a wig. He may be a smart bloke in a wig, or he may be an idiot in a wig. But the wig itself is not dispositive. As the English barrister F E Smith is said to have responded when a judge asked if he was trying to show contempt for this court, “No, my Lord. I am attempting to conceal it.” I spent the first months attempting to conceal my contempt for Judge Combs Greene’s court, but really, it’s not worth the effort.
