A Pennsylvania Supreme Court judge has decided to phrase his opinion of an insurance fraud case in rhyme, instead of in the usual way. This particular judge has become somewhat famous for writing his opinions in the form of poetry. Perhaps he should have been a writer, instead of a judge.
A man in Pennsylvania attempted to deposit was turned out to be a forged check. The forged check appeared to have been written by the State Farm insurance company, when in reality, the insurer never wrote out any such check.
It is my understanding that this particular court case was supposed to determine two things. Did the man attempt to deposit a forged check? Does attempting to deposit a forged check that looks like it came from an insurance company constitute insurance fraud?
The case was heard by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which consists of a panel of six judges. Ultimately, the four out of the six judges decided that the man was guilty of trying to deposit a forged check, but that this act did not actually equate to insurance fraud. There were two judges who were opposed to this decision.
The judge who wrote the decision made by the majority of the judges was Justice J. Micheal Eakin. He is becoming known for writing his judicial opinions in verse, instead of in the normal type of straight forward writing that one would expect to come from a Justice that is announcing the decision made by the majority of the panel of judges.
Eakin wrote the following:
“Sentenced on the other crimes, he surely won’t go free, but we find he can’t be guilty of this final felony.”
“Convictions for the forgery and theft are approbated – the sentence for insurance fraud, however, is vacated. The case must be remanded for re sentencing, we find, so the trial judge may impose the result he originally had in mind”.
It was a total of six pages of verse. The dissenting opinion, which was written by Justice Thomas G. Saylor, was three pages long, and was not written in the form of poetry.
It seems that Eakin first earned the nickname of the “rhyming judge” when he began issuing his opinions entirely in verse while assigned to an intermediate state appellate court. This was in the 1990’s. He was first elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2001.
There are some who feel that Eakin’s creative way of writing opinions reflects poorly on the court. If I had to guess, I would think that perhaps some people see it is less than professional to phrase important, and life changing, court decisions into a form of writing that is better suited to creative works. On the other hand, it shows that Eakin’s really puts a lot of thought into what he is saying when he writes his opinions, and I think there is value in that.
Image by Karen White on Flickr