In a trial in a small Texas town, the prosecuting attorney called his first witness to the stand a grandmotherly, elderly woman.
He approached her and asked: ‘Mrs Jones, do you know me’?
‘Why, yes Mr Williams. I’ve known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you’ve been a big disappointment. You lie, cheat on your wife and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you’re a big shot when you haven’t the brains to realise that you will never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you’.
The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked: ‘Mrs Jones, do you know the defence attorney’?
She replied: ‘Why yes, I do. I’ve known Mr Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He’s lazy, bigoted and has a drinking problem. His law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. Yes, I know him’.
At this point, the judge called both attorneys to the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said: ‘if either of you asks her if she knows me, you’ll be jailed for contempt’!
Counsel: ‘By that time you were as drunk as a judge, weren’t you?’
Judge: Mr Smith, the usual expression is ‘as drunk as a lord’.
Counsel: ‘As your lordship pleases’.
Fortune teller: ‘Prepare yourself for a shock. Your husband is going to die a violent death within a year’.
Woman: ‘And will I be acquitted?’
Judge: ‘I am sentencing you to six months in prison’
Defendant: ‘Ha, I’ll do that standing on my head!’
Judge: ‘Then make that twelve months it will give you time to get back on your feet’.
A woman was suing her neighbour for slander and defamation of character. Under cross-examination, her counsel asked her to tell the Court exactly what words the neighbour had used. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, sir,’ protested the woman. ‘The things she said weren’t fit for any decent person to hear’.
‘All right’, said counsel. ‘Just come over here and whisper them to the judge’.
Marcia Charles
sylviasmith
MaDD