Happens at the Lege, too -- about once a day, I hear someone refer to the monetary impact report on a bill as the "physical note".

Inmate wrote a letter to the judge asking him to reconsider his sentence and send him to "Safe Pete."

My old court clerk said that a domestic violence victim called the clerk's office and wanted to know where she could go to fill out "an Act of David."

Eons ago in McLennan County, I tried a few DWIs against an old attorney who (intentionally) described the HGN test as the Horizontal Gaze Nasturtium test. (As Dave Barry says, I am not making this up!). Happily, I came out of the trials with him smelling like a rose. That attorney, may he rest in peace, is now pushing up daisies.

How about, "I got off my patrol vehicle....I could smell a strong odor of burnt marijuana admitting from the vehicle."

My dad, a now retired former Harris Co. prosecutor in the 60's and a criminal defense attorney thereafter, always referred to the HGN during his trials as "the Hocus Focus Test".

The next time I conversate on the subject of malaprops and general butchery of the English language, I hope I can remember all of these.

If you talk about this forum, you will be an accomplished witness.

Xpecially if there is blood splatter.

Not to mention those questions the Court no longer needs to decide because they are "mute".

I just have to keep this thread going: Then there was the lawyer who urged admission of a document under the "rule of optimum completeness"

The one I used to hear a lot . . . "Please don't provoke my probation."

Now that I left probation work to attend law school, I can't understand why law professors are always instructing us on exams to "show urinalysis."

My office mate was prepping grand jury cases and ran across this gem:

"Suspect was very unincorporative. . . "

(I guess he hadn't paid his corporate taxes)

In one police report, we had one victim who was beaten with a 4 foot "broad"!

A lawyer recently sent me a letter requesting the return of seized funds because there "is no connexity between the money and drugs." Since the lawyer was from Louisiana, I even checked Black's dictionary on that one, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

From a recent jail-mail letter I recieved from an inmate:
"On 3-27-98 I was convicted in your court for the offense of Intoxicated Manslaughter after a plea of No Context"

Okay, here's my contribution... A caseworker recently called and said that a pervert she was dealing with wanted to take a lie detective test. Is that a test given by a perjury investigator????????????

The defendant stopped reporting on his probation in part beacause "All she ever did was threaten to revocate me."

Running the risk of "perforating a stereo-tight," why do we never get humor like this in the appellate section of the forum?

The deffered affudification is usually the best compromise when there is no way my speedthermometer was that high.