Judge booted for flipping coin to decide

[Mammon]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071102/ap_on_...uxhKgb2a30E1vAI

RICHMOND, Va. - A judge who ordered a woman to drop her pants and decided a custody dispute by flipping a coin was removed from the bench by the Virginia Supreme Court on Friday. The decision against Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge James Michael Shull of Gate City was unanimous.

[Qwertz]

Obviously it isn't within the judicial power to settle legal questions by toss of a coin. Particularly a custody dispute. Clearly someone took the whole Solomon story way too far.

But this situation reminds me of Avista Management, Inc. vs. Wausau Underwriters Insurance Co., a case brought in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida that eventually settled. During pretrial discovery, attorneys for the parties could not agree on a location for a deposition. The District Court Judge has broad discretion to manage pretrial discovery, and was fed up with all the dilatory and duplicative machinations of both sides. So in response to one side's motion to have the judge set the place of the deposition, the judge ordered (on 6/6/06) that a game of "rock, paper, scissors" was to take place on the courthouse steps at a particular time, and the winner would be entitled to select the place for the deposition.

You can read the full order here.

Whether the game ever actually took place, only the parties know. Presumably, the attorneys saw the order and decided to just agree on a place already. They eventually settled, so the propriety of the order was never legally challenged. But it has been cited in opinions by two other courts, and federal judges' broad discretion in managing pretrial discovery has consistently been affirmed.

~Q