Eric the Blue

I used to think that law school must be pretty boring, but maybe not. As for the reading, it seems that sometimes even the footnotes to judicial decisions are enjoyable. For example, here is the text of a footnote to an appellate court’s opinion in U.S. v Murphy, 406 F.3d 857, 859 n.1 (7th Cir. 2005):

The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch bitch “hoe.” A “hoe,” of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden’s response. We have taken the liberty of changing “hoe” to “ho,” a staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps “You doin’ ho activities with ho tendencies.”

My attention was directed to this nugget by a lawyer who criticized the following actual tweet by Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice:

“Conservative” influencers, if you think you are “keeping the pressure on” or “winning” by spreading bullshit attacks on @realDonaldTrump’s hand-picked cabinet, you are NOT. You are earning money to spread disinformation. You are hoes. Learn an honest profession!

So there are at least a couple things “off” here:

1. The Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department should be too busy with civil rights to take time to help the president with his political messaging. (I trust the division chief knows that white people are having a hard time getting ahead these days.)
2. Though presumably a law school graduate, the tweeter is unable to distinguish standard-issue conservative influencers from a common gardening tool used for weeding.