“Your Honor, I Don’t Recall.”

June 21, 2016

I watch a lot of TV court shows. I TiVo The People’s Court every day, because there is nothing better than watching people sue over things like old coffee cans and hurt feelings. And while I’ve gotten a little tired of Judge Judy (who is getting just a bit soft and yelling just a bit less this season), I’ve gotten into her new production, Hot Bench, which I also record. That show, unlike literally every other court show out there (I’m looking at you, Judge Ross), is actually interesting. That show has three judges listening to the cases at once, and they sometimes argue among themselves about the outcome.

But what drives me nuts about the shows are the litigants, not the judges. They all think that since they are in a court room they have to sound smart. For example:

“Your Honorable, me and my boo was operating the moving vehicle, AKA my car, for which I had been owning a drivers license…” etc etc etc….

They can’t just say “I was driving my car.”

But the worst thing is when they think they are being slick by saying “I don’t recall.”

“I don’t recall signing my life insurance away to my gold-digging wife.”

So did you do it or didn’t you? If you mean to say you didn’t do it, say “I didn’t do it.” Saying you don’t recall means that yes, maybe you did it, it is possible, but you just don’t have a memory of it. It isn’t a denial, it leaves open the possibility that whatever it was really happened, and it sounds to me like shiesty way of trying to lie without really having to tell a lie.

I can believe that you don’t remember if you had two waffles or three for breakfast on June 3^rd, 2011, but I damn well know you remember if you hit a deer with your car last week.

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Tags: bmj2k, court, Hot Bench, I don't recall, Judge Judy, Judge Ross, liars, lies, Mr. Blog, Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride, Mr. BTR, People's Court, pet peeve, shiesty, smart, stupid, TiVo, TV