Two people arrested for telling lawyer joke

zanne sends ” this from MSNBC.com . Two people were arrested outside a Long Island (NY) courthouse for — get this — telling lawyer jokes. Not totally on topic for us librarians, but way too funny, and sad, to pass up. Plus, I dunno about your library, but if people were telling librarian jokes outside our library, we’d be the first ones to join in!”

January 14, 2005 by rochelle Uncategorized 5

AshtabulaGuy says:

January 14, 2005 at 1:18 am

A Rule of Thumb
If you are pushing for more open access to courts, do not bait judges with even the most remote grounds to jail you on contempt charges. A story like that blows my mind. Why? I can think of judges who would have hit those folks with “offending the court’s dignity” contempt charges much more early on.

I am not sure how sympathy plays in this scenario…

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djfiander says:

January 14, 2005 at 2:05 am

Re:A Rule of Thumb
Well, if they’d been sitting in the gallery in the courtroom telling jokes, yeah, they’d deserve contempt charges. But they weren’t even in the building, but “waiting in line to enter the courthouse” (my guess would be to go through security screening). So, telling lawyer jokes in the town square (roughly) is a misdemeanor.

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Samantha says:

January 14, 2005 at 2:52 am

This joke covers both situations
Q: What happens when you cross a librarian and a lawyer?
A: You get all the information you want, but you can’t understand any of it!
(from http://www.librarybooks4u.com/jokes.html

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Redcardlibrarian says:

January 14, 2005 at 4:15 am

Re:A Rule of Thumb
And what is really ironic, is that I’ve heard the best lawyer jokes from lawyers. Maybe the librarian in MS was trying to avoid a disturbing the peace charge by banning Stewart’s book?

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shambolic57 says:

January 14, 2005 at 7:03 am

Re:A Rule of Thumb
If lawyers tell the best lawyer jokes then maybe it was an issue of copyright violation ??

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