The Onion Files Amicus Curiae Brief in the US Supreme Court

Blogger's Note: In Novak v. Parma, police arrested an Ohio man for creating a parody Facebook page about Parma's police department. He was accused of disrupting police operations, but was acquitted after a four-day trial.  He sued the police for violating his civil rights, but the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has tossed the case, deciding that the police officers involved had "qualified immunity." The Court added that Novak should have made clear that his Facebook page was a parody. The Court of Final Error will hear Novak's case. The Onion has decided to file an Amicus Curiae (Frenemy of the Court) Brief, and below are some excerpts:

"The Onion is the world’s leading news publication, offering highly acclaimed, universally revered coverage of breaking national, international, and local news events. Rising from its humble beginnings as a print newspaper in 1756, The Onion now enjoys a daily readership of 4.3 trillion and has grown into the single most powerful and influential organization in human history.

"In addition to maintaining a towering standard of excellence to which the rest of the industry aspires, The Onion supports more than 350,000 full- and part-time journalism jobs in its numerous news bureaus and manual labor camps stationed around the world, and members of its editorial board have served with distinction in an advisory capacity for such nations as China, Syria, Somalia, and the former Soviet Union.

"On top of its journalistic pursuits, The Onion also owns and operates the majority of the world’s transoceanic shipping lanes, stands on the nation’s leading edge on matters of deforestation and strip mining, and proudly conducts tests on millions of animals daily."

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"Tu stultus es. You are dumb. These three Latin words have been The Onion’s motto and guiding light since it was founded in 1988 as America’s Finest News Source, leading its writers toward the paper’s singular purpose of pointing out that its readers are deeply gullible people.

"The Onion’s motto is central to this brief for two important reasons. First, it’s Latin. And The Onion knows that the federal judiciary is staffed entirely by total Latin dorks: They quote Catullus in the original Latin in chambers. They sweetly whisper “stare decisis” into their spouses’ ears. They mutter “cui bono” under their breath while picking up after their neighbors’ dogs. So The Onion knew that, unless it pointed to a suitably Latin rallying cry, its brief would be operating far outside the Court’s vernacular."