Sometimes I wish I was an illiterate ignoramus, so this would not bother me.

If a proposed order reads like this —

Be it remembered that on this 17th day of February, 2004, came on to be heard Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment, which, being duly submitted and considered by this Honorable Court, was and hereby is GRANTED. It is so ordered, adjudged, and decreed.

— (which unfortunately is fairly typical of what lawyers submit for judges to sign), he’ll slash it up until it reads:

Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment is granted.

— and then sign and date it. His revised version would have exactly the same legal effect as the flowery piece of crap he’d started out with. No one’s ever dared go to the Fifth Circuit to complain, “Judge Hughes’ order has a lot of strike-throughs and it isn’t very pretty!”

In the really olden days, the legitimacy and enforceability of court decrees was conditioned upon their having the appropriate wax seals and ribbons affixed. Judge Hughes well understands that his authority stems not from format or neatness, but from the Constitution and statutes that created his position and the oath he took to uphold and enforce them. His orders have the same effect whether they’re typeset and printed on fine vellum with a gold seal and red ribbon, or scrawled on a napkin. I have no doubt that he’d have promptly ejected from his courtroom the squabbling lawyers from yesterday’s charade in San Francisco.

I have enormous respect for Judge Hughes, even when I disagree with him. I find it impossible to respect a judge who would deny or even delay justice over a errant semicolon that could be struck or corrected, quite literally, with a stroke of his pen.