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Join us each Tuesday as Bob Ingersoll analyzes how the law
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THE LAW IS A ASS for 12/18/2001
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 126
Originally written as installment # 115 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 712, July 10, 1987 issue
My opening joke in this column talks about "the Good Old Days," which might just as well refer to those days long ago, when I wrote this column. Back then, in a simpler time, I could make jokes about losing Cleveland Indians teams and they made sense. (Although the recent cost-cutting moves by the Indians may soon make those jokes viable again, although not particularly funny for yours truly. Back then I could quip wise about a theme park designed to look like the African veldt and stocked with African animals and avoid throwing in the de regur Disney's Animal Kingdom joke. (Although there are those of us who think Disney's Animal Kingdom is a big enough joke as it is. We were wrong, of course, Animal Kingdom was only the setup like. The real joke was Disney's California Adventure.
Cue the rim shots. I've been saving these up ever since this Summer and I just had to use 'em someplace...
According to the literature Disney puts out, Disney's California Adventure is, supposed to celebrate the fun, spirit and adventure of California. The state should sue for defamation of character. California Adventure was built by tearing up a parking lot and putting an amusement park in its place; thereby decreasing the property values. I wouldn't say California Adventure was lame, but the combined efforts of Jesus Christ and Ebenezer Scrooge couldn't make it walk.
Yes I digress. But I was the one who suffered through California Adventure, not you. I've got a lot of pain and suffering I have to get out and my therapist says sharing it is... well, good therapy.
Of course none of this gets us any closer to the real reason we're here, which is this week's installment "The Law is a Ass," which, as I said, takes place in "the Good Old Days." So return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, as Bob Ingersoll, World Famous Comics and Kellogg's Pep, or Blue Coal, or Ovaltine or one of those "Good Old Days" products bring you...
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment #126
by
Bob Ingersoll
There was a time when I wasn't a lawyer, that period of my life I now refer to as "The Good Old Days." Back then--before I had gone to law school, before I knew how the law really worked, and before I realized that it wasn't really a lawyer's job to prove his client didn't commit the murder by getting the real murderer to confess in open court--I could read a comic book story and never realize that its portrayal of the law was completely bogus. So, for the most part, stories from back then are safe from analysis in this column. Stories like, "Tigra Tigra, Burning Bright!" from Marvel Team-Up # 67 (March, 1977).
Occasionally, however, someone slips up and reprints stories from the "Good Old Days" that contain legal inaccuracies and either I read the reprint or someone else--Tony Isabella in this case--points them out to me. Stories like, "Tigra Tigra, Burning Bright!" reprinted in Marvel Tales # 203 (September, 1987).
Now, who can guess what leads off today's column?
Aw, you peeked.
The setup to "Tigra Tigra, Burning Bright!"--the one other than the old William Blake poem--asks us to believe that there's this amusement park somewhere in New Jersey just across the river from Manhattan, which was, "sculpted to resemble the African Veldt, [and] stocked with all manner of exotic beasts." And it is. This place has got elephants, lions, giraffes, rhinoceroses, camels, a winning Cleveland Indians team. (Well, one of the definitions that my dictionary lists for exotic is, "rarely met with: STRANGE" To me, there ain't nothing more rarely met than a winning Indians team.)
Anyway, according to the story, the park did well at first, but the novelty faded, attendance dropped off, and the park went bankrupt. Which shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. When a native New Yorker wants to see exotic beasts, he doesn't have to go to a park in Jersey. All he has to do is ride the subway. The story then goes on to say that the animals were forgotten in "all the complex, confused litigation that followed," and no one cared for them. They ran wild and many died, until Kraven the Hunter took over the park as a headquarters, nursed the animals back to health and trained them to obey his commands.
Don't worry about Kraven. He gets beat up by the end of the story. Worry about the animals, they're trapped somewhere in the Twilight Zone, where neither litigants nor lawyers know the first thing about bankruptcy law suits.
Let's see if you readers know what the parties to all this "complex litigation" don't know.
