BY
Kiwi Camara. Lawrence VanDyke. Mary Ann Glendon.
This was the Ames panel that affronted the 1L Fenno, in his fresh pinstriped suit. And just Fenno’s luck, he was arguing against a state’s right to strike openly gay jurors from the jury pool. “What a lovely panel for the argument,” Fenno thought: “they all look so nice and clean-cut. I’m sure they’re sympathetic.”1
Fenno turned to his co-counsel Mr. Fubar, who was presenting first on the issue of 4th Amendment roadblocks. “Dude, no practitioner? That sucks; they’re always willing to take up at least half your time “asking” questions. We’re actually going to have to talk here. Man.” Fubar nudged his side and Fenno turned to see Lawrence VanDyke towering over him.
“Don’t worry Fenno – I’ve been appointed honorary professional status by the administration, and I have plenty of hot air to share. Maybe you saw my brilliant article on the rebirth of intelligent design in the Harvard Law Review, hmmm?”
“Article? I thought only professors…”
“Bah! Book review, whatever.”
“Uh, book reviews don’t make you famous. They don’t even have your name on it.”
“Watch it, Fenno. I’ll have you squashed like a bug. I’m famous because I did a book note the right way – used it as a platform for my own twisted views of academia, just like a professor would. And besides, I posted my authorship online immediately so everyone would know it was me. Look out Mary Ann, I’m coming for your job!” Mary Ann Glendon giggled coquettishly and swiped at Lawrence. “Oh, you.”
Kiwi rapped at his desk. “This networking is all very touching, but perhaps we could move on to humiliating Mr. Fenno forthwith. I would enjoy that immensely.” Shamed, Lawrence and Professor Glendon stopped flirting and took their seats. They all slipped into the black robes hung over the backs of their Austin North chairs, “my great-granddaddy wasn’t a monkey” notably embroidered into the back of Lawrence’s robe. Kiwi, emulating Rehnquist, instead had three white bars – or were they K’s? – stitched onto his shoulder. Mary Ann, preferring simplicity, had simply added a nun’s wimple to her costume. Judge Camara nodded with pleasure at Mr. Fubar and told him to begin, maniacally starting the stopwatch.
Fenno watched as the nervous Fubar began his argument. Hmm, nice policy, yeah search and seizure, all about drawing lines even in a time of terrorism, blahbittyblah… Until Fenno was startled out of his legal nap by a gasp from Mary Ann Glendon. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fubar, you’ll have to repeat those last facts,” she whispered hoarsely.
Fubar cleared his throat. “Appellant is a prominent gay politician who was stopped at a roadblock, where a police officer found a brick of cocaine under the seat. However, appellant maintains that the cocaine was placed in his car during a week of routine auto maintenance…”
“Well, Mr. Fubar, I feel that an early and massive hurdle to this appeal will be convincing the court that this brick of cocaine was in use not by a goofball-popping gayboy, but by some honest, hard-working blue-collar Americans, whom I will assume for normative purposes are white. How do you maintain any credibility before this court?”
Fenno chuckled. This was way better than he expected – he would’ve gone to FYL all year if only the mooting had been like this (well, maybe). Fubar, openly sweating already, stammered. “The merits of his defense aren’t on appeal, rather the constitutionality of the roadblock-“
“Yes, but if we know that the roadblock stopped at least one hepped-up homo, we would be inclined to approve it, based on results-oriented judging. Which we like,” Judge VanDyke interjected. “Can we still increase his sentence? Is that available to us?”
“Would that it were!” Judge Glendon tittered. “Especially since with all his homowealth, there’s no end to the coke he could buy! They’re all rich, you know. Regardless, Mr. Fubar, your time is up.”
“But, I just started! I have 12 and a half minutes!”
“Yes, but I am a lady and I have heard enough of this filth – I know it when I see it. And trust me, young man, should you ever appear before the Supreme Court, which I doubt very highly based on your early choice of politics and Ames partner, Justice Scalia wouldn’t stand for this disgusting homosexual agenda of yours, either. Please sit.”
Kiwi literally glowed in the beauty of Glendon’s cruelty. He sat rapt for a moment, enjoying her white wisdom, and then restarted the stopwatch. “Mr. Fenno?”
Fenno stepped up to the podium and began: “Your honors, I share the same facts and pro-gay argument as my partner, which I was forced into by BSA. As you have already deemed this topic inappropriate, I ask that I be excused from oral argument at this time.” Fenno crossed his fingers as he looked down at his beer-soaked crayon notes about what he presumed to be jury selection: most Ames research had been done during a blackout.
“You say you were forced into it by the secular educational system. By whom?” Lawrence asked.
“Our BSA instructors Frumkin and Basile, Judge VanDyke.” Fenno smiled insipidly. Glendon scribbled down the names furiously, shaking her head in dismay.
“And they inserted this gay propaganda into your entire section’s assignment?
“Yes.”
“And was there an alternate choice of case on creationism or the beauty of our creator?”
“No – in fact, Ms. Basile noted that such discussions of the religious undertones were best avoided in this case.”
“ARRRRgh. I’m going to intelligently redesign that bitch’s face!”
Kiwi nodded and smiled at nothing in a vaguely predatory manner. “So that I am not deprived of a legal argument, could you summarize briefly for me your position, without so many references to slimy gays?”
“Uhh, yes.” Fenno fumbled to make some sense out of the chicken scratchings. “Essentially, er…the government can’t strike black people from juries. Ah, it says here – or women. Um, we propose to extend these Batson protections to homosexuals.”
With a thud, Mary Ann Glendon slipped to the floor, her wimple rolling dramatically down the aisle of Austin towards Fenno.
“Good thing I brought my fainting fan!” Lawrence shouted, and began fanning Glendon lovingly until she sat up, dazed.
Red and full of blame, Judge Glendon’s face slowly appeared above the desk. She steadied herself into a chair, and reassuringly fingered her papal necklace. “I sit in judgment upon you, Fubar and Fenno. And my judgment is not good. You are both sinners – and trust me, I have that on the highest authority. If the nazis told the Nuremberg trial court that their BSA instructors had put them up to it, should we have let them go? If Ames allowed for flunking, you’d both be out on your rear ends – forgive me, Jesus, for swearing. Please neither of you take a class with me ever. I need a rest; Lawrence, will you be kind enough to escort me upstairs?”
Kiwi whipped out a stack of paper. “I have some comments on your briefs…”
Lawrence put a hand on his shoulder as he got up to help Mary Ann. “Don’t bother, Kiwi. Maybe some people really are descended from monkeys.” He looked down with contempt at Fenno and Fubar and turned his embroidered back to them.
Footnotes:
1. Unbeknownst to our nervous 1L Fenno, the impeccable Kiwi had started the racial shitstorm of 2002: sympathetic isn’t a term most 3Ls would use after “Kiwi” in a word-association game. And the other two – well, they’re both the current ivory tower poster children of the right, legitimizing creationism and the role of women in the subordinating Catholic church. A gay exception to peremptory strikes? Simply part of the homosexual agenda’s attempt to strangulate the justice system. No, thank you. And BSA thought the case would be a tough one. Ha.