Collage 138               H u m o u r N e t               16 SEP 95

Recently announced: P.M. Products of California is offering
"Courtroom Candy"--the latest attempt to merchandize the O.J.
Simpson case. The candy will be offered in several different
flavors, each one a likeness of one of the courtroom celebrities.
P.M. Products says that the candies will be as realistic as
possible; for example:

	* Marcia Clark candies will have nails in the center
	* Jonny Cochran candies will feature a Pinnochio-like nose
	* F. Lee Bailey candies will have a yummy Vermouth center

One more in a series of non sequiturs: the defense decided to not
rest their case last week because they need to bring more witnesses
before the jury now that Judge Ito has ruled that the Fuhrman tapes
cannot be heard as evidence. On closer inspection, however, the
defense's tactics truly are brilliant: they know their client is
guilty as h*ll, and if he's convicted he'll get the death sentence,
so they're going to drag out the trial until O.J. dies a natural
death.

And, to celebrate the defense's decision to not rest their case this
week, Collage 138 features yet another update on "The O.J. Trial:
The Adventure Continues," followed by a whole host of lawyer and
law-related jokes from around the 'Net.

Hey, it's better than watching the trial ... :-)

- Vince Sabio
  HumourNet Moderator
  HumourNet@telephonet.com
____________________________________________________________________
          Opener (above) Copyright 1995 by Vincent Sabio
  Permission is hereby granted to forward or post this "Collage";
  please observe the guidelines stated at the end of the message.
____________________________________________________________________

SUBJ: O.J. Trial Update

The defense objected to the showing of video tape with OJ wearing
gloves similar to the ones found at the crime scene. Defense
attorney claim that "Prosecutors are once again trying to turn the
Fuhrman case into the Simpson case."

"Internal Affairs," the 1990 thriller starring Richard Gere as a
corrupt, brutal LA cop is being re-released--this time, as a
documentary.

Anthropologists are examining the DNA of a recently discovered 4
million year old man. DNA tests confirm that all races of man have
a common ancestor in Africa. Boy, this just hasn't been Mark
Fuhrman's week.

A very special episode of "ER" was on last week. The emergency room
doctors operated for seven hours trying to remove Mark Fuhrman's
head from his a**.

In his tapes with Laura Hart McKinney, Mark Fuhrman says cops are
gods. This may turn out to be true ... seems like he's going to be
crucified.

Dove Books Publishers didn't buy Laura Hart McKinney's tapes of
Fuhrman because "they didn't even pass the smell test as being
anything close to literature." Right, and their (Dove Books') "I
Want To Tell You" by OJ Simpson just REEKS of literature at its best.

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

Q: How do you get a lawyer out of a tree?
A: Cut the rope.

Q: What do you call 5,000 lawyers tied together at the bottom of
   the Atlantic Ocean?
A: A good start.

Q: What do lawyers and sperm have in common?
A: Only one in two mllion everr does anything productive.

Q: What's the difference between a lawyer and a leech?
A: A leech withers and falls off after the body has died.

Q: What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer?
A: One is a bottom-feeding, scum-sucking scavenger, and the other
   is a fish.

Q: Why are all the chemical-waste sites in New Jersey, and all the
   lawyers in New York?
A: Because New Jersey got to choose.

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

Hottest new book:

Men are from Mars
Women are from Venus
Lawyers are from Uranus

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

* Defense lawyer Paul Fernandez, explaining in a Paterson, N.J.,
court in March why his client, a 14-year-old boy, might have
sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl: They were "two kids who had
nothing better to do. They don't have cable TV, what do you do?"
[Newark Star-Ledger, 3-9-95]

* Kingston, Ontario, city councilman Dave Meers, at an April council
meeting in which he argued the uselessness of inviting candidates
for the provincial legislature to appear before the council to give
their platforms: "We all know that all politicians are liars,
including ourselves." [Sault Star-CP, 5-4-95]

* In February, federal prison inmate Rodney Curtis Hamrick, 29, was
charged with threatening the life of President Clinton from behind
bars. Hamrick was originally imprisoned in the mid-1980s, with a
modest sentence, for writing bad checks. Since then, for expressing
his dissatisfaction about his trial, he has had about 50 years added
to his sentence for threatening President Reagan, the judge who
sentenced him, and his prosecutors, and building five small fire
bombs while in prison and mailing two of them to the prosecutors.
[Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, 2-15-95]

* In April, Stephen Gordon, 37, was sentenced to almost six years in
prison in Denver, Colo., for stalking a woman. According to his
lawyer, Gordon's contacts with the 27-year-old victim were just
coincidences. Gordon had pursued the woman first in Scottsdale,
Ariz., where he was discovered hiding underneath her car (looking
for a bird's nest, he said); when she moved to Denver in 1993,
Gordon moved there, too, and eventually moved into her apartment
complex, where he was discovered in the crawl space underneath her
apartment after allegedly boring holes into the woman's bathroom
(trying to trace a mysterious noise, he said). [Arizona
Republic-SHNS, 3-14-95]

* In May police in Prince William County, Va., and Clearwater, Fla.,
dejectedly perused law books to find crimes with which to charge men
whom they believed to be peeping Toms. Police in Virginia said
James Harrison Burdick, 23, had rigged a ladder to look into a high
school girls' locker room, but state law makes it illegal only to
peep into a dwelling, not a public building. Police in Florida said
that Fred J. Dohring, 50, held a video camera under a stall in a
coed beach changing room but that the only surreptitious taping that
is illegal is audiotaping. [Washington Post, 5-17-95; St.
Petersburg Times, 6-1-95]

* Tucson, Ariz., lawyer Howard Baldwin filed a lawsuit in February
against the local electric company, charging that meter reader Chuck
Leon literally frightened his poodle, Jasmine, to death. According
to Baldwin, when Jasmine saw Leon in the back yard, she crashed into
a glass door, "involuntarily urinated," then escaped out the rear
gate. She was found dead the next day, allegedly of exhaustion.
[Arizona Daily Star, 2-24-95]

LITIGIOUS PRISONERS

* The attorneys general of New York and Minnesota recently announced
their states' "top 10" lists of frivolous lawsuits. New York
prisoners have filed lawsuits alleging a defective haircut by the
prison barber, improper "white" towels instead of "beige," and an
ice cream dessert that was largely melted. Minnesota inmates have
filed lawsuits demanding damages for being provided an improper
variety of beans on the menu, a lack of salsa, a surfeit of bologna,
and underwear that was too tight ("cruel and unusual punishment").
One Minnesota inmate said his primary purpose in filing his lawsuit
was "pure delight in spending taxpayers' money."[N. Y. Post,
6-13-95] [St. Paul Pioneer Press, 3-25-95]

* In Indiana, a soon-to-take-effect law will allow prison officials
to deny good-time credit to prisoners who file frivolous lawsuits.
Among Indiana's most frivolous pending lawsuits is one asking
damages because meat and vegetables were served somewhat mixed
together on a dinner plate. [USA Today, 5-12-95]

* In Idaho in April, three inmates filed a $10.7 million lawsuit
against Cassia County because jail guards failed to give them
late-night snacks. [USA Today, 4-24-95]

* A public employees' union in Ontario, among whose members are
prison guards who staged a walkout in 1989, agreed in February to
pay 11 hospitalized criminals $45,000 for their having been
"inconvenienced" during the labor dispute. The leader of the 11,
psychotic murderer Michael Krueger, got $2,250. [Edmonton
Journal-Ottawa Citizen, 2-10-95]

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

The receptionist at the lawyers office answers her phone, "Johnson
and Lewis, attorneys at law."

"Let me speak with Mr. Johnson please," said the caller.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Johnson passed away in his sleep last night,"
replied the receptionist.

A few minutes later, she receives another call from what sounds like
the same caller.

"May I speak with Mr. Johnson please?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but Mr. Johnson died in his sleep last night."

When the phone rings for the third time, the receptionist hears the
same voice.

"May I speak with Mr. Johnson please?"

"Sir, I don't know what you're up to, but I recognize your voice and
I've already told you twice that Mr. Johnson died in his sleep last
night!" snapped the receptionist.

"I know, I'm sorry, I can't help myself," said the caller, "I just
love hearing you say it over and over again."

========================[ H U M O U R N E T ]=======================

Pierre was celebrating his silver wedding anniversary, and while all
were unrestrainedly merry over the ample liquor provided by the
host, Pierre himself remained in the corner, nursing a drink and
following one of the guests with baleful eyes.

A friend noticed this strange action, all the more strange on so
happy an occasion, and said, "At whom are you glaring, Pierre my
friend?"

"At my lawyer, may his soul rot."

"But why are you so angry with him?"

"It is a sad tale. After I had been married ten years, I decided I
had had enough and that the cleanest solution would be to kill my
wife. Painlessly, of course, for I am no monster. Being a
methodical man, I approached my lawyer--that one there--and asked
him of the possible consequences. He told me that whereas killing a
husband is, here in France, a mere misdemeanor, killing a wife is a
felony, and that even with a most skillful defense, I would have to
count on fifteen years in jail. He urged me not to do it and I let
myself be guided by his advice."

"Well, then, why are you angry?"

"Because," said Pierre, "if I had not listened to his stupid advice,
today I would have been a free man at last."

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