In my blog roll off to the right under “Legally Humorous” sits a link to Say What?, a little Texas law blog from US District Court Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, who died Monday at 76.
But I didn’t add him to my blog roll and RSS feed to read about Texas law. I tuned in because he had a great collection of trial and deposition snippets that, when you read them, were sure to lift your day. And to warn you about engaging the mouth before engaging the brain.
Oddly enough, though he died Monday, he has a post dated today (reprised from 2001). So somewhere up in the Great Beyond, Judge Buchmeyer must be laughing a little. And as long as Judge Buchmeyer continues to post, I’ll continue to keep him in my blog roll.
One sample from the blog looks like this:
Q. Do you know how much money?
A. No, not specifically.
Q. You recall testifying as to a seven or $800,000 figure concerning Roseneath yesterday?
A. Whatever the record said.
Q. You recall discussing a seven or $800,000 contribution to GRI by Roseneath?
A. And I said whatever the record said.
Q. You don’t recall that right now?
A. I said whatever the record said.
Q. That’s not responsive. Do you recall?
A. Read my lips.
Q. Read mine. Do you recall?
A. Look at me again, read them real careful.
Q. And read my lips carefully –
Mr. Butler (wisely): All right. Gentlemen, I guess that’s about enough of this.
It’s easy to watch an hour disappear just roaming through his archives reading some of the transcripts that people had sent him over the years.
You can read some of the obituaries, that focus on his judge-life as opposed to his blog-life, here:
WSJ Law Blog;
ABA Journal;
Box Turtle Bulletin;
Tex Parte Blog;
Pegasus News;
Legal Blog Watch