There goes my site’s “G” rating! Probably means you won’t be able to visit my site from a school or public library web site anymore! Oh well…
The Smoking Gun’s 2003 Legal Document of the Year Award goes to a zealous public defender:
The boy’s troubles started when he was confronted at school by a vice principal who suspected that he had been smoking in the boys bathroom. When presented to the principal, the kid exploded, cursing the administrator with some variants of the “F” word. … Faced with what he thought was a speech crime, Eric Vanatta, the teen’s public defender, drafted the below motion to dismiss the misdemeanor charge. The District Court document is an amusing and profane look at the world’s favorite four-letter word, from its origins in 1500 to today’s frequent use of the term by Eminem, Chris Rock, and Lenny Kravitz.
I can’t easily quote the document itself because it is presented as a series of 9 image files. Hopefully someone will make it all machine readable, I don’t have time… But it is fun reading. Personally I find the student’s use of another “f-word” to refer to the administrator’s sexual orientation much more offensive than his using “fuck.” I remember one or two instances where I cursed at my teachers in junior high school. One time a teacher was trying to force me to continue to rock climb (he was holding the rope) even though my arms lacked the strength to go any further. Only when I started cursing at him did he let me down. He was upset, but certainly didn’t press any charges!
In a separate, but related story, Talk Left reports that some states are starting to make people pay for their public defender!
And of course, there is another “F-word” I’ve been arguing everyone should be using a little more.
UPDATE: Here is the entry in the Wikipedia referenced in the court documents.
