The Volokh Conspiracy

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Funny Oral Argument Moments

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


In my Persuasion class, we started with clips from oral arguments, and one was the famous "orthogonal" exchange, at 21:54 in Briscoe v. Virginia (2010)—instructive, but also a bit amusing.

A student asked if I could recommend some other funny exchanges, or perhaps exchanges that the participants thought were funning, whether from the Supreme Court or any other court. None came to my mind, but I thought I'd ask you folks, especially since I expect others would like to see some such examples. Please post suggestions in the comments, and please, if possible, include links to oral argument audio or video, if that's available.

Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA and a Visiting Fellow (Senior Fellow starting May 2024) at the Hoover Institution (Stanford). Naturally, his posts here (like the opinions of the other bloggers) are his own, and not endorsed by any educational institution.