What is a bankruptcy?
It's what someone goes into, when his debts are so large that he doesn't have enough money to pay them. When this happens, he goes into federal bankruptcy court, files the necessary papers, and lets the court decide how his meager assets should be divided up to pay off all of his creditors.
What is a bankruptcy claim?
It's what the creditors file in the bankruptcy court so that they can be included in the court's determination as to how the assets should be divided so as to pay off the creditors.
What do the creditors want?
Their money.
How are they going to get it?
From the bankrupt's assets. Oh, they may not get everything they're owed, but they'll get something, even if its only pennies on the dollar.
So what should the creditors and their lawyers never do?
Forget about the bankrupt's assets, so that said assets waste away and decrease in value.
So what were the parties in the bankruptcy proceedings from this story likely to have done?
Make sure that the animals in the park were cared for and fed, so that, eventually, they could be sold off in order to raise capital to pay off the creditors.
See, I knew you were smarter than the people in this story.
******
David L. Klees of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania sent me copies of two old stories, which got older during the year between his sending them and my finally writing about them. (Sometimes these old stories aren't safe, even if they haven't been reprinted.) I will talk about them in a second. But first I want to establish some ground rules for sending me stories to write about.
RULE 1:
If you want me to acknowledge your contribution, you have to let me know who you are. Someone sent me a copy of Justice Machine # 4 with no cover letter. That being the case, I can't very well publicly thank the contributor.
RULE 2:
Let me know what it is about the story that you think I should discuss. Even if you think it's obvious. I can be very obtuse. Unless you tell me what it is about the story that bothers you, I might miss it. Case in point: the anonymous person who sent me Justice Machine # 4. I have absolutely no idea what in this story you think should be covered in a column.
Back to business. The first story David sent is "The Vengeful Ghost of Glenville Gap!" from The Unexpected # 128 (October, 1971). This story opens with a murder trial. The district attorney is delivering his closing argument (during which the defendant, for some inexplicable reason, is sitting in the witness stand). When defense counsel objects, the two lawyers get into a name calling match right in front of the jury. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!
No judge in the country would allow such histrionics in his courtroom from the attorneys. Judges reserve all that fun name-calling and shouting stuff for themselves. (Just kidding, Your Honors, please don't cite me for contempt.)
Even wronger than this sequence (or the preceding grammar) was the speech by the judge to defense counsel, "The district attorney presented a strong case against your client... Either provide evidence to prove Harrow's innocence, or I'll direct the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty!" Didn't anyone ever tell this judge about the Constitution?
You remember the Constitution, don't you? It's been in all the papers. Well, among its provisions is this little clause that says all criminal defendants are presumed innocent, until proven guilty. What this means, among other things, is that the defense doesn't have to prove the defendant's innocence, not even if the judge orders it. And it also means the judge can't direct the jury to bring in a guilty verdict no matter how damning the evidence is. Oh, the jury may realize how damning the evidence is and do the right thing by bring in said guilty verdict. But the judge can't order a guilty verdict any easier than you can get in to see the Great and Powerful Oz. That's, "not no how. Not no way," for those who forgot the line.
Even if the Constitution didn't forbid directed guilty verdicts in criminal trials, it would never happen. It would upset the cash flow and ruin the economy. After all, if the judges ordered the juries to bring in guilty verdicts, then we attorneys couldn't bribe the juries and they couldn't spend the money.
The second story that David sent me is "Jessica" which was reprinted in Vault of Evil # 8 (December, 1973). Unfortunately, I can't really comment on "Jessica." Yes, there is a short trial sequence in it, but it's so short that there wasn't enough room for errors. Besides, this story is too stupid to contemplate!
And speaking of too stupid to contemplate, David, there's no way on Mitra's green Earth that I'm even going to attempt to analyze the Pennsylvania sales tax law you sent me. I gave up sado-masochism for Lent. It felt so good, I decided to make it a permanent practice.
Bob Ingersoll
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