With Breyer’s Exit, a Farewell to Marshmallow Guns and Tomato Children

In 2011, he requested whether or not he might receive a patent for locating a “regulation of nature” based mostly on the colour of individuals’s pinkies: “Should you have a look at an individual’s little finger, and also you discover the colour, it reveals the aspirin, you want somewhat extra,” he stated.

At a 2010 argument over whether or not housebreaking is a criminal offense of violence, Justice Breyer recommended that it needn’t all the time be.

“You’ve heard of cat burglars,” he stated. “Properly, this gentleman known as the Pussycat Burglar, and the reason being he’s by no means harmed a soul. He solely carries delicate pillows as weapons. If he sees a toddler, he provides them ice cream.”

There was laugher within the courtroom after Justice Breyer described the Pussycat Burglar, which was a typical response to his questions, stated Jay D. Wexler, a regulation professor at Boston College and the main empiricist of humor on the Supreme Courtroom. For years, Professor Wexler stated, Justice Breyer trailed solely Justice Antonin Scalia in courtroom reporters’ notations of “[laughter]” in transcripts of Supreme Courtroom arguments.

Since Justice Scalia’s dying in 2016, Professor Wexler stated, Justice Breyer has persistently ranked first. He added, although, that the info didn’t reveal the quantity or nature of the laughter.

In a pioneering 2005 research, Professor Wexler wrote that the easy notation “[laughter]” doesn’t separate “the real laughter led to by actually humorous or intelligent humor and the anxious sort of laughter that arises when one feels nervous or uncomfortable or simply plain scared for the nation’s future.”

“Breyer obtained most of his laughs from his usually lengthy, convoluted and inexplicable hypotheticals,” Professor Wexler stated on Friday. “Perhaps individuals have been laughing with him sooner or later earlier in his time on the bench, however towards the top I feel it was extra like, ‘Oh, there goes Breyer together with his lengthy, convoluted, inexplicable hypotheticals once more.’”