The most amusing story I read this past year had to be a New York Times article about the rhyming Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice.
Justice J. Michael Eakin has been writing his case opinions in verse to the consternation of both his fellow justices and the people who argue cases before the Pennsylvanian Supreme Court. Eakin defends his judicial rhyming by saying that, “You have an obligation as a judge to be right, but you have no obligation to be dull.”
Here’s an example, from a dissent Eakin wrote on a prenuptial agreement case. A wealthy man gives his fiance a ring he says is worth $21,000 but is in fact cheap junk. Later they get divorced. She sues, saying that the fact that the man lied about the ring should be enough to void the couple’s prnuptial agreement. The court ruled against the woman, but Eakin weighed in with this poem which was his entire dissent,
A groom must expect matrimonial pandemonium
When his spouse finds he’s given her cubic zirconium.
Given their history and Pygmalion relation
I find her reliance was with justification.
Source:
Justices call on bench’s bard to limit his lyricism. Adam Liptak, The New York Times, December 15, 2002.