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For a copy of the program from Honors Day in 1987, click here! This was also provided courtesy of Ross Pringle.

Thanks to Ross Pringle, you can view The Jurist from 1987 - Click Here!

Judge William Wayne Justice passed away last week (and, yes, that really is his last name). He was, without a doubt, one of the most prolific federal district court judges of all time.

I was sad to hear of his passing because of an experience I had while I was a third year student at Texas Tech School of Law. Judge Justice was one of the judges for the final round of the Third Year Mock Trial Competition, in which Joe Lovell and I were finalists.

As was tradition, a reception was held after the final round of the competition, which Joe and I won. However, instead of having the reception somewhere nice, the Board of Barristers decided to host the event at a local Texas Tech bar, the “No Frills Bar and Grill.” (I think it was because the attorneys and judges never showed up for the receptions, so we decided to have it somewhere we liked to go.)

That was okay by me, because NFBG was one of my favorite hangouts. However, we were all surprised when Judge Justice showed up at the reception and had a few beers with the law students. I was even more surprised when Judge Justice personally complimented me on my performance and inquired about my plans after graduation.

The next morning, the Law School hosted an informal breakfast event with the judge, at which the students were able to ask questions. I asked Judge Justice which case was the toughest he had handled as a judge. Without hesitating, he said, “School desegregation. I would come into the courtroom, and all the white people were on one side of the courtroom and all the black people were on the other side. Nobody was happy, but it had to be done.”

Someone else asked about the most memorable case he had on the bench. Judge Justice related a story about some returning Vietnam veterans who had enrolled at Tyler Junior College and wanted to wear their hair long and who had challenged the constitutionality of the school’s hair length regulations. “So I struck ‘em down,” Judge Justice said of the hair length regulations. He added, “I could’ve read the Communist Manifesto on the town square and I wouldn’t have been any less popular.”

By that time in law school, I had already met a number of state and federal judges, but none left an impression on me like William Wayne Justice. He lived up to his name. 

Today, I went to the industrial section of town for some depositions at opposing counsel’s “office.” Turns out, it was a combination church/pre-school/adoption agency/law office. To get from the conference room to the bathroom, I had to negotiate the pre-schoolers in the hallway. Strange, but not too weird. But that’s where our story begins.

I also did not think too much of the fact that opposing counsel came into the conference room from his office down the hall wearing a fedora with a feather. Not a pimp-looking one, but a nice one . . . if you are taking a deposition in the midwest!

I did ask whether we might be expecting rain in the conference room, but not when the other attorney was in the room. I guess the point I am trying to make is that I did not do anything in his presence to upset the other attorney.

So . . . the deposition was limited by court order to a specific issue. After about 25 minutes of questions not on the issue, I finally objected on the ground that the question was outside the limited scope of discovery and advised the witness not to answer. Opposing counsel jumped to his feet and shouted that we were going to “have a hearing with the judge right now!” and that he was not putting up with my “sh*t,” and stormed out of the room.

I sat there. I’ve provoked more than one attorney in my life, but I had been nothing but nice and polite to this attorney. After he left, the videographer asked, in a deadpan voice, “Are we off the record?” I said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

So I went down the hall of the church/pre-school/adoption agency/law office looking for this attorney. I did not need to find him-he was storming down the hall toward me, shouting, and got into my face. He actually bumped my nose with his nose. I politely told him that I would appreciate it if he would get out of my face, given that he had just battered me. He told me that he would get into my face if he wanted to and stood there nose-to-nose. I did not move.

But, then, I snapped. I knew it would happen someday (as we all do). I did something I never thought I could do.

I leaned forward and gave the other attorney a peck on the cheek.

That’s right—I kissed him.

He stepped back slightly and looked shocked. Then he leaned in and gave me a kiss on the other cheek.

Totally diffused the situation.

Yesterday (September 9, 2009), while President Barack Obama was speaking to a joint session of Congress about health care reform, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, Joe Wilson of South Carolina, shouted “You lie!” while Obama was making the point that proposed health care reform legislation does not provide coverage for illegal immigrants. Later in the evening, Rep. Wilson released a written statement in which he apologized for the remark, stating “While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable.” Noticably absent from the statement, however, was exactly how he disagreed with the President, or an explanation of how disagreeing made the President a liar.

On my way to work this morning, a political commentator stated that the remark was just part of the “vigorous debate” on the issue of health care reform. Vigorous debate? I thought to myself, “Is he kidding?”

I was an intercollegiate debate coach for approximately seven years. “You lie!” is not vigorous debate. It is not debate at all. It is an insult. It is invective. It is pejorative. It is what small children say to each other when they cannot think of anything else. How, as Americans, have we come to recognize this as “debate?”

“Debate,” the verb, according to Merriam-Webster, is “to discuss a question by considering opposed arguments.” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/debate). Whether formal or informal, an identifying characteristic of debate it is a process which consists of arguments for or against a proposition or issue. In a seminal work (Uses of Argument) still taught to undergraduates, Professor Stephen Toulmin identified an argument in three parts: data, claim and warrant. The claim is the point the speaker is trying to make; the data is the information supporting the claim and the warrant, off the top of my head, is the reason why the particular data supports the claim.

Before you accuse me of hypocrisy, because President Obama used the word “lie,” moments before Rep. Wilson, let’s take a look at what Obama said: “Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims spread by those whose only agenda is to kill reform at any cost. The best example is the claim, made not just by radio and cable talk show hosts, but prominent politicians, that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. Such a charge would be laughable if it weren’t so cynical and irresponsible. It is a lie, plain and simple.”

Obama’s claim is that there are those willing to block health care reform and using any means to do so. In support of this claim, Obama used the rhetoric regarding “death panels.” His use of “lie,” was a claim of falsity of the rhetoric being used to block reform.However, using the same analysis on Rep. Wilson’s statement is more interesting. Is “You lie!” the claim or the data? If the claim is “you are lying about what the health care legislation says about coverage for illegal immigrants,” then where is the data to support the claim? It is not enough to say you “disagree.” Disagreement is not data; it is a fallacy. It is basically saying, “believe me and not him.”

What does the only health care reform bill in the House say about illegal immigrants? The bill’s exact language: “Nothing in this subtitle shall allow federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully in the United States.” Rep. Wilson can only “disagree” with President Obama because there is no data to support his argument.

Rep. Wilson’s actions, sadly, are indicative of the level of political discourse and lack of civility which dominates the media. Too often, we accept the position of “I disagree,” without any further challenge or explanation. In the case of our elected leaders, it’s an implicit form of an ad verecundiam fallacy—it’s true, because I say it’s true, even if the facts are overwhelmingly against the position. It’s kind of like challenging the place where someone is born.

At the point the only thing you can say is, “You lie!” or “Nazi!” or “Socialist!” there is no debate, only empty discourse. Not only are such statements not debate, they are, in reality, an effort to block or drown out real debate. The childishness of such behavior is astounding—to paraphrase comedian Mike Birbiglia, it’s like the class clown whose response to everything is, “You’re fat! you’re gay! I’m outta here!”

Before opening his mouth, Rep. Wilson should have heeded one of my mother’s favorite expressions: “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”