One Word Too Few

The legal snit over a lawyer’s insult boils down to two words--one he said and one he refused to say. Daniel Hustwit claims he had a First Amendment right to call a prosecutor and a bailiff “asses” after a case in the Van Nuys courthouse. Maybe so. For better or worse, the Constitution grants everyone the right to make asses of themselves with their words.

But it was his challenge to fight the bailiff that got Hustwit into real trouble, landing him in front of a jury on misdemeanor charges. The cost to Los Angeles County taxpayers to settle this schoolyard dispute between well-dressed, well-educated little boys runs a whopping $7,000 per day. Clearly, there must be better uses of public money than to prosecute a lawyer for losing his cool.

The case highlights a grating breakdown in everyday decorum. Single-finger salutes and shouted expletives have long been the customary retorts on freeways, but a higher degree of verbal sparring should be expected behind the bar. Efforts are afoot to have California lawyers submit to a voluntary code of conduct. A good idea, but totally unenforceable.

In the end, though, the sordid spectacle that unfolded last week in Division 113 could easily have been avoided. Prosecutors offered Hustwit a deal. With a single word, the case would have been dismissed. Hustwit refused.

The word--so rarely heard these days above the snarls and snipes that pass for discourse--was “sorry.”