Fun and games at the US Supreme Court

A new study published in the Communication Law Review entitled 'People Did Sometimes Stick Things in my Underwear': The Function of Laughter at the U.S. Supreme Court finds that Justice Scalia is the funniest justice on the bench. Justice Breyer and Chief Justice Roberts round out the top three. The study, conducted by a Texas litigation consultant, analyzed court transcripts in both print and audio formats to find where and when the court laughed. The jokes weren’t only at the expense of terrified attorneys standing before the court either – Justices also poked fun at each other, governmental institutions and agencies, and themselves. The ABA Journal highlights one of these events with the following statement made by Justice Breyer (and where the title of the study comes from). “In my experience when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, you know, we did take our clothes off once a day, we changed for gym, okay? And in my experience, too, people did sometimes stick things in my underwear—(Laughter). Or not my underwear. Whatever. Whatever. I was the one who did it? I don’t know.”

It’s comforting to know the Justices, in their seats of power, can have a good laugh.