Do Your Research
My favorite defense I heard from a ridiculous defendant from my entire career as a lawyer: “The judge cannot determine this matter because he is a member of the freemasons, and the freemasons do not believe in the concept of private property”. This case ended with the non-lawyer defendant accusing everyone—not just the judge—of being a freemason.
The same non-lawyer defendant also ran an appeal in that case based on the fact that the judge was not a real judge, because the judge had not taken his oath of office. The non-lawyer had dug up a transcript of the judge’s swearing-in ceremony which read “Judge Smith takes the oath of office” when the judge took his oath, instead of the actual words of the oath.
Yep, really. Oh, and the non-lawyer defendant referred to outdated and repealed laws from 1730, which said all oaths had to be transcribed word for word, as a basis for the fact that the judge was not a “real” judge. If his interpretation was correct, I think no current judge in Australia is a “real judge”. I’ll say one thing, though: That guy knew how to research.
Story credit: Reddit / thatdogoninstagram