On a Cool Judge

When I was in college I’d play a little game with the papers I’d write–I’d sneak in Beatles lyrics. Sometimes it was a little challenging to find the right lyric to fit a paper on, say, the SDI ballistic missile defense program. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn’t. But it was a game, and a creative one at that.

A Montana judge recently wrote out a sentence comprised of Beatles song titles. Why? Because the defendant, when convicted of stealing beer, asked for leniency by writing, “Like the Beetles say, Let It Be.”

The “Beetles”? The “Beetles”? The judge took it upon himself to educate the convict in the Beatles. His ruling, which I quote in full:

Mr McCormack, you pled guilty to the charge of Burglary. To aid me in sentencing I review the pre-sentence investigation report.

I read with interest the section containing Defendant’s statement. To the question of ‘Give your recommendation as to what you think the Court should do in this case’, you said, ‘Like the Beetles say Let It Be‘.

While I will not explore the epistemological or ontological overtones of your response, or even the syntactic of symbolic keys of your allusion, I will say Hey Jude, Do You Want to Know a Secret?

The greatest band in rock history spelled their name B-e-a-t-l-e-s.

I interpret the meaning of your response to suggest that there should be no consequences for your actions and I should Let it Be so you can live in Strawberry Fields Forever.

Such reasoning is Here, There and Everywhere. It does not require a Magical Mystery Tour of interpretation to know The Word means leave it alone.

I trust we can all Come Together on that meaning.

If I were to overlook your actions and Let It Be, I would ignore that Day in the Life on April 21, 2006.

Evidently, earlier that night you said to yourself I Feel Fine while drinking beer.

Later, whether you wanted Money or were just trying to Act Naturally you became the Fool on the Hill on North 27th Street.

As Mr Moonlight at 1.30am, you did not Think for Yourself but just focused on I, Me, Mine.

Because you didn’t ask for Help, Wait for Something else or listen to your conscience saying Honey Don’t, the victim later that day was Fixing a Hole in the glass door you broke.”

Judge Todd went on: “After you stole the 18 pack of Old Milwaukee you decided it was time to Run For Your Life and Carry That Weight.

But when the witness said Baby it’s You, the police responded I’ll Get You and you had to admit that You Really Got a Hold on Me.

You were not able to Get Back home because of the Chains they put on you.

Although you hoped the police would say I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party and We Can Work it Out, you were in Misery when they said you were a Bad Boy.

When the police took you to jail, you experienced Something New as they said Hello Goodbye and you became a Nowhere Man.

Later when you thought about what you did you may have said I’ll Cry Instead. Now you’re saying Let it Be instead of I’m a Loser.

As a result of your Hard Day’s Night you are looking at a Ticket to Ride that Long and Winding Road to Deer Lodge.

Hopefully you can say both now and When I’m 64 that I Should Have Known Better.

In the convict’s defense, he did pick a wonderful song to cite, even if his misspelling did raise the judge’s ire. I love “Let It Be.” I have six different versions of the song on my hard drive. (My personal preference? The album version–it has a better, more expressive Harrison guitar solo.)

As for the judge’s ruling…

There’s a fair number of covers there–“Baby It’s You,” “Misery,” “Honey Don’t”–so I almost think that’s cheating. 😉

And I’m not sure what “Something New” is supposed to be. I think “New” wasn’t supposed to be highlighted.

Still, it’s an impressive effort at pulling together roughly forty Beatles songs and making a sentencing ruling out of their titles.

What a cool judge! 🙂