Judges drinking in public:

When I first began to read this post by Eugene Volokh discussing Washington’s governor Gary Locke’s admonition to judges not to drink in public, I thought that the governor was referring to judges drinking on the bench. No, he was referring to “even a single drink at a cocktail party or restaurant.” I do wonder however, how many judges have had a few drinks on the bench to help them get through the day. This reminds me of the scene in Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke where they were being taken into court and Chong had just ingested all of the drugs they had on them to prevent the police from finding the stuff after being pulled over. They get into court and Chong, out of his mind, wanders around the courtroom looking for something to drink. He goes to the judges glass, which he (and the courtroom) presumes is water, takes a big sip, and shouts, “It’s fucking Vodka.” And the prissy, older (female) judge, sheepishly looks down in embarrassment.