Can the Supreme Court Provide Just Desserts?

Time for Different Flavors of Legal Reasoning

Ben and Jerry’s flavor honoring Stephen Colbert — “Americone Dream” — has been so successful, people are coming with other ideas. Tania Lambrozio gets lawyers into the act with her nomination: “Ruth Bader Ginger.” I’ve never actually had ginger ice cream, although I love ginger bread, so maybe it could work. Now there is a petition on change.org to do it, as well as other politically-inflected flavors (I think Mint Romney would be especially good — its flavor would be different from day to day!).

But that of course gets me to thinking: what other legal flavors could you imagine? With the other justices, it’s difficult. “Stephen Breyer’s” risks a trademark violation. “Clarence Toffee”? I dunno — that goes too close to the line. “Antonin Spumoni”? Everything is coming out ethnic, and not necessarily in a good way (although from what I gather, Scalia actually has a pretty decent sense of humor). Somehow I don’t think that “Felix Frankfurter” or “Salmon Chase” would sell very well, although they certainly come with flavors. John Marshall Heaven? Thoroughly-good Marshall? They work, but I think that we need more than just good adjectives: we need actual flavors. Tom Clark Bar? Roger Taney Port? Hugo Black Walnut? Byron White Chocolate?

When I was growing up, Baskin-Robbins had a flavor called “Here Comes The Fudge”, with a picture of a judge eating a cone; I think it was a play on the Laugh-In sketch. But if you were going to create ice cream flavors based upon legal themes, what would you name them? The Lemon Test is an obvious one, and of  course Sherbert v. Verner. Any others?

Antonin Scalia, Baskin-Robbins, Ben & Jerry's, Felix Frankfurter, Laugh-in, Lemon v. Kurtzman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, stephen colbert