On the Record

By: Danny Jacobs

Legendary comedian Soupy Sales died last week at the age of 83. Sales is perhaps best known as the master of the pie-in-the-face and estimated he had been hit more than 19,000 times, according to his obituary in The Washington Post.

You might say Sales could be considered an authority on pie throwing with all of his experience. And he almost was, according to this nugget from The Post’s obit:

He became something of an expert on the messy staple of slapstick comedy and once testified at a Navy court-martial on behalf of a sailor accused of throwing a pie in an officer’s face. The military court was not amused, and the sailor was convicted.

No word if the sailor turned to the pie-throwing experts from Dewey, Cheatum & Howe on appeal.

By: jackie.sauter

The term “hot tubbing” doesn’t just apply to time spent in a warm tub with a few of your closest friends anymore. It is also a way to present expert testimony at trial.

According to a New York Times article — one in a series on the American legal system — the U.S. is one of the few countries in the world that uses “partisan” experts, hired by each side, in criminal and civil trials.

Australians, by contrast, have developed a procedure dubbed “hot tubbing.” Partisan experts are still used, but they testify together at trial. They discuss the case and answer questions from the judge and lawyers, as well as questions posed to each other.

Justice Peter McClellan of the Land and Environmental Court of New South Wales says that when experts are hot tubbing, “[y]ou can feel the release of the tension which normally infects the evidence-gathering process.”

Same goes for that bubbly tub experience.

CHRISTINA DORAN, Assistant Legal Editor