What’s With the Hockey Parenthetical?
Law enforcement officers, like Supreme Court Justices, are more akin to baseball umpires than to hockey referees. So says the Chief Justice, anyway, who seems to have an affinity for sports similes. See the odd insertion in the penultimate paragraph of his opinion in Brigham City today. [Note to all you antepenultimatists out there: I'm not counting the disposition sentence-cum-paragraph.]
Ann Althouse asks: Why hockey? (Her readers offer answers in the Comments section.)
[UPDATE: In her update, Althouse also ponders why the Chief Justice all-of-a-sudden lapsed into a screenwriter's present tense in the final sentence of this paragraph:
The officers were responding, at 3 o’clock in the morning, to complaints about a loud party. As they approached the house, they could hear from within “an altercation occurring, some kind of a fight.” App. 29. “It was loud and it was tumultuous.” Id., at 33. The officers heard “thumping and crashing” and people yelling “stop, stop” and “get off me.” Id., at 28, 29. As the trial court found, “it was obvious that … knocking on the front door” would have been futile. Id., at 92. The noise seemed to be coming from the back of the house; after looking in the front window and seeing nothing, the officers proceeded around back to investigate further. They found two juveniles drinking beer in the backyard. From there, they could see that a fracas was taking place inside the kitchen. A juvenile, fists clenched, was being held back by several adults. As the officers watch, he breaks free and strikes one of the adults in the face, sending the adult to the sink spitting blood.
Are these the Chief's ways of giving we Court-watchers [sic: should be "us" -- thanks, Ann!] something to talk about on a light decision day?]
In his bench summary, Chief Justice Roberts dropped the hockey parenthetical and referred only to boxing referees.
Comment by Ken Jost — May 22, 2006 @ 5:56 pm
In his bench summary, Chief Justice Roberts dropped the hockey parenthetical and referred only to boxing referees.
Comment by Ken Jost — May 22, 2006 @ 5:58 pm
Roberts seems to have a colorful/playful side, as shown in the FAIR case, and will drop little asides like this to keep things interesting.
Comment by Joe — May 22, 2006 @ 6:37 pm
Hockey is a Canadian sport. This doesn’t bode well for the Chief’s attitudes towards citation of foreign authority.
Comment by Steve M — May 22, 2006 @ 7:06 pm
Actually, the Chief Justice is wrong. In hockey, it’s the linesman’s job to break up fights, not the referee’s.
Comment by r.friedman — May 23, 2006 @ 10:32 am
Americans don’t play hockey?
Comment by Simon — May 23, 2006 @ 9:58 pm
One minor point: was not the “penultimate” paragraph of the Chief’s opinion.
Comment by BernieK — May 24, 2006 @ 7:14 am
My guess is that the CJ agrees whole hog with Stevens concurrence, and wanted to show what that this “flyspeck” warrants only a few pages, and provides ample opportunity for hilarious parantheticals. I hope Stevens releases the email jokes that almost certainly exchanged chambers during the drafting of this decision after retirement. My predictions:
1) Presidential Debate moderators
2) Marriage Counselors
3) WWE Smackdown
4) Oprah Winfrey ca. 1990.
5) John McCain
Comment by Peter CB — May 24, 2006 @ 4:10 pm
My guess is that Chief Justice considered writing this opinion a waste of his time so he asigned it to a clerk, and then missed the tense error.
Comment by Rexusnexus — May 24, 2006 @ 5:22 pm
Unlike many sports, in hockey the linesmen will generally let an evenly matched fight continue until one or both skaters have hit the ice. Typically the combatants will grapple with each other and when one is tired of the fight (or losing badly) he’ll hit the ice, at which point the linesmen will try to seperate them. Thus, hockey is the only major sport (football, basketball, baseball, etc) where the officiating crew will officially allow willing combatants to fight without disruption.
Comment by SLS07 — May 25, 2006 @ 6:26 pm