Having lived in the South all my life, particularly in New Orleans for most of it, I am more than familiar of how seriously football and inter-school rivalries are taken in this part of the country. Despite that, I have to confess some degree of surprise that a court trial was postponed so that one of the lawyers involved could go to the Rose Bowl.
The aforementioned proceeding took place in Savannah, Georgia, when attorney J. Patrick Connell successfully petitioned the court for a delay in setting the trial date for a pending civil suit. The reason: Connell had tickets to see the University of Georgia Bulldogs play in their first Rose Bowl game in 75 years against the Oklahoma Sooners. In presenting argument before the court in his petition, Lawyer Connell pointed out what a "momentous occasion" it was for the Dawgs to be appearing in this game, after winning the SEC Championship with a 12-1 record and now in a position to win a chance to play for the National Championship itself and plead that "if the undersigned attends this game, he will need to travel home California on January 2, 2018 and he will therefore be unable to appear at the bench trial as currently scheduled." In response, the trial judge, Mitchell L. Karpf of the Superior Court of Chatham County, granted the continuance on the grounds that "Plantiff's counsel has made it clear to this Court that victory for the Bulldogs hinges on the very attendance of Plantiff's counsel, himself, at the Rose Bowl."
Reading this story, I was immediately reminded of the scene in Clint Eastwood's 1997 crime-noir drama Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil when reporter John Kelso (John Cusak), fortuitously on the scene to cover the upcoming murder trial of the man he was sent to interview for his magazine, Savannah millionaire and art dealer Jim Williams (Kevin Spacey), is left stunned when Williams' lawyer says he's taking off until Sunday instead of spending such a vital pre-trial weekend preparing for the proceedings.
When asked why, the attorney, Sonny Siler (Jack Thompson), simply smiles and answers, "Home opener against 'Bama. Go Dawgs!"
