Justice Stevens: a memory I am posting this separately because the thread of my post on Justice Stevens got exceedingly long and I don’t recall anyone posting on his presiding over a fictional “In rem” proceeding at the Supreme Court on the Authorship issue. I don’t recall the year, but it must have been in the 1990s. The Lawyers’ Guild of the Shakespeare Theater sponsored a debate in the form of an “in rem“ proceeding, something that doesn’t require meeting a certain burden of proof, the problem in the 3-judge 1987 mock trial at Metropolitan Church near American University. A putative bag of gold coins with a note saying “The Author’s proceeds from a production of Hamlet” was found at a London excavation site. To whom should it go? The heirs of Oxford or William of Stratford? An expert witness for each side—my late friend Joe Sobran for Oxford and Professor Larry Danson of Princeton for Stratford took the witness box. Lawyers for both sides examined and cross-examined each and gave summations. The proceeding was held in an appellate courtroom of the Court. We adjourned for dinner in the Main Hall of the Supreme Court, where we were supposed to discuss the case over dinner. At my table I had Justices Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and their spouses, another couple, and one of the lawyers for Oxford (she is now Dean of the University of Richmond Law School.) Ginsburg sat opposite me and kept smoothing the tablecloth away from her with both hands, her head with huge glasses and tightly pulled back hair barely above the table it seemed to me. She began the conversation with,”If Shakespeare had been a woman, we wouldn’t have even heard of her.” I tried to get the conversation more on topic, but her husband intervened with a gruff voice, “I’ll tell you who, wrote Shakespeare! Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare!” followed by guffaws. He evidently thought this so clever that he repeated it several other times during the meal with the same gusto. Later, Justice Ginsburg told about a trip she made to Cambridge University the summer before to deliver an address and she got to visit the rooms of Virginia Woolf. “They had none of the amenities of the men’s rooms,” she remarked. I’m sad to say, the relevant discussion did not proceed far. At the end of dinner, twelve names were picked out of a hat to be the jury. Our table-mate, Justice Ginsburg was one of the chosen. We retired to another room for dessert buffet style and stand up. I went to speak to Professor Danson. I could tell he did not know what hit him in Joe Sobran. He sort of whimpered about both Macbeth and The Tempest being written after the death of Edward de Vere. I counted with evidence disputing this, which he seemed unfamiliar with. We were then called into the courtroom where the jury presented its finding. It was a hung jury. In unofficial remarks from the bench. Justice Stevens remarked that he generally went with jury decisions, but he thought the Oxford side definitely won I drove Joe Sobran home to Virginia afterwards. He was upset over the ignorance of some of the lawyers. (One kept calling the First Folio the First Portfolio!) He also was surprised how unprepared on the issue his opposing expert witness seemed. Tantae molis erat et est mutare paradigma!
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 13:43:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015