When I read Norm Pattis’ posts, I mostly chuckle.  Even though he uses his keyboard primarily for self-aggrandizement, his efforts to promote the cause of whoever is paying him at the moment with a one-sided diatribe are more likely to fall flat than persuade. If a lawyer can’t put together a persuasive argument when there is no one arguing the other side, that’s pretty pathetic.

Then again, Norm’s new gig, aside from using his soapbox to let everybody know all the important work he is doing to give the impression that he’s a very important lawyer, is to make outrageous and ridiculous arguments that appeal to the people who eagerly await the new spring fashions in tin foil.  Whatever. Even the crazy and ignorant are entitled to counsel.

But it’s the disconnect, the hypocrisy, from post to post that gives rise to amusement.  Sometimes, he can spin his position from one side to the next so fast it will give a reader whiplash.  Sometimes, the arguments are so insipid that you can add a headache to the pain.  Yes, it can be very painful following Norm.  But when I saw that Norm had  taken up arms on behalf of the families who owned plots at a Hamden, Connecticut cemetery, who were ready to fight to keep the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev from being buried there. it was more than any rational human being could take.

I’d like to believe that law has evolved beyond the point of thinking we need to punish inanimate objects. What could be more inanimate than the lifeless corpse of the suspected Boston Marathon bomber?

But plenty of Connecticut residents were enraged this week when a Vermont resident, Paul Douglas Keane, offered the use of one of the burial plots he owns in Hamden to the Tsarnaev family. Mr. Keane explained that this was his way of showing support for the forgotten, the despised and the oppressed. Everyone, he reminded us, is entitled to a decent burial.

Normally, I’d side with the likes of Mr. Keane. I earn my living on the dark side of the line separating the popular from the unpopular.

There’s that pitch for business. Nothing Norm writes doesn’t include a pitch for business.

We don’t normally buy plots for perfect strangers. We purchase the right to bury a loved one, usually with the expectation that other loved ones will be buried nearby. Anticipating these expectations, a contract will typically specify the price of the burial plot, the rights to use plot for limited purposes associated with burial, and the obligations incident to ownership of a plot for such things as upkeep and general maintenance of the property. I doubt any contract for purchase of a burial plot anticipates that the owner might decide to use his plot to bury a reviled suspected terrorist.

This flagrant appeal to emotion is the antithesis of anything remotely resembling thought or principle. We buy plots in which to be buried. We have no clue who will be buried in any other plot, except that whoever it turns out to be will be dead. Is Norm really arguing that every plot owner should have veto power over every other plot owner, so that they shouldn’t be allowed to use their plot, the one they paid for, they own, to bury anybody they want? 

But Tamerlan Tsarnaev is a “reviled suspected terrorist.”  Reviled, Norm?  Are you arguing that the reviled in our society should be burned at the stake to please the good people who don’t want the dead bodies of their loved ones to be stuck in the same ground as them?  What other things should the “reviled” be denied Norm?  And what facile arguments will you use to hate the enemy of whoever pays you today? 

No blacks? No Jews or Catholics? No gays? Some people revile them too, Norm, and they may have a few bucks to buy your heart and mind.  Them too, Norm?  So much for that whole David and Goliath charade you love to put on.

Our argument was simple: Although the contract was silent on who could be buried in the cemetery, there were certain implied promises made to other plot owners when they purchased their property. Those promises would have been violated by turning the cemetery into a controversial theme park for the despised.

Simple is a great way to describe that argument, second only to irrationally simplistic.  What about the implied covenant not to piss off the neighbors by doing what they don’t like? So burying a person, a reviled person (didn’t you love reviled people last week, Norm, and argue about how society must be judged by our treatment of them?), turns a cemetery into a “controversial theme park for the despised?”  Not to question your turn of a hyperbolic phrase, but the argument is insane.

Yes, Norm, you are allowed to make absurd arguments, particularly given your facility at it.  But it’s the hypocrisy of hatred you promote that pushes me to take note of this.

Plot owners in the cemetery had good grounds when they purchased grave sites to believe they were acquiring a resting place for themselves and loved ones. They also had good reason to assume that other members of the association were doing likewise. What would have provided them with notice that an out-of-state co-owner might decide to donate a grave site to the family of a notorious and hated man?

None, I say.

You can’t possibly believe what you’ve written, as you’re hardly stupid, which leaves you as nothing more than a shill for ignorant and unprincipled haters.  That you will take their money to represent them is one thing. That you use your soapbox to promote their cause is another. That you express it as if it’s your sincerely held personal belief, however, is inexcusable.

The next time you wax poetic over the horribly unfair treatment of your paying client the day after his case crashed and burned, remember this disgraceful post.  I will.