Funniest Justices

Jay Wexler, a colleague of Randy Barnett at Boston University law school, has compiled the first study of how funny each Supreme Court justice is. He did so by counting up the number of times each one of them said something that provoked laughter during oral arguments in the 2004-2005 term. And to no one's surprise, Justice Scalia led the way:

Justice Antonin Scalia's wit is widely admired, and now it has been quantified. He is, a new study concludes, 19 times as funny as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg...

Justice Scalia was the funniest justice, at 77 "laughing episodes." On average, he was good for slightly more than one laugh - 1.027, to be precise - per argument.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer was next, at 45 laughs. Justice Ginsburg produced but four laughs. Justice Clarence Thomas, who rarely speaks during arguments, gave rise to no laughter at all.

A wit would perhaps suggest that Justice Thomas doesn't tell jokes because he once made a wisecrack about a pubic hair on a Coke and it caused no end of trouble. But I wouldn't suggest such a thing. Scalia is known for his gregarious sense of humor, so it's not a surprise that he leads the way. So did you hear the one about the state judge who used a penis pump under his robe during court sessions?

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But Professor Wexler said he had decided not to pursue laughter-per-question research.

"That's not going to happen," he said. "Unless I get a grant."

I can think of worse research grants. I'd love to see historical data on this; the transcripts don't identify the justice by name before last year, but all arguments have been recorded since the Warren court. Surely someone can recognize the voices...
My favorite Court moment has always been this quote from Jay Topkis in Edwards v Aguillard:

... I'd like to take as my starting point Justice Frankfurter's dictum that when there's some uncertainty about the legislative history, it's not forbidden to look at the plain language of the statute.
[laughter]

As the article says, what's funny to law geeks isn't quite what is funny to normal people. :)

He did so by counting up the number of times each one of them said something that provoked laughter during oral arguments in the 2004-2005 term.

Maybe people are laughing at Scalia's words for reasons other than his being funny.

Maybe Scalia could do stand-up comedy for broadcast on the Comedy Channel. I, for one, am not interested in his wit (or his half wit, for that matter).

I am more interested in his jurisprudence, which I find severely lacking. On the other hand, it really doesn't matter. Scalia is just one more datum point that court appointees are nothing more than political appointees.

As most of my readers know, I have something of a love/hate relationship with Scalia. I find him quite fascinating and extraordinarily bright, and of all the justices he is the one I would most like to know in real life. On the other hand, I disagree with a great deal of his jurisprudence, some of it quite strongly. And in the end, I consider him a "fake" originalist.