Back in 2106 a man in Ohio lampooned local law enforcement on Facebook. He was arrested, his home searched, and ultimately he was found not guilty of “disrupting public services” at trial. He then sued the police for violating his constitutional rights and his lawsuit was dismissed. He appealed and the Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal. He is now asking the SCOTUS to take the case, and The Onion filed this amicus brief in support. Enjoy.

I enjoyed that immensely, thanks.

Its a brilliant and dense piece of writing, and upon completion, I'm not really certain if its a true filing!

Excellent!

Thanks for sharing. God Bless

After reading this, the rest was just gravy.

"The Onion is the world’s leading news publication,
offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news
events."

Jim

I have been a litigation attorney for 42 years. I wish I had the opportunity and ability to write something like this.

.

After reading the Amicus brief, I wanted to see if that was actually filed or a spoof. So, I checked for myself:
www.SupremeCourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/22-293.html

The Amicus brief was filed by the Onion on October 3rd and not accepted for filing on October 6th.

I wonder why the SCOTUS rejected it?

The Certificate of Word Count posted with the brief contains a Certificate of Compliance that the brief met all of the legal requirements for filing with the SCOTUS.

.

quote:

I wonder why the SCOTUS rejected it?

That's an excellent question. I thought P.J. O'Rourke's brief in Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus was funnier and (in some ways) better written, but this brief was obviously well researched, well considered, directly on point, and submitted by a party that one could reasonably think had a sufficient stake in the outcome to deserve to be heard.

I can only suppose the Court found an abstract discussion of "truthyness" to be both more absorbing and more compelling than a fairly straightforward explication of parody. Well, either that or O'Rourke (RIP) was a better writer than some lawyer in Michigan.