As Eugene noted below, a lawyer arguing at the Supreme Court this morning finished his argument by saying “I want to leave you with just four words . . . “, at which time his time expired. The Court is very strict about oral argument time; when your time expires, you really have to stop. So the lawyer never got to tell the Court what the four words were.
SCOTUSblog reports that the lawyer later answered the question on everyone’s mind — what are the four words? — when he told reporters what the four words were “Federalism, boundaries, discretion, and precedent.” I don’t know what book on closing arguments the lawyer got this trick from, but it’s hard to think of a worse ending for a Supreme Court argument. (What are the Justices supposed to do upon being left with those words? Are the words supposed to cast a magic spell or something?) As Tom Goldstein puts it, “Ok, so maybe it wasn’t such a loss that he didn’t get that last line out.”
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