The Funniest Justice, weeks 7 and 8: What happens in Vegas…
During oral arguments last week, Justice Stephen Breyer was trying to come up with a formula to ensure that jury selection processes don’t end up excluding minorities from the pool.
“I even got a book called: ‘Statistician For Lawyers,’” Breyer said. “That didn’t help me very much.”
Without missing a beat, Justice Antonin Scalia jumped in.
“That’s why Las Vegas makes a profit, right?” Scalia quipped, drawing laughs from the courtroom crowd.
Two more weeks of oral arguments have wrapped up since we last took the tally of The Funniest Justice standings. And a review of oral argument transcript laughs shows that Scalia turned the funny on full blast during the month of January.
Scalia padded his lead significantly with a whopping 17 laugh-inducing comments made from the bench. Just Stephen Breyer – quite funny in his own right – made the crowd giggle 8 times this month, while Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. drew 4 laughs.
Here are the standings as of now:
Justice Antonin Scalia: 45
Justice Stephen Breyer: 26
Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.: 17
Justice Anthony Kennedy: 6
Justice John Paul Stevens: 2
Justice Samuel Alito: 3
Justice Clarence Thomas: 0 (Thomas has remained silent during oral arguments since Feb. 22, 2006, although he often laughs heartily at other justices’ jokes)
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 0
Justice Sonia Sotomayor: 0





[...] part of the process? At the very least, it means that Justice Thomas does not score very well in D.C. Dicta’s Funniest Justice tally. Let us know what you [...]