Criminals aren’t the only stupid ones.

In order to enter law school, one is required to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). One of the test’s purposes is to test an applicant’s logical reasoning skills. Why? Because logical reasoning is supposedly an essential skill of attorneys. Unfortunately, like all tests, people slip through the cracks.

The ABA Journal recently reported that a North Carolina judge fined attorney Todd Paris $300, along with a 5-day suspended jail sentence, for reading Maxim in court. The attorney “protested that the men's magazine is not pornography and that it was his girlfriend who subscribed to it.” Not surprisingly, the judge did not buy the bridge Paris was selling.

Originally, I was going to use this article to expound upon my opinion that most young American people (not just four year olds) could not pass the Stanford marshmallow experiment (click link for explanation of the experiment). However, further research revealed that this attorney is not young (and therefore not naturally impulsive as a function of his development), but rather that he is the father of a 23-year-old son. So much for finding a logical explanation for his boorish behavior.

By the time one reaches the age of this attorney, one would think he would have learned this valuable lesson: If caught doing something stupid, instead of coming up with a lame excuse, just say, “I’m sorry, judge. I’m an idiot.” At least that would preserve the possibility of regaining some of the respect lost by the original error.