"...stricken from the record..."

The peculiar verbiage of courtroom procedure dictates the unusually frequent use of the verb "to strike".

Thank you for enduring that superlatively boring introductory sentence. To reward you, here's an interesting sentence: 22 3/4 years in prison.

(Sentence...sentence...get it? Equivocation? Yeah?)

As I was explaining, we say "stricken" (the past tense of "to strike") without difficulty about ten billion times in every trial. However, problems arise when the judge is both (a) able to speak (unlike Mike) and (b) not used to being the judge (also unlike Mike!). In these cases, the judge often utters unusual phrases like, "Yes, so...uh, stricked," or, avoiding the problem,"Aren't you satisfied? You won the objection, dude!" Of course, we all know the correct reply: "So strack!"

Similar quandaries arise when the judge attempts to avoid inventing bizarre tenses of "to strike" by forgetting about the motion to strike, and the attorney must remind him or her of it. Real mock (!) trial judges shudder to hear such unusual constructions as, "Your Honor, will you stricken the testimony from the record?" And the ever popular "Your Honor, is the testimony stricked?" Once again, the correct reminder is, "Your Honor, is the testimony strickened?"

Confusingly,
Sarah

P.S. I have been informed that this post is somewhat confusing, so I'll just submit for your consideration that people (but no one on this team) actually do say things like "So strack", and I was just humorously and lovingly pointing out that that's not exactly the right way to say it. :D

 

P.S.S. As I was looking at our blog, I realized that it was a little lame... So I added some things from my old blog that were applicable to us. :D Most were written by Sarah Welch, such as this one, and if you are curious who she is, our quotes page has a rather lengthy intro on it by her.