Judge Sparkle

Names on Benches

Learned Hand, John Minor Wisdom, Kenesaw Mountain Landis -- these were all suitably imposing names for judges, back in the day. When Landis was made commissioner of baseball, his name alone was stern enough to purge the game from corruption. He was succeeded by Happy Chandler, who was never a judge -- wrong name for it. Chandler had been governor of Kentucky, after serving as lieutenant governor under a man named Ruby Laffoon. Who had succeeded one Flem D. Sampson. Flem short for Flemon.

Ruby Laffoon would have been a terrible name for a judge. (He didn't have a name for years -- his parents just called him "Bud". He himself chose "Ruby", after a local grocer whose last name was that.)

You'd think Flem would have been held back by his name, every time he cleared his throat. And yet Flem became chief justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. For that state, here's who was named better: Henry Ridgely Horsey. But Horsey was a judge in Delaware.

Online I find a Judge John J. J. Jones Jr.

Dana X. (for Xenophon) Bible was not a judge, nor for that matter a theologian. He was a football coach.

A name that resonates in its suggestion of emptiness: New York County Supreme Court Judge Joseph Force Crater. One night in l930 he got into a New York City taxicab and disappeared. No trace of him has ever been found. For years he was referred to in the press as "The Missingest Man in America." In some none-too-savory circles, he was known as "Good Time Joe. A showgirl with a great name for that profession, Sally Lou Ritz, dined with him the night he vanished. She didn't know where he had got to.

These days, when judges would appear to be the last line of defense against a man whose name, according to etymonline.com, is "an alteration or corruption of triumph" and rhymes with dump and grump, women can take more substantial judicial roles than Ms Ritz did.

For instance